It is revealed in "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic (2013)" that Pryor completely messed up his performance during the first filming of the show. Pryor lost his train of thought and forgot most of his material. He apologized to the audience and ended the show early leaving the audience angry. Pryor pulled himself together and gave a much better performance the next night. Most of the footage in the film is from the second performance.
The entire "Mudbone" monologue, where Richard Pryor resurrects one of his famous characters and talks about the mysteries of life, is completely improvised.
The film was edited together from two live performances that were filmed back to back on December 9 and December 10, 1981. The chief giveaway is the constantly changing length of the black handkerchief in Richard Pryor's jacket pocket.
Celebrities and celebrated admirers who attended the concerts used to film this movie included Jim Brown, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jackson Browne, Stevie Wonder, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
The opening credits sequence, a string of aerial and street-level shots of Los Angeles, was filmed when the concert footage was late in the editing process. An odd result of this is that the opening credits actually show billboards announcing the pending release of this film.