Bruce was a roommate of Buddy Hackett in the 1950s. The two appeared on the "Patrice Munsel Show" (1957–1958), calling their comedy duo the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players", twenty years before the cast of "Saturday Night Live" used the same name. In 1957, Thomas booked Bruce into the Slate Brothers nightclub, where he was fired the first night for what "Variety" headlined as "blue material"; this led to the theme of Bruce's first solo album on Berkeley-based Fantasy Records, "The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce", for which Thomas shot the album cover. Thomas also shot other album covers, acted as cinematographer on abortive attempts to film their screenplays, and in 1989 authored a memoir of their ten-year collaboration titled "Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet". The 2016 biography of Frank Ray Perilli titled "The Candy Butcher", devotes a chapter to Perilli's ten-year collaboration with Bruce.