Chappelle Show Season One – Dave Chappelle

Chapelle’s Show Season One
Dave Chapelle
12 Episodes on 2 DVDs
Comedy Central / Paramount
283 minutes
mature audience

One of the many great shows on Comedy Central (the Comedy Network in Canada) is Chappelle’s Show. Dave Chappelle’s HBO comedy specials are well-known for being very funny and topical, the Chappelle Show, Season One, is very similar to the kind of standup Chappelle does on stage: funny jokes but also social commentary with a bit of a twist. While it might be unreasonable to compare Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock, Chappelle’s brand of humor is perhaps a little more profound. The 12 episodes on this 2 comedy TV show DVD set are quite interesting, there are many funny skits, there are some bits that go on too long, but overall, quite a decent bang for your buck. The powers that be at Comedy Central and Paramount (and perhaps Chappelle himself?) decided not to overprice this two dvd set.

Chappelle Show, Season One features 12 episodes. The extras on this generally funny DVD set include a running commentary track in some of the shows (kind of neat but generally not that interesting), a blooper reel (cute but you’ve seen it once and it’s enough). What is really interesting about the Dave Chappelle show is it gives the general public an idea of why diversity on television is something we should all strive for. The humor and topics Chappelle covers are very different from the generally waspish (and so long in the tooth they gotta be dentures) Saturday Night Live. There is something extremely undercutting about a funny sketch about a blind white supremacist who doesn’t know he is Black. Chappelle’s more realistic versions of Pretty Woman and The Matrix are very funny and generally do not go on too long. Episode 9 features a very funny but too long History Channel covering Chicago street gang wars. One very funny comedy sketch is Dave Chappelle in his own version of the Sims game.

Chappelle Show, Season One is also interesting in that although this is a mature audience comedy TV show DVD, the bit on Third World Girls Gone Wild still has the mosaic censorship of the women’s breasts. Chappelle appears to be a very laid back host and the format of the Chappelle show is in some ways similar to America’s Funniest Home Videos: Dave Chappelle presents the clips he and his crew have filmed. The only live segment of this show is the introductions done by Chappelle.

Not everything is a hit on Chappelle Show, Season One. Some of the funny segments do go on too long: Godzilla and Chappelle in Japan, his take on Deep Impact where it would have been easier and better not to try to imitate (or personify?) Morgan Freeman, and the bit about the magic video cam is also too long.

Generally, Chappelle’s Show, Season One is a very intelligent and funny 2 DVD set. If the price is right, get season two: it will probably be worth it If the price is not right, well, it’s not a work of genius.

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