Dave Chappelle is in da house! by Gord Lacey (All reviews)
2/22/2004
In January, 2003, Comedy Central gave stand-up comic Dave Chappelle his own show. Aptly titled Chappelle's Show, it's made up of various sketches, wrap-arounds (Dave talking to the audience) and some music spots - most have been left off the DVD set though. Have you ever had a question for a black dude? What about a gay dude? What if there were a season of The Real World with black people and one white dude - what would happen?
The episodes: Episode 1
Dave Chappelle plays America's most vicious blind white supremacist and unveils racy "bootie" videos starring Nat King Cole.
Episode 2
Dave Chappelle plays a crack addict who visits an elementary school to give an anti-drug speech.
Episode 3
Dave shows a girl who curses her breasts the error of her ways and shares hilarious outtakes from "Roots."
Episode 4
Dave awards women with great "NY boobs" and predicts the chaos caused by reparations for slavery.
Episode 5
Dave reflects on "Great Moments in Hookup History" and dares viewers to "Ask a Black Dude."
Episode 6
Dave Imagines if "The Real World" did a season with an all-black cast and one super white guy.
Episode 7
Dave takes a realistic look at "Pretty Woman" and "The Matrix" and introduces the Wu-Tang Clan's new financial consulting firm.
Episode 8
Dave uncovers racism among Hollywood's animal stars, and Tyrone Biggums returns when his friends hold an intervention.
Episode 9
Dave takes Japan by storm in the sci-fi adventure "Blackzilla" and stars in his own video game.
Episode 10
Dave presents the History Channel's coverage of great inner city gang wars from the 1980s.
Episode 11
Dave sees people's inner thoughts and freaks out when a little kid beats him at video games.
Episode 12
Dave shows us what happens when couples try "Trading Spouses" and introduces a family-friendly brand of pot.
Video
Most of the segments shot for the show were done with video camera, but some were shot on film. The quality is fairly consistent, but sometimes sketches contain some grain (film) or video noise (video). Sometimes the video shimmers, but not nearly as bad as some other shows I've seen recently. Each disc contains a "play all," and the episodes contain 4 chapters although there aren't any scene selection screens. You should also be aware that some of the musical numbers have been removed from the episodes. There is 1 scene with nudity in the first episode.
Audio
I'd say that 95% of this show comes from the center channel, even though the show is stereo. I can't recall any directional effects, although the clapping from the audience can be heard from the other speakers. I found the audio on this release to be extremely loud, and I turned my receiver way down compared to the level I normally listen to DVDs at. The audio is free, and there is quite a bit of swearing in some of the sketches. No subtitles for the release, but it is closed captioned.
Commentary Tracks
Dave Chapelle and Neal Brennan (writer) provide commentary on a few of these episodes. They provide some funny tidbits about the show and some of the sketches, but there are some gaps in the commentary where they don't say a thing. Overall these are really entertaining. Commentary tracks can be found for episodes 1, 6, 9, 10 and 12.
Bloopers and Deleted Scenes (30:00)
Various bloopers and deleted scenes form the first season. You can watch it with, or without, commentary by David and Neal. You can also view the time remaining on the video, something you can't do with the episodes.
Ask a Black Dude with Paul Mooney (12:20)
Paul Mooney, "the black dude," answers more of the questions from folks that want to know more about black people.
Comedy Central Quickies (4:04)
Clips from two Comedy Central Shows: Crank Yankers - Wu Tang Bed & Breakfast and Reno 911! - "That's how we do it in Reno!"
Summary
I'm not sure why the authoring was so sloppy on this release. I've had bonus materials that didn't show the time remaining, but the main content allows this about 99% of the time (I think I recall 1 other release that didn't list the time remaining either).
While I found Dave Chappelle to be a really funny guy, I didn't like the racist tones in the show. Is it racism if it's a black man poking fun at other black people? He plays off stereotypes quite a lot: black people are poor, black people are druggies, black people are gangsters. Some of his non-racial sketches are really funny, like the realistic look at movies, "Popcopy," and "NY Boobs." Be on the lookout for some other stars that drop by for a sketch or two.
