I saw him a bit earlier on, on a comedy special, before the Dice Man thing got out of control. he was an actor and stand-up, who had some credits before the Dice Man bits. He was in Pretty in Pink, an episode of MASH, a Different Strokes one, was a regular on Michael Mann's crime Story and a decent, though uneven movie, called Casual Sex? (with Leah Thompson, Victoria Jackson and Mary Gross).

His stand-up act, originally, was a mix of pretty decent impressions of mostly New York Italian actors, like Pacino, Deniro, Travolta, etc.. The Dice Man was a character he created, that was based on the Buddy Love character, from The Nutty Professor, who morphs into John Travolta. The more outrageous he got with it, the more he got a reaction. Some of the dirty nursery rhyme stuff was pretty funny and he had a huge hit with his comedy album, Dice, which went gold. Like Jeff Foxworthy and the redneck bit, the nursery Rhymes and the Dice Man were just a small part of the act; but, when he got strong reactions for it, it took center stage.  He got early exposure on a Rodney Dangerfield HBO special, which led to bigger appearances. The Dice thing climaxed with his own movie, the Adv. of Ford Fairlane, which failed at the box office, though it had great initial openings. It did well on cable and home video, though. It's uneven; but, there was some really funny stuff in there, with a lot of sophomoric stuff. All-in-all, it's not a bad film and he is mostly good in it (a lot of the unevenness is in tone and other performances). He is relatively clean in it, compared to his album and stage act.

By the time he did SNL, he had pushed things beyond the nursery rhymes into more vulgar territory, especially given the response to the nursery rhymes. He was clean on SNL and Nora Dunn probably was making more noise to gain attention and maybe some leverage with NBC. Quite frankly, he caused fewer problems than Sinead O'Connor.

By the mid-90s, he had pushed things too far in his act, doing things like rape jokes. He made an appearance of Whoopi Goldberg's short-lived nighttime talk show and she was a fan f his work, but didn't let him off lightly about his current material. She let him have his say, yet debated his points and justified the reactions of others, especially women. His attempts to use shock for attention was really backfiring and it was costing gigs, including a proposed ABC drama series.

Early Dice was funny and a pretty decent actor. Later Dice was vulgar and offensive, without any real edge to his comedy; just for shock value. He was his own worst enemy and squandered real talent for easier money.