Here's a friendly piece of advice for anyone who sees Dave Chappelle out and about: don't
mention Rick James.
There's a decent chance he'll remind you what the five fingers said to the face.
"What did the five fingers say to the face?"
"What?"
"Slap!"
Although his short-lived Comedy Central series, Chappelle's Show, became an instant hit and
one of the best-selling TV shows released on DVD, there's plenty about the show that
even the most dedicated fans may not know.
Here's the untold truth of Chappelle's Show.
(Chappelle's Show theme playing)
Before the show
As a budding actor and stand-up comedian, Dave Chappelle faced plenty of setbacks, losing
three times on Star Search and getting booed off the stage at the Apollo.
"I just remember looking out and seeing like everybody booing, everybody!"
And his early TV efforts also flopped.
The first, a 1996 spin-off from Home Improvement called Buddies, hit turbulence right out of
the gate with recasting and poor ratings.
It was canceled after only a few episodes had aired.
The next, a 1998 show simply called Dave Chappelle, didn't even get that far: after Fox executives
wanted to add white actors to the all-black cast, Chappelle walked away.
"Expect this, my resignation, effective immediately.
I quit!"
Foreshadowing?
"This really is The Wayne Brady Show, no longer The Chappelle Show, Dave has been downsized."
Just as his Hollywood career began to gain traction with roles in movies like The Nutty
Professor and Con Air, Chappelle met teenage funnyman Neal Brennan.
Brennan and Chappelle collaborated on the script for the stoner cult classic Half Baked,
but after it tanked at the box office, they parted ways.
"Me and Neal, after Half Baked, went our separate ways.
We were good friends, but it was just like leaving a crime scene or something."
How the show was born
Chappelle's Show had an unlikely inspiration: Hugh Hefner's casual 1960s talk show Playboy
After Dark.
"Ya know we did the show, when we were first coming up with the format we're like 'Man,
why hasn't anyone ever done a show like this before?'"
He re-teamed with Neal Brennan to develop the new show idea.
Neither had much experience with sketch comedy, but they learned how to write sketches by
reading books about Saturday Night Live.
Soon, Chappelle and Brennan pitched the show to networks, with mixed results.
"Like we took that pitch to HBO and Comedy Central.
HBO looked at us like we were lepers.
And then we went to Comedy Central, they approved, and so we made the pilot."
One of the two sketch ideas that sold Comedy Central on the series was "Popcopy," which
later turned up on Chappelle's Show.
"Be sure to spray chocolate sauce on the wall near the toilet to give the appearance of
errant feces.
This will ensure that any customer who uses our restroom will never ever return to one
of our stores."
Clayton Bigsby
The pilot episode of Chappelle's Show included what has become one of the most famous sketches
in sketch comedy history, the story of Clayton Bigsby, a blind white supremacist who doesn't
know that he himself is black.
"So we figured we'd make it easier on Clayton by just telling him and all the other blind
kids that he was white."
"And he never questioned it?"
"Why would he?"
Perhaps the craziest part?
Clayton Bigsby was actually based on a real person—Dave's own grandfather, who was not
only of mixed racial heritage, but also blind.
Brennan told Vulture that "The day Martin Luther King got shot, apparently [Chappelle’s
grandfather] was on a bus and a bunch of black dudes came up to him and were like, 'What
you doing on this bus, cracker?' and Dave's grandfather apparently thought, Man, this
cracker is in a lot of trouble, before he realized, Oh, I'm the cracker."
Truth is stranger than fiction.
"We can meet, talk about white brotherhood.
Thank y'all for comin', white power!"
He's Rick James...sort of
Chappelle's impersonation of R&B legend Rick James became instantly iconic.
"I'm Rick James -----. Enjoy yourself."
But he began hearing the character's catchphrases thrown back at him — often during the worst
possible moments.
It happened during an infamous stand-up performance just weeks after the season 2 finale aired,
prompting Chappelle to blast the crowd for their "stupid" behavior.
He considered his stand-up to be the central element of his career and told the audience,
"This show is ruining my life."
It's almost enough to wish he were someone else.
"Charlie Murphy!"
"That was cold blooded!"
Jumping ship
Comedy Central offered Chappelle a whopping $50 million to make seasons 3 and 4 of Chappelle's
Show.
"I'm rich biotch!"
He accepted, but it wasn't long before he hit a wall with a sketch about magic pixies
who encourage people to live up to racial stereotypes.
"I'll have the fried chicken, thank you."
"Fried chicken!
I need some music for this!"
The reaction he got from a white crew member made him reconsider what he was doing.
"I know the difference between people laughing with me and people laughing at me.
And it was the first time I'd ever gotten a laugh, that I was uncomfortable with."
Comedy Central eventually aired the sketch anyway, against Chappelle’s wishes, along
with a disclaimer and subsequent audience discussion about the sketch's merits.
"As you may or may not have heard, Dave said he had some problems with the pixie sketch."
But by that point, Chappelle had infamously quit the show and hopped a plane to Africa.
Rumors swirled that he was having a mental breakdown, or was on drugs, or abducted by
aliens.
The truth?
He just needed to get away from something that was no longer under his control.
"Don't like having to beg for the spotlight man, ya know the machine is good for us and
we good for the machine and it should be fair man."
Aftermath
Chappelle and Brennan's friendship was severely damaged after the show's demise, and it took
years to repair what was broken between them.
But the two reconnected years later when Brennan dropped by one of Chappelle's intimate stand-up
shows.
Although they've agreed to never work together again, they remain friends.
Brennan told Buzzfeed:
"I think there's part of both us that holds each other very personally responsible for
our part of it.
But another part of us that sees the whole thing as very circumstantial."
More "lost" Sketches
While Comedy Central compiled most of the completed sketches for season three into "The
Lost Episodes," which aired in the summer of 2006, other unaired sketches have occasionally
popped up on DVD extras or online bootlegs.
Among them are sketches like the "Super Size Me" parody "Maximize Me," the recurring "Hip-Hop
Newsbreak" segment, and an R-rated sequel to Daddy Day Care starring Charlie Murphy.
"You asked for it!"
"Woah!"
"Hahahaha!"
And music fans can also track down rare performances by John Legend, Dead Prez, and The Beastie
Boys among others.
"And let all the party people feel the beat..."
"...drop!"
So...who's that guy doing the Robot?
His name is Karl Lake, and he was a set dresser for the show.
In a first season episode, Chappelle asked him to appear in a crowd scene and do something
funny.
Naturally, Lake did the Robot.
It was so well received that for the second season, writers made sure to find a place
for Lake to do a repeat performance at some point in every episode.
One thing’s for certain: if Dave Chappelle ever brings his show back, we hope he plans
to bring Lake with him...
"Hey help us robot, help us!
Robot, help us!"
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