Whoopi Goldberg Presents Billy Connolly

Before he was a known quantity in the United States, Billy Connolly needed a proper introduction. Whoopi Goldberg provides it at the top of the show, stepping on stage to champion the Scottish comedian for an American television audience. Once he takes the microphone, Connolly does exactly what made him a massive draw overseas. He tells long, winding stories that somehow never lose their structural integrity. He relies on a hyper-specific brand of observational rambling, spending a solid three minutes detailing a flight to Australia to build an entire narrative out of a sleeping man’s flatulence.

Filmed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for HBO, the half-hour set served as a high-profile platform to break Connolly into the mainstream. The exposure worked, directly leading to his relocation to Los Angeles and his casting as the replacement for Howard Hesseman on the ABC sitcom Head of the Class.

The performance features a bearded Robin Williams visible in the audience and concludes with Goldberg returning to the stage to sing a duet of “I’m a Believer” by The Monkees. Connolly’s solo time operates without a rush to any central punchline. He compares airplane odors to an Errol Flynn movie and recounts an encounter with a lion in Africa, demonstrating his preference for wandering tangents over a rigid script.