Not strictly movie-related, I know. But this comes as a belated Happy Birthday to the late comedian, who would have turned 50 years old this year.

Over on Slate, David Hoaglund makes a persuasive argument for why Hicks still matters.

Here’s the nut graf:

“As often happens with such things, the decision to cut Hicks’s bit got him more publicity than airing it ever would have: He told Lahr it brought “more attention than my other eleven appearances on Letterman times one hundred.” He got even more when Lahr’s [New Yorker] profile ran soon afterward, as he told the writer in a letter which was reproduced on the wonderful blog Letters of Note last month. “The phones are ringing off the hook, the offers keep pouring in, and all because of you,” Hicks said. He told Lahr he had read another piece of his, one in which Lahr referred to the “calm that gives rise to greatness in Art.”

Anyone else remember the days when stand-up comedy was actually dangerous?