23 Comments Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
The Rise and Fall of Chappelle’s Show
This is the definitive Chappelle’s Show oral history, bitches. Experience the unlikely triumph of a comic maverick and his crew.
Chappelle’s Show is the greatest sketch comedy of all time. There, we said it. We can already hear the proverbial groans of disagreement. What about the G.O.A.T. Saturday Night Live…you know Belushi, Murphy, Ferrell? Well, let’s see the legendary SNL become a cultural phenomenon in the age of cable TV and shrinking Nielsen ratings. But Dave can’t fuck with the Wayans family’s multicultural breakthrough In Living Color. Sure Dave owes a lot to Keenan. But In Living Color overstayed its welcome, while Chappelle’s Show left a pristine corpse, a la Jimi Hendrix and Tupac. Mad TV? You’re kidding, right? Really, who cares why Dave bailed out of his landmark show. He can go on Oprah and Inside the Actors’ Studio and explain his meltdown all he wants. His show shouldn’t be, and isn’t, defined by his abrupt exit or self-medicating trip to Africa. Its tombstone should read: Here Lies the Comedy With the Biggest Balls. Period.
Season One
Chappelle’s Show premiered on January 22, 2003
The Mad Real World
Christian Finnegan (“Chad”): I’m a standup comic, and so was Neal. One day, he was like, “You know, I’m doing this show with Dave, and we’re doing this bit that you might be really good for.” When you get cast for something like that, you have to sit down for a table read together, and read the script out loud. It was that sketch, the Clayton Bigsby sketch, and something else. Everybody was looking around the table like, “I can’t believe how funny this is.”
Charlie Murphy (comedian, actor): People liked the [tough] characters I did from CB4, Players Club and Spike Lee’s films, and when people would think of someone playing a gangster-type role, my name would come up at the top of the list. So when they were writing “The Mad Real World” sketch Dave was like, “Yo, we need Charlie Murphy to play this thug- ass character named Tyree.” That was my first sketch.
Finnegan: No one ever comes up to me quietly and says, “Hey, I really enjoyed your work in ‘The Mad Real World.’” People walk up to me in the middle of a dinner with my girlfriend like, “Katie’s got some big-ass tittays!”
Ask A Black Guy/ Negrodamus
Paul Mooney (comedian, writer, actor): I basically came up with “Negrodamus” and “Mooney On Movies,” while Dave came up with “Ask A Black Guy.” “Negrodamus” was actually supposed to be Niggerdamus, but we had to clean it up. You know when I say “nigger,” it’s like the devil is saying it [laughs].
Player Haters’ Ball
Bryan Tucker (writer, “Player Hater’s Ball”): Dave and Neal have a good idea, and they have a set-up, and then they do like 10 takes. Dave does a little something different every time. So a lot of the great lines you see aren’t necessarily stuff that you’d see written in a script.
Donnell Rawlings (comedian, actor; Ashy Larry): Ten minutes before we go shoot “Player Haters’ Ball,” my character didn’t have a name or anything. I went to hair and makeup, told them to give me a Jheri-curl wig. Then I went to props, and I asked for a Moët bottle with an activator on it so I can just squirt my hair down. They didn’t have that, so they gave me the aerosol can. I’m spraying it, people laughing and shit, three minutes before shooting. I didn’t have a name, dialogue or anything. Neal told me to make my name up. I walked past the mirror like twice, looked in it, and said, “Man, I feel beautiful!” That’s when “Beautiful” was born.
Bill Burr (announcer, “Racial Draft”): Dave and Neal were real cool with improv. They were like, “If it’s funny, it’s going in.”
Rawlings: Dave always does something to let everybody know why it’s Chappelle’s Show. When he got to the page flip, we had already had 18 hours in. It had to be like 2:30, 3 in the morning—we was all joked out! Dave was the only one who kept it moving. “She look like she wear underpants with dickholes in them!” That was the end of that. It’s a wrap. Let’s go home.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Features, KING Magazine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
23 Responses to “The Rise and Fall of Chappelle’s Show”
09.15.08 at 6:38 pm
Blood Jason says:
This show was so ill man, it sux ass he stopped it. Glad I got all of em on dvd
09.16.08 at 11:23 am
sly_neva_stikk says:
hell yea
09.16.08 at 1:16 pm
crossfire says:
Are you f***ing retarded? In Living Color & Mad TV are worthless blips on the sketch show scene. Maybe they started the careers of big stars, but their content was shit. Try comparing it to Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show or Monty Python. You can’t because it’s not even in the same universe as those. Sure Chappelle was alright while it was on, but it’s no classic by any means. I watched it and I laughed, but it did nothing worthy of even being considered “the greatest sketch comedy of all time.”
