Chappelle's Show Is 10 Years Old Today. No Sketch Show Has Surpassed It. Discuss.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

1) It's just "Chappelle's Show", no 'The'.

2) Cuz I'm genuinely curious, what's the 'idea of' Chappelle's Show you liked? As in, I could tell that there are individual sketches with 'points' or 'messages' they want to push, but I never really saw the show having anything like a guiding thesis beyond "What Dave and his writers found funny."

I'd say it was famous for racial humor or humor that pushes the boundaries. I don't think you can overlook sketches like "The Niggar Family" or what have you. Of course many of the sketches have nothing to do with that but those stand out in my mind as perhaps part of a "thesis". On the other hand ones like "I'm James Brown Bitch" or "Is Wayne Brady Gonna Have to Choke a Bitch?" became the most popular memes (ironically the show was extremely popular, perhaps most popular by sheer number, among middle-class caucasian teenagers) and have next to nothing to do with race.

Key and Peele is in a similar tradition of having a few sketches about race (including the two's biracialness), but again, many or most have nothing to do with that (most obvious I can think of is the two college guys branding themselves with their teams logo, the one guy keeps screwing it up and has to keep painfully branding the guy over and over again).

[Lumenskir]

ironically the show was extremely popular, perhaps most popular by sheer number, among middle-class caucasian teenagers

Speaking as one who first came to love the show as a middle-class Caucasian teenager, I don't really find it's popularity across races or whatnot that surprising. It's not like the race-focused sketches were incomprehensible to white people (and when Chappelle did want to make fun of people, he had this great method of making the jokes so inside that those who didn't get them had no idea they were being laughed at, which helped).

To make a good sketch, you basically 'just' need a great concept and great execution. Chappelle's Show had amazing concepts all over the place and pretty much perfect execution all the time.

[Token]

Originally Posted by Magus

On the other hand ones like "I'm James Brown Bitch" or "Is Wayne Brady Gonna Have to Choke a Bitch?" became the most popular memes (ironically the show was extremely popular, perhaps most popular by sheer number, among middle-class caucasian teenagers) and have next to nothing to do with race.

The most popular, overused meme from the show, and you still say James Brown instead of Rick James. I get that they're both black singers, but they ain't exactly interchangeable.

As for the Wayne Brady skit, it's pretty inherently race related considering it's a response to jokes about Wayne Brady being "white" in earlier sketches, which culminated in this one where he was stereotypically ghetto.

Hell, all of Chappelle's skits are race related- you can't divorce the race from the sketches without robbing them of context and culture. They're jokes about society from an inherently black viewpoint, both at our expense and the expense of other cultures. You couldn't just Pat Boone it up without runining it, and the fact that people tried is part of the big problem that led to his breakdown.

[Nique]

Originally Posted by Token

ITT: White folk.

They're jokes about society from an inherently black viewpoint, both at our expense and the expense of other cultures. You couldn't just Pat Boone it up without runining it, and the fact that people tried is part of the big problem that led to his breakdown.

Because of his patiucular perspective and, again, what little I saw of the show, I think I might need to give Chappelle's Show another shot. He is a really cool dude.

[Lumenskir]

Because of his patiucular perspective and, again, what little I saw of the show, I think I might need to give Chappelle's Show another shot. He is a really cool dude.

Just go to the bottom of the bracket in the link I posted and reverse-work your way through the winners.

Try not to think about all of the time you've wasted not quoting things back and forth to your friends.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Token

The most popular, overused meme from the show, and you still say James Brown instead of Rick James. I get that they're both black singers, but they ain't exactly interchangeable.

As for the Wayne Brady skit, it's pretty inherently race related considering it's a response to jokes about Wayne Brady being "white" in earlier sketches, which culminated in this one where he was stereotypically ghetto.

Hell, all of Chappelle's skits are race related- you can't divorce the race from the sketches without robbing them of context and culture. They're jokes about society from an inherently black viewpoint, both at our expense and the expense of other cultures. You couldn't just Pat Boone it up without runining it, and the fact that people tried is part of the big problem that led to his breakdown.

"I'm Rick James Brown bitch!"

The most overused one was the Lil' Jon "YEAAAH!" "OKAY!" one, actually. My god. Just never-ending.

[Jagos]

Wow... It's like no one ever saw the comedy of Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, or Richard Pryor before DC did race comedy.

[Lumenskir]

Wow... It's like no one ever saw the comedy of Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, or Richard Pryor before DC did race comedy.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Nah thankx guys, I'm still stuck being an In Living Color fan.

Its a big shame the reboot has been cancelled.

[synkr0nized]

That's a retarded response. edit: the wine-guzzling one, I mean

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

Ugggggh, I want that so bad. I just want a neuralyzer so I can watch Prince for the first time everytime.

I know what you mean. So much of the show is still funny to me, but a lot of the sketches were just amazing on the first viewing.

Originally Posted by Magus

Yeah, Key and Peele is pretty good but it's not as funny.

They have a few good ideas, but their show is pretty lame, imo. They take too long to get to the jokes, and neither of them has very good delivery. HOWEVER, Obama's anger translator Luther is amazing.

Originally Posted by Magus

On the other hand ones like "I'm James Brown Bitch" [...]

hahaha Holy shit, are you serious?




Anyway, I don't care that other comedians have been using race-based humor before -- Chapelle has a definite knack for it, and for a time it came through well in his show.