Chappelle’s Show
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
Dave Chappelle walked onto Comedy Central with the tightest stand up hour of his generation (Killin’ Them Softly still owns any open mic conversation) and built a sketch show that behaved like none before it. The premise was simple and lethal: a Black man from D.C. with one foot in the white world and the other nowhere, sketching race in America like a coroner with a sense of humor.
The top shelf is legendary for a reason. Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories (Rick James, Prince) are perfect storytelling, Clayton Bigsby is the most dangerous joke ever broadcast, and The Black Show with Tivo is the best five minutes the show ever made. Kurtis Blow’s rings, Tyrant, Frontline Spicker: the sketch bench is deep enough that the show’s leftovers are other shows’ highlights.
The season three collapse (the bus scene, the bail out, Africa, the burned scripts) became the defining legend of nineties comedy ownership, because the show had grown too big for the company that owned it and Chappelle called it out loud. The surviving episodes lean on catchphrases more than premises by the end, and the finale is a shrug.
Seasons one and two are essential American comedy. Everything after is still better than most shows ever get.
Our score: 9/10.
