While she was working as a singing waitress at The Improvisation in NYC, her friend Andy Kaufman told her she should try doing stand-up. She was one of the first to tackle female topics her influences wouldn't have been able to do as openly and helped influence the perspective of many (female) stand-up comics after her; With this set she was the first female comic to have an hour-long special on cable television (because she produced it herself). As she mentions in the successful special, she did this because television executives told her no one wanted to see a woman do comedy on TV.
