Before They Were Stars: Martin Lawrence on “Star Search”

In the past, I’ve done “Before They Were Stars” features on celebrities who made their first television appearance on Star Search and, more often than not, the future star wound up losing the competition to an opponent who faded into obscurity. Such is the case with this 1987 episode where a young Martin Lawrence performs stand-up, but winds up losing to another comedian named Steve O. Nope, not the Jackass guy. He’s actually a comedian named Steve Ochs, who went on to become a producer and writer of children’s TV shows, including a few episodes of The Rugrats. To his credit though, at least he’s never done any movies where he played an old woman in a fat suit.