Watch The Trailer for Comedy Central's Patrice O'Neal Documentary
Friends and peers celebrate the late comedian's genius in the first glimpse at Killing is Easy.
Comedy Central is paying tribute to Patrice O'Neal with an upcoming documentary feature.
Titled Killing is Easy, the doc is a portrait and celebration of the late comedian's career, featuring appearances from O'Neal's peers in the Northeastern comedy circuit. Today, the network has shared a trailer for the film, with morsels of Colin Quinn and Jim Norton discussing O'Neal's irreverent brilliance. "Patrice was a genius who constantly shot himself in the foot," says Norton in the clip. Watch it below.
O'Neal, who often made his health and struggle with diabetes the subject of his own material, died in 2011 after suffering a stroke, leaving behind a complicated legacy. Throughout his career, O'Neal was a fiercely vocal defender of the First Amendment, which tended to endear him to right-wing media outlets. At one point, he was even Fox News' favorite comedian, often appearing on the propaganda machine to rail against "The PC Mob" and aid the network's overt sensationalism. The new documentary doesn't appear to be analyzing how O'Neal factors into the current state of comedy, or if he even could, but any fan of the late comedian will likely enjoy, at the very least, the lighthearted retrospective on his career.
However, amongst fellow comedians, O'Neal was hailed as "a comic's comic" with almost universal adoration. The occasional bouts with controversy never seemed to hold O'Neal back, cutting revered specials for HBO and Comedy Central, and made cameos in a number of iconic television series, including Chappelle's Show, The Office, and Arrested Development. O'Neal also had a few big-screen moments, appearing in Spike Lee's 25th Hour and the early Kevin Hart film, Paper Soldiers.
Watch the trailer for the Patrice O'Neal documentary below. Tune into Comedy Central next Friday, February 19th, for the doc's premiere.