Stand-Up Comedy by Dave Chappelle

Dave Chappelle was credited as writer and actor in the following stand-up comedy set.
At the time, he would have been about 26 years old.
Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly
      2000 | USA | Laughs: 7.8 | imdb: 8.8
      

Unlike his later awful show entitled For What It's Worth, this is a fine set where Dave showcases his keen intelligence (rather than the far more widespread ability to name reproductive organs) and puts it to the service of making us laugh. To great effect, Dave alternates seamlessly between a casual "black" voice and a straight "white" voice, leaving you to wonder how he sounds when he is just himself. Topics include discovering how leniently police handle a white friend of his driving intoxicated, assessing a politician's character, and differences in male-female approaches to storytelling.

Update (2021, eight years later): this set aged well. I've grown increasingly disappointed with Dave's recent sets and wanted to watch this one to check whether his earlier material still worked for me. It does. And some of the topics are painfully current.

(Last viewed: Oct 2013 October 2021)

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Dave Chappelle was credited as writer and actor in the following stand-up comedy set.
At the time, he would have been about 30 years old.
Dave Chappelle: For What It's Worth
      2004 | USA | Laughs: 7.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 8.6
      wikipedia

I discovered Dave Chappelle in the movie Half-Baked, which I hadn't expect to like, but did. I'm a bit sad because I really would like to give Chappelle four stars. When he's good, I love him. He's obviously really bright (good comedians have to be), and it shows in his style, the style of an independent thinker. But why does Dave have to spend half the show talking about the contents of his underpants? Is it to reach a broader audience, or does he really like smut talk? Anyway, for me, if you have such a hard time getting out of your underpants, I don't know if you can get four stars. (Last viewed: March 2011)

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Dave Chappelle was credited as writer and actor in the following stand-up comedy set.
At the time, he would have been about 45 years old.
Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones
      2019 | USA | Laughs: 1.5 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 8.5
      

If you like stand-up comedy sets where the audience laugh wildly at parts of the set-up that weren't even intended to be funny, then this show might be for you.

For me, Dave's stand-up has been going downhill for sometime now. This is not rock-bottom yet (the set probably has three -and-a-half decent bits and isn't particularly crass), but I feel less and less enthusiastic about watching the man's new releases — a shame, as I like him.

If I don't want to be depressed about this state of things, I might just have to wind the clock twenty years and watch Half Baked again tomorrow.

(Last viewed: August 2019)

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Dave Chappelle was credited as writer and actor in the following stand-up comedy set.
At the time, he would have been about 47 years old.
Dave Chappelle: The Closer
      2021 | USA | Laughs: 1.0 | imdb: 8.1
      wikipedia

At the beginning of the show, Dave says it is the last set he will do in a long time. Given the quality of this last entry, I'm not sad about that.

To start with, the show is so full of pregnant pauses that I had to watch it at 130% velocity just to stay awake. Second, the first part of the show is filthy — there's just no need to be that vulgar. Last, it turns out that the main point of the set is for Dave to justify himself to some people he's offended. I can understand the desire to explain oneself, but there are other venues for that — saying what a good guy you actually are is just not good comedy.

My advice: skip this one and watch Killing Them Softly (Dave's set from the year 2000) instead. That's what I plan to do tomorrow in order to erase this insipid blob.

(Last viewed: October 2021)

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Dave Chappelle was credited as writer and actor in the following stand-up comedy set.
At the time, he would have been about 43 years old.
Dave Chappelle: The Bird Revelation
      2017 | USA | Laughs: 0.5 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 7.7
      

Even though I wasn't in too demanding a mood when I sat down (I generally like Dave), I found this to be the dullest piece of stand-up I'd watched in a long while. The delivery was painfully slow, and the jokes (on the theme of Hollywood's harassment scandals) just weren't funny.

For me, the feeling of the first part of the show was "Dave Chappelle trying for the first time to improvise material for an upcoming show". Toward the end, Dave acts like he wants to share a personal story—the reason for him disappearing from show business for twelve years. Maybe this was meant to be therapeutic for Dave, but for my part I prefer to know in advance when my role as spectator is to provide a sympathetic ear: I had come here for comedy, not to give you empathy. (Last viewed: August 2018)

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Dave Chappelle was credited as writer and actor in the following stand-up comedy set.
At the time, he would have been about 43 years old.
Dave Chappelle: Equanimity
      2017 | USA | Laughs: 0.5 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 8.1
      

The worst thing about this show isn't that it's not funny. (Spoiler: it's not funny.) It's that the intonations are all wrong. To my ears, it sounded like the delivery was scripted to the millimeter. Of course we don't expect stand-up comedy to be all improvised, but it shouldn't sound all fake. And that is what it sounded like: fake—with pauses and chuckles in pre-determined places, with emphasis given to certain syllables. I'm not sure whether it was in a Ted talk or a political speech, but I had recently heard a presentation with the emphasis falling in the exact same awkward places. Dave and that guy must have the same trainer. You would think that at this point in his career Dave could handle public speaking more competently. The show was one big disappointment. (Last viewed: August 2018)

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