Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling

The dark side of Jo Jo's (Richard Pryor's) growing acclaim in the film's story line is a reliance first on booze, then drugs. It is an aspect of the film which, Pryor admits, was painful to evoke as a writer, director, and actor. He said, "I look at the movie now and ask myself, 'Why did you show people that?' But I had no choice. It was something I had to do. I won't cop out, trying to explain why Jo Jo, or I, did drugs. I know why. I understand it even better after making the picture. But it's all there on film for people to take as they see fit. I'm one of the lucky ones. I was gone, crazy, out of my mind. But I'm alive."

A 1980's Lincoln Town Car appears twice during the "Young Jojo" sequence: Over Young Jojo's shoulder during closeups when he looks back at "Older Jojo" sitting at the corner store, and then again briefly parked in front of the family house a few minutes later when he returns home and is chastised by his grandmother for playing on the lawn.

Featured in At the Movies: Last Resort/Short Circuit/Jo Jo Dancer Your Life Is Calling/Broken Rainbow (1986)