Comedian Bill Bellamy discusses his legacy ahead of Pittsburgh Improv shows

Comedian Bill Bellamy has contributed to the popular culture with stand-up routines and numerous roles in movies and on television.

But will he be best remembered for coining one of the most ubiquitous phrases in the urban slang lexicon?

Bellamy, who will perform five shows Aug. 23-25 at the Pittsburgh Improv, is the person who gave the “booty call” its name.

He conjured the term for a joke included in a routine on Russell Simon’s “Def Comedy Jam,” a showcase of black comedians that ran on HBO in the 1990s. Obviously, he was talking about that late-night activity that Boomers might have called a one-night stand and Gen Z labels “Netflix and chill.”

“I kind of said it spontaneously in a joke,” he says. “It was a cute way to say what it is without being vulgar. The joke is still funny, and then it became the signature line in a movie, too.”

No politics

Bellamy’s Pittsburgh audiences might hear that joke, but they’ll also hear his take on a wide range of other topics.

“Right now, my kids are teens, so I talk about the differences in my life from my kids’ lives,” he says. “I talk about living in Hollywood, social media, a lot of things that are bubbling up right now.”

Two things he won’t talk about are, no surprise, politics and religion.

“That automatically splits the room, and you don’t want to do that,” Bellamy says. “People come to my shows to get away from that stuff.”

Lately, Bellamy has been in Toronto filming “Madame C.J. Walker,” a limited Netflix series set to debut in 2020, about America’s first self-made, black female millionaire. Octavia Spencer plays the title role of the early 1900s pioneer in the line of black hair-care products.

He’s also been doing stand-up dates around the country this summer.

The New Jersey native says he discovered his knack for being funny as kid.

“I was doing it for free. I was giving away jokes,” he says. “Who knew I could have been charging for it?”

‘I really love it’

Stand-up turned into what Bellamy calls a hobby while he was studying economics at Rutgers University.

“Every time I did it, I’d think, ‘I love it. I really, really love it,’” he says. “But I didn’t know how or where to make money at it, so I took a marketing job out of college.

“I’d sneak over to New York as a lark late at night to play some of the clubs, and then I’d have to prep for a meeting the next day,” he says. “Trying to juggle both was impossible, so I made a decision to pursue a dream, and it worked out.”

The “Comedy Jam” gig came along less than two years later, and from there, Bellamy caught another pop culture wave — becoming MTV’s first black VJ, hosting both “MTV Jamz” and “MTV Beach House.”

“MTV was like this huge tsunami breaking over pop culture,” he says. “It was a beacon of light opening the door to so many new artists, and exposing millions of kids to the music. It changed people’s careers overnight.”

Bellamy says that, on MTV, “I began to understand the dynamic of power that I had.”

That happened as he convinced producers that he could be trusted to pick groups and music that would resonate with MTV viewers.

“I had the ear and (the producers) began to respect my taste,” he says. “I knew what was popular on the street level and in the clubs, because I was in the clubs.”

One song he gave a special push was H-Town’s debut single, “Knockin’ Da Boots,” which ended up topping the Billboard R&B charts for four weeks in 1993.

“(MTV) said, ‘Bill, we don’t know if this will work with our audience,’” Bellamy says. “I said, ‘Trust me, it’s working everywhere else.’”

The heart of it

From MTV, Bellamy went on to roles in movies including “Love Jones,” “How to Be a Player,” “Any Given Sunday” and “Kindergarten Cop 2.”

He voiced the puppet title character in Nickelodeon’s short-lived, quirky kids’ show, “Cousin Skeeter.” He hosted two seasons of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” had a recurring role on TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland” and frequented the panel on “Chelsea Lately” on E!, among other television appearances.

Even with movies and television calling, Bellamy says, “Stand-up is the heart of my career, the beginning, middle, all of it. I don’t want to squander that connection with my fans, or my talent. I’ll never quit stand-up.”

He also says he’s looking forward to being back in da ‘Burgh:

“I love Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh loves comedy.”