Whatever Happened To Pauly Shore?

If you remember when MTV mostly aired music videos and The Real World, congratulations, you're old. But it also means you remember the crazy Spring Break parties they threw every year, hosted by Pauly Shore. He also hosted his own show for them, Totally Pauly, before quickly flaming out in an ill-conceived film career that included Encino Man and Bio-Dome. But that all happened in the space of six years, and after his failed network series, Pauly, Hollywood finally seemed to have closed the door on his leading man chances. So whatever happened to "The Weasel" after he became Tinsel Town roadkill?

As irritating as Pauly Shore's comedic persona may be, he is at least acutely aware of his place in pop culture history. Which is to say that he knows he's a relic from the '90s, like slap bracelets or neon sunglasses—things everyone enjoyed immensely back then, but can't imagine enjoying now. In fact, his quirky mockumentary, Pauly Shore Is Dead, is so self-aware that it's basically a meditation on whether or not he would be better off faking his own death and starting his life over.

Years later, Pauly once again turned the documentary lens on himself, this time in earnest, with Pauly Shore Stands Alone. The film follows him during a section of his nationwide comedy tour, highlighting stops he makes in dismal, snowy midwest towns where he performs in malls and strip clubs. But it also tracks his personal struggles with failure and loneliness, as well as his stressful family dynamic as he and his siblings deal with the family business, and taking care of their mother, who is ailing from Parkinson's Disease.

The legendary Comedy Store in Hollywood is the club founded by Pauly's father, Sammy Shore, and run for years by his mother, Mitzi Shore. In an interview with The LA Times, Pauly claims he was born to do stand-up, but that he didn't get his comedy start at his parents' club. His mother, who was notoriously selective about who she would allow to perform at The Store, wouldn't put Pauly up until he proved his chops elsewhere. But as more and more doors closed in Hollywood, and after self-funding Pauly Shore is Dead, which to this day has a lifetime gross of $11,000 on Box Office Mojo, he ran right back to The Comedy Store. There, he helped cultivate talent, and tried to launch a reality show, Minding The Store, which only ever produced a few episodes. He continues to be active in management of The Store as of this writing.

Of the four Shore siblings, brothers Peter and Pauly are the only two who have an active role in the management of the The Comedy Store family business. Pauly deals with talent, while Peter runs the financial side. As their mother's symptoms from Parkinson's Disease worsened, Pauly and Peter butted heads over the direction of the business, which eventually resulted in Pauly filing suit against Peter, according to The LA Times. Alleging that Peter exerted "undue influence" over their mother in an effort to remove Pauly from the Board of Directors, Pauly sued for a full disclosure of tax statements and receipts, which would indicate that he suspected his brother of some financial shenanigans. Yeesh, sounds like no laughing matter for the iconic comedy club.

Of every misguided choice Pauly Shore may have made—looking at you, Jury Duty—perhaps the biggest was yet another of his attempts at a mockumentary, Adopted. This is the movie where Pauly travels to Africa and pokes fun at all of the modern cliche of rich white people adopting African children. In a squandered opportunity to comedically skewer systemic problems, Adopted quickly devolves into cheap fish-out-of-water gags where Pauly does things like point at a street vendor's grill and ask "Is this like P.F. Chang's here?" Why would Pauly Shore think he had the insight to tackle such a complex and emotional issue like international adoption, especially having not gone through the process in real life? Oh, that's right, this is the guy who got famous by calling himself "the Weasel" and wearing wacky head gear. Never mind. It makes total sense now.

As was the subject of Pauly Shore Stands Alone, Pauly performs at comedy clubs almost every weekend as a headlining, veteran road comic. Granted, he doesn't sell out arenas like Kevin Hart, but he does make a living grinding out show after show, while pursuing other passion projects, according to an interview with Variety. Interestingly, his path to road comedy was essentially backwards to that of every other veteran stand-up, since he started his career as a superstar and worked his way down to playing gigs like Hyena's Comedy Club in Plano, TX. Some would view that as a disaster, but Pauly feels the road is his home. He told The LA Times that he has few regrets, and that he just can't stand his hometown of Los Angeles for more than a few weeks at a time.

Like almost every comedian today, Pauly Shore has a podcast. For the two of you reading this who have no clue what that is, a podcast is an audio program that can be streamed or downloaded and accessed on demand. It's like radio without the censorship, schedule, or salary. Sure, some of the more popular podcasts have become profitable through advertising, but those are rare. Most comedian-helmed podcasts are are just long conversations between friends and collaborators, done for as little out-of-pocket money as possible. Pauly structures his podcast around celebrity interviews and anecdotes from his own life, so like everything he does, it centers around his experiences with comedy and knowing famous people, but hey, at least he's not making fun of the adoption system this time. Seriously, why did nobody stop him from doing that?