09.16.08 at 1:57 pm
Saint says:
Seriously…Mr. Show has to atleast be in the conversation. It sucks when a show over stays it’s welcome, but there were a lot of shows (or bands or writers or artists) that were amazing for 2 years. Morrison, Cobain, Elliot Smith were all great, but especially since they weren’t around long enough to create crap. I respect Dave for getting out when he didn’t have anything to say instead of just collecting money, but that does mean the show was limited.
09.16.08 at 2:36 pm
Jim Savage says:
How does it go… See ya, wouldnt wanna be ya? LOL there is better out there. www.datools.net.tc
09.16.08 at 2:38 pm
Buddha McGee says:
Ahem. You have nothing to say about SNL, dear writer, if it premiered before you were born. Yet more idiocy from a bad child-writer with a big ego.
09.16.08 at 2:43 pm
Van Hammersly says:
Dave is awesome but Mr. Show was better.
09.16.08 at 2:55 pm
Joss says:
that show reflected my life filthyrichmond.blogspot
09.16.08 at 2:59 pm
Dan says:
The Chapelle Show was good and all, but I say it’s not the best sketch comedy of all time at all. Monty Python set the bar early and they set it high. My vote is for Monty Python.
09.16.08 at 3:14 pm
Web 2.0 Announcer says:
The Rise and Fall of Chappelle?s Show […]A definitive oral history of the greatest sketch comedy show of all time.[…]
09.16.08 at 3:47 pm
lilkunta says:
buddha mcGee:
SNL isnt funny anymore.
the digital shorts saved them but the digital shorts arent good anymore. WTF is lazer cats?
09.16.08 at 4:07 pm
Kirby says:
Its definitely an amazing show…but greatest sketch comedy of all time? No…that position clearly belongs to Monty Python’s Flying Circus…
It is the definitive in the genre…nothing against Chappelle’s show but come one. Credit where credit’s due.
09.16.08 at 4:08 pm
LC says:
I want to see Ronnie and Tyrone hanging out.
09.16.08 at 4:50 pm
Free Xbox 360 says:
Chappelle show was one of the greatest comedy shows ever.
09.16.08 at 5:08 pm
eb says:
I loved Chappelle’s Show, but better than Monty Python’s Flying Circus? Surely you jest. (Kirby, you beat me to it!)
09.16.08 at 6:07 pm
Chris says:
Loved it, but Mr. Show is at the top for me.
09.16.08 at 7:07 pm
the young turk says:
monty python? gimme a break. they made some funny movies, but flyin circus doesn’t compare to chappelle’s show. funny walks? dead parrots? lame! mr. show is great. i’d put it right next to chappelle’s quality wise, but the way chappelle made its mark on pop culture so far surpasses bob and david.
09.17.08 at 9:09 am
trenton doyle hancock says:
they’re not even gonna mention Richard Pryor’s sketch show? thats jus wrong!
09.17.08 at 11:39 am
Savo Heleta says:
By far the best and funniest comedy show in the world. I hope he comes back at some point and does something similar.
09.17.08 at 12:00 pm
Wayne Brady was worried « says:
[…] For some of the regulars, like writer/actor Bill Burr, the explosion of popularity the show enjoyed was downright stupefying: […]
09.17.08 at 12:01 pm
Coffee Break « High Definite says:
[…] The Rise and Fall of Chappelle’s Show - [King Mag] […]
09.25.08 at 7:51 pm
The PHA : links for 2008-09-25 says:
[…] » The Rise and Fall of Chappelle’s Show - KING-mag.com (tags: tv toread read humor history funny article interesting comedy chappelle) […]
09.26.08 at 4:42 am
The Rise and Fall of Chappelle’s Show » Big Screen Little Screen says:
[…] King Magazine gathered comedians Charlie Murphy, Paul Mooney, and Donnell Rawlings (Ashy Larry), plus guest stars Lil’ Jon, RZA and Questlove of The Roots to diagram their favorite sketches during the meteoric success of The Chappelle Show, and how it vanished before we had ever stopped laughing. (via Pop Candy) […]