In this sea of 24 hour war coverage and reality shows, Chappelle's Show is the shining beacon that leads us to the harbor of sanity. Really, I can't think of anything funnier (at least intentionally so) on network TV or non-premium cable. Paul Mooney is fantastic in his "Ask the Black Dude" segment. The skits are usually hit, sometimes miss, but the misses have their moments as well. And he's featured musical guests like Slum Village and Mos Def. To paraphrase the Comedy Central promos, you simply can't miss the first 30 minutes. Right now, TV comedy is absolute crap. Chappelle's, Da Ali G Show, the Daily Show and Scrubs are about the only programs with decent comedy writing.
I'm with you on Chappelle's, Daily Show and Scrubs being the cream of the TV comedy crop right now. I would add some of the shows on Adult Swim. That's pretty much the only comedy that I'm watching anymore. "Ask the Black Dude" is pretty weak though. Nice to give an old comic his due but it's had quickly played out.
I love him, but the skits are certainly hit or miss. The crack addict segments are great, as was the real world one and the racist animal ones from a few weeks ago. But, when the skits are funny, they are amazing, and I still haven't missed a show yet.
Ask a Black Dude was good last night I thought. I'm enjoying Collin Quinn's Tough Crowd on Comedy Central... I hate Collin Quinn's delivery, but his guests are really great most of the time.
R. Kelly's Doo Doo Butter I have to admit that as a whole, it's a great show, but some things are hit n miss. Wu-Tang Financial, probably one of the better skits not mentioned.
I stopped TiVoing this a couple of weeks back. It was intriguing at first but it got dull. There's something about all of the original programming on Comedy Central lately (except Daily Show) that just kinda sucks. I used to love Insomniac and it hasn't been funny in a while, Crank Yankers is just idiotic, and the Colin Quinn show is a downright train wreck.
Although I did hear this crack on Colin Quinn's show last night: "How can the French have designed that awesome maid's outfit and be such total pr!cks about everything else?" Stupid? Yes. Funny? Quite.
Colin Quinn's stuff is quite hit or miss. I think that he makes jokes that alot of people miss because its either a low key delivery or they aren't funny off the bat (you gotta think about them).
It's decent. It's better than the regular black sketch shows, but is it possible for a black guy to have a sketch show and not have half the sketchs involve race?
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the sketch about the girl with big tits. That was hilarious. Comedy Central has released among the best shows in TV ever : Insomniac, Strangers with Candy, Daily Show, TV Funhouse and the king MST3K. Yet they also released some real bad ones (Stripmall, Battlebots, the Project Greenlights spoof).
The thing is though, race is a big deal if you're black and live in America. And comedy is supposed to supposed to be a commentary on real life, no? Plus, when Dave brings in race, it's usually a satire of the old "black guy walk like this, white guy walk like this" schtick.
I imagine it is. But is it all they care about? You mean there isn't more to life than race? Sometimes, and I find it funny. But of the shows I've seen, more than 50% of it is devoted to some type of racial topic, some of which is good, but it's overkill on one topic. The one nice thing I could say about Living Color is that all their skits didn't have to be about race.
You would have a point if the majority of Chappelle's Show was devoted to race. I'm not keeping score but I don't get the impression that his show is dependent on race.
Is it possible for other comedians to not make jokes about the usual standbys: relationships, jobs, sex, money? Sure there are plenty of bad black comedians who rely on race for material way to much, just as there are plenty of white comedians who rely on one theme too much. All of those topics are things common to a wide number of people and they can all relate to it. That's why it gets used so much.