Plagiarism in Pop Culture: The Bernie Mac Show

The Original Kings of Comedy was released in August 2000. Recorded in front of a live audience in Charlotte, NC, the film featured sets by four comedy legends: Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac.

Though all four men were already big names, the show’s success pushed all their careers to new heights. For Bernie Mac, this meant getting his TV show, The Bernie Mac Show, which began in November 2001.

The show was both similar to and pulled from his stand-up comedy. It told stories from his life in a comedic and exaggerated way.

However, like many comedians, Mac had something to say about joke theft. And that topic became one of the focal points of an episode from the second season of his show.

In episode 15, Pink Gold, Mac feuds with fellow comedian Chris Rock over allegations that Rock stole a joke from him.

However, while the story in the episode is fictional, it may be based on a real-life drama that happened earlier in his career.

Content Warning: Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 14 of The Bernie Mac Show

The Plot

The show primarily focuses on Mac’s family life. It features him and his wife, Wanda, raising his sister’s three kids, Jordan, Vanessa and Bryana.

As such, the episode’s main focus is Bryana catching pink eye and missing a week of school. Her brother Jordan attempts to get it, too, with comedic outcomes.

The episode begins with Mac’s monologue, in which he emphasizes the importance of letting things go. It then cuts to a doctor’s office, where Mac takes the kids for a checkup. However, while they are in the waiting room, Chris Rock walks in with his daughter.

Though the two share warm greetings, Bernie is clearly not comfortable. The nurse lets Chris go straight to the back, though others have been waiting much longer. When asked why, the receptionist says, “He’s Chris Rock.”

In another monolog, Bernie explains that this isn’t the only thing Chris stole from him but declines to go into details.

While Bernie is playing poker with his friends, his manager drops in and brings Chris Rock with him. Bernie pulls his manager aside and berates him for bringing Chris into his house. However, the manager says that Bernie and Chris will be cohosting an awards banquet and will get a Tonight Show spot out of it.

When Bernie rejoins the poker game, Chris tells a story from the doctor’s office. However, Bernie accuses him of stealing that as well, saying it’s an old habit for Chris. He then throws Chris out, leaving the issue unresolved.

Once the game clears out, Bernie tells his manager that Chris is a “joke thief” and that it happened long ago. They then flashback to a 1980s gig that both were working at. Backstage, Bernie jokes about a woman’s weave, and Chris almost immediately tells the same joke on stage.

Bernie then asks to withdraw from the award show, but his manager discourages him, saying it would harm his reputation.

During setup at the show, Chris and Bernie exchange barbs and play one-upmanship over business deals (real or fictional) and whoever is Shaq’s biggest friend.

His manager orders him to quash the beef, and Bernie finally confronts Chris directly about the alleged theft. Chris denies it, saying that he didn’t do it and that, if he did, it was an accident. He says that he studied Bernie’s act religiously and that something might have “just gotten stuck” in his mind.

The two patch things up, but things become tense again backstage at The Tonight Show. Chris says he is throwing Bernie a bone, something Bernie does not appreciate. The Tonight Show appearance is tense, with Bernie insulting Chris repeatedly. Chris then repeats another joke that Bernie had said earlier in the episode, reigniting his ire.

Finally, the two men are going to the award banquet in the limo. Chris makes it clear that he didn’t take Bernie’s material but admires him, and because of that, he sometimes sounds like him. He encourages Bernie to take it as a compliment.

The two then shake hands and go to the banquet. There, Chris realizes he has pinkeye and can’t read the prompter. Bernie takes credit for giving it to him but encourages the audience to let it go.

Understanding the Plagiarism

There are very few scenes more protective against plagiarism than stand-up comedy. Joke theft is seen as a serious offense, and those who commit it are often ostracized. As we saw in the Randy Feltface edition, comedians often panic when they realize they organically write jokes similar to earlier works.

To be clear, such cases rarely result in lawsuits. Copyright protection in a joke is typically going to be very thin. One can’t copyright an idea, and it’s rare for comedians to use the exact language of another comedian. This is a big part of why comedians are so protective because there’s limited legal recourse.

To that end, this story feels very accurate and does a good job of exploring both sides of the coin.

Bernie felt deeply betrayed and angry about Chris’ alleged joke theft years ago. So much so that he cut ties with Chris for many years. Chris, for his part, didn’t feel he did anything wrong and was genuinely confused as to why Bernie was so hurt.

However, the “take it as a compliment” conclusion rang hollow. Chris’ fictional joke theft in this episode was pretty blatant. It went well beyond “sounding like” Bernie. Granted, it had to be this way for the TV audience, but I wouldn’t have been as quick to dismiss it.

Still, the episode did a good job of capturing the anger and confusion that often accompany such cases.

That said, there’s likely a reason why this episode felt so real. Like much else on the show, it may have been based on Bernie Mac’s life.

To be clear, Bernie Mac and Chris Rock were, by all accounts, good friends and had no animosity, let alone joke theft issues. However, Bernie did have one very public feud with fellow Kings of Comedy member Steve Harvey.

The feud between them is well-documented and is often cited as the reason for the lack of a Kings of Comedy reunion. However, the reasons for the feud are less known.

One widely told story is that Steve attempted to steal Bernie’s role in the film Ocean’s 11. That said, Bernie never publicly accused Steve of stealing his jokes. However, others have accused him of joke theft.

Just last year, comedian Katt Williams accused Steve Harvey of stealing jokes from Mark Curry. Still, even if Steve Harvey never stole jokes from Bernie Mac, some of the fictional feud between Bernie and Chris likely came from those feelings.

Due to Bernie’s untimely passing in 2008, we are unlikely to know who this episode is based on. However, as with much of this show, it’s likely based on his past experiences.

Bottom Line

As a comedian, Bernie Mac was best known for telling stories from his life. He blended comedy with autobiographical stories to make his act both funny and personable.

That likely holds here as well. Though we may never know who this was about and the story behind it, there’s more than likely a little truth to this story.

While this isn’t a perfect example of plagiarism in pop culture, especially with how heavy-handed Chris’ joke theft is in the episode, it is still excellent. It captures the nuance and complexity of the issue while showing the emotions the accuser and the accused felt.

While the episode clearly states that plagiarism is wrong, it presents the nuance of the topic and humanizes the story very well.

It’s one of the better examples of plagiarism used as a plot element in media. It treats the subject with depth, seriousness and nuance, all the while getting in a few jokes and barbs.