Howie is probably my favorite comedian from the 80s second only to Eddie Murphy. I was very young when I first saw the First Howie Mandel Special. I probably had no business even seeing it but when I was young the language went right over my head (I was 6 or 7). I remember getting so excited for when Howie did his character "Bobby". That is when he dresses up like a baby and does this super cute high pitched voice. He, later on in his career, even had a Saturday morning cartoon called Bobby’s World that was great too.
Anyway, I just watched this last night which was the first time I had seen it in my adult life and I got a chance to view Howie with new eyes. OMG, he is so funny! He tells a lot of potty humor and uses some harsh language but it’s really not that bad. He is not offensive or vulgar at all in my opinion. He is so darn cute and endearing that I just wanna bring him home and keep him. This tape was from back in 1983 when he had hair. Howie was performing stand-up at the Variety Dinner Theater in Toronto. He was really young and kinda hyper but it was the 80s so maybe he was high on coke. He performed the Bobby character, the rubber glove skit, along with so many other funny props.
Right after watching this early stand-up version of Howie I watched Howie Do It which is his new show that is sort of like a candid camera type of show. He is so different now than he was back then. His humor is still the same but he is so much calmer and looks very different. I noticed that he even used some of the same jokes that he used to use, it was still cute. I am forever a Howie Mandel fan.
If you are interested in seeing this it may be a little hard to locate a copy. The one that I had was a vintage looking VHS tape. I have seen them on eBay recently and they are very inexpensive. It does come on DVD and is available to rent if you have Netflix or a similar movie rental program. Here is a link to the actual DVD. The only difference between the VHS copy I watched and the DVD is the cover art.
