Comedian Dave Chappelle takes his street-smart brand of comedy to
another level in Chappelle's Show. Chappelle's hilarious
and defiant point-of-view brought to bear in these twelve
outrageous episodes consisting of sketches, pop culture parodies
and live musical performances.
CRITIQUE
Usually the weird,
drugged-out sidekick (Half Baked), or random secondary
character in various comedies, Dave Chappelle takes center stage
in his show for Comedy Central. His brand of comedy is necessarily
new, his voice and delivery being his trademarks, but the sketches
presented can be pretty funny. Chappelle hosts
the show in front a live audience, telling jokes but mainly
introducing sketches. Most of the sketches are funny and original,
while others are more basic and only decent. The humor is not
always consistent from episode to episode, but by and large the
comedy succeeds to elicit laughter, sometimes even out loud.
Some of the sketches
include "Popcopy" that appears in the show's first episode, an
inside look at the Kinkos-like company with their unorthodox
policies and careless employees. Another funny sketch in the
season opener sees Chappelle as a blind white supremacist. The
"Real Movies" sketches, reproducing a certain scene from a movie
filmed closely shot-by-shot but adding a twist, are very well
done. The films include a neat-looking take on The Matrix
with a dead-on impersonation by the actor playing Neo, Pretty
Woman, and Deep Impact where Chappelle plays the
President as he confesses to all sorts of things during his last
press conference before the asteroid will hit and kill everyone.
Other sketches/segments include "Ask a Black Dude" with Paul
Mooney who answers outrageous questions, outtakes from the
Roots DVD, a hilarious look at "The Real World" with an
all-black and one white guy, a reenactment of the "Grand Theft
Auto" game, a look at what happens when two families try "Trading
Spouses", and more.
Moreover,
Chappelle's various characters and impersonations are dead-on. His
news personality is straight-up, wearing heavy white make-up and a
fake toupee. The Johnston character in the "Player Hater's Ball"
sketch is right on, too. Chappelle acts well in most sketches but
sometimes he seems to be only playing himself. The supporting cast
is good, particularly Charlie Murphy, Eddie's older
brother. As I said, the comedy is not always on cue, and some
sketches miss, but overall Chappelle's Show is pretty funny
and original.
THE VIDEO
Paramount presents
Chappelle's Show in its original 1.33:1 fullscreen
format. Colors look just fine, but they depend on the video
source; the color in several sketches is bright and
well-saturated, other segments look a bit fuzzy. Yet detail
appears in good condition. The print image is fairly
good-looking without any major problems. The quality of the
video differs from segment to segment, but overall this is a
nice DVD presentation for a TV show.
THE AUDIO
Paramount presents
Chappelle's Show in English 2.0 Surround Sound. In almost
all cases the dialogue is very clear and easy to understand. The
front channels make a strong effort emitting many different
sounds with decent audio separation. There are no real flaws
here as this DVD presentation sounds better than on TV.
THE EXTRAS
According to the
packaging, the audio commentary by Dave Chappelle and
co-creator Neal Brennan is on five of their favorite
episodes
(1, 6, 9, 10, 12). Whether that's really the case I don't know,
but the two guys end up watching a lot of the stuff on screen
and don't contribute a whole lot of interesting information.
They recall certain sketches and people from the show, as well
as making some funny jokes, but with several gaps in their
conversations these tracks are only moderately entertaining
overall.
The next three
items are found on disc 2. Bloopers/Deleted Scenes lasts
for exactly 30 minutes. Some scenes are not that funny and go on
a bit long, but the majority of the outtakes are enjoyable to
watch. Chappelle and Brennan offer optional commentary
for this segment, but I didn't find their comments all that
interesting. Anyway, there's a bit more raunchy stuff and
uncensored footage to be found here.
Ask a Black Dude
with Paul Mooney (12:20) is more questions and answers with
this funny man, but some of this appears in the actual episodes
also. I guess this featurette is more of a look inside the
making of this segment for the show as Mooney interacts with
other people in the room. The laughs are good in here, so make
sure to watch it. Lastly, there are two Comedy Central
quickies (4:04), previews for Crank Yankers and
Reno 911, two shows in talks to be released on DVD sometime
this year.
FINAL THOUGHTS
While the show's humor
is not always consistent, many of the sketches are original and
entertaining, yet there are some with a little down-time. Video/audio
is just fine, and the extras are moderately entertaining. Recommended
rental, but fans should look into a purchase.
