HOME / television: What you're watching.

Chappelle on ChappelleWhy the "lost" episodes are genius.

By Troy PattersonUpdated Friday, July 7, 2006, at 5:23 PM ET

Dave ChappelleI am of several minds about Comedy Central's request that we refer to the final three episodes of Chappelle's Show (Sundays at 9 p.m. ET) as "The Lost Episodes." It's a widely known fact that their creator—Dave Chappelle, essentially the anointed heir of Richard Pryor—walked away from the network shortly after shooting the skits therein last year. You could argue that the episodes aren't so much lost as abandoned, maybe even renounced.

RSS

And yet the elements that give this coming Sunday's bitterly funny episode its punch all derive from its delirious lost-in-the-funhouse quality. Pardon my French, but this is a high-postmodern masterpiece that finds the comedian at the top of his game. Like Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound and The Anatomy Lesson—the famous novelist's famous novels about the creative and emotional problems of a famous novelist—it's self-reflective and self-rueful. Like Don DeLillo's White Noise—and like the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Mo Money Mo Problems," for that matter—it makes playful entertainment out of paranoia. Like Spike Lee's Girl 6 and the sorely underrated Bamboozled—it makes savage jokes about race and showbiz in America, humor that exists in the daring sweet spot where good conscience overlaps with bad taste and vice versa.

As it happens, Lee even shows up in one skit: The premise is that Chappelle, the newly minted zillionaire, has motivations identical to those of The Bride, Uma Thurman's Kill Bill vixen. He's getting even with those who dissed him before he made it big—comedy-club owners, chesty exes, etc. When it's time for Chappelle to avenge himself on a female casting agent, he buys commercial time on the Super Bowl so that Spike can tell America about the time she called him a "nigga on the set of Jungle Fever." Part of Chappelle's charm is that he makes all this dangerous material look effortless. That's also part of the reason why all the dark comedy is so haunting: This is a guy who can turn a bit of stoner-comedy absurdism into a commentary on the posthumous exploitation of Tupac Shakur and then turn around and do a bit of jujitsu with anyone who would joke about the fact that his wife is Asian.

Of course, you could also argue that the episodes are a document of Chappelle himself having been lost—adrift and conflicted, burnt out by hype and guilt-struck by success, and wondering very sincerely about whether, when it comes to the way his charged racial humor is received, he's part of the problem. We should have seen this coming. These skits share their points of view with the logo of the comedian's production company, Pilot Boy: Every episode of Chappelle's Show ends with an image of its host wearing heavy shackles on his wrists, holding many green bills in his hands, and arching his eyebrows in a way you can't quite read. It's rich.

E-MAIL

RECOMMEND... Get Slate RSS Feeds

Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic.

Photograph of Dave Chappelle by Danielle Levitt.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Lost episodes? Pah...I hate to be the devil's advocate here, but on the other side of things, isn't Chappelle just a celebrity who turned his back on his devoted following and $50 million dollars for artistically conflicted reasons, leaving his fans in a fog uncertainty while he attempted to find himself on a spiritual retreat in South Africa?

With Comedy Central, one of the hottest tickets on basic cable, he managed to gain the most important elements for a performer on television; his own show, a critical and devoted fan base, and a soapbox for his original material and ideas, heralded and hyped by most as brilliance and comic genius.

How the mighty have fallen. There's no doubt that TV needed a jolt like Chappelle, but where is the glory and the dream now? Apparently in these few remaining "lost" episodes.

To me, Chappelle seems like a caustic whiner. Following his announced departure, he made the rounds to all the major pop junk magazines, your Datelines and 20/20s, treading rhetorical water, attempting in some way to appease his fans and explain his much ballyhooed bon voyage from the success he apparently suffered for. When the pressure of execs and creative decisions became far too great, Chappelle turned the other cheek and ran instead of standing up for his art.

So while he seeks new outlets for his so-called groundbreaking comedy routine, fans are merely left with the mystery, the man, and his soaked Underoos as Comedy Central lowers the flag half-staff for Chappelle. Somewhere near the friscalating dusklight on the horizon, you can hear Chappelle on cold, starry nights, "I'M RICH, BIATCH!", leaving his fans far behind.

--laddman

(To reply, click here.)

(7/9)

What did you think of this article?

Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum

POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES