The David Chappelle Mystery Grows



Above: Dave as the mysterious Prince is now equally as curious a figure. (via beatsandrants)

Wow. Crazy shit, what happened to Dave Chappelle, right? (The Corsair self-consciously kicks at an acorn) It's almost too uncomfortable to talk about considering how universally well loved the guy is. Uhm, what exactly .. happened?

Everyone now has an urban legend about Chappelle. Even the heavily censored Chappelle Forum has leaked out some interesting stuff. My man "Pookie," from 125th street, for example, said he heard Dave was on "the rock," but ... as there are no AP stories out on the subject (Averted Gaze), so, we'll regard Pookie's Tale (TM) as just another Chappelle Urban legend. Whether the stopping of Comedy Central's highest rated show (One that The Corsair and probably residing in the snarkier precincts of the blogophere anticipated with baited breath) is due to "creative differences," or "writer's block" or "too much partying" or "nervous breakdown"(We truly hope not) ... whatever -- no one knows, period. It's all just wild speculation until motherfucking Paul Mooney hits the talk show circuit and tells us how the shit went down, on the real.

Goddamned mysterious, this, though (The Corsair whistles). There will no doubt be stories of "That's what happens when you give a black man $50 million," and ignorance of that sort. The silence, though, is deafening. And if, as The Defamer cleverly devised, Dave has spent it all on a "bean bag chair sized bag" of the sweet leaf, well ... IMHO, The Corsair has always believed that after the age of 30, one should just stop smoking marijuana on principle (Excepting, of course, the occasional chocolate-Thai blunt while reading the Sunday Times, with big mug of Kenyan blend coffee at the ready and Francois Couperin on the stereo). There is something just ... unseemly ... about someone over 30 hitting a joint, especially when on work deadline. Weed and grown up responsibilities just don't mesh. That's why weed in college is such an "organic" fit.

But we digress: There are lots of talks of monsters with regards to what would have been. Like this, according to The Lowdown:

"Why did Comedy Central abruptly halt production last week on high-priced talent Dave Chappelle's 'Chappelle's Show'? A Lowdown spy answers: diva-esque tantrums. 'A couple days before Chappelle stopped showing up altogether, he was shooting this sketch about three black monsters living together,' says the spy. 'He's all dressed up in a wolfman's costume ... and it's just embarrassingly unfunny. Finally he gets fed up and yells in front of all these production hacks that make $100 a day, Putting up with this s--- isn't even worth $50 million! The spy commented: 'What a jerk.' Chappelle's rep didn't respond to detailed messages yesterday."

And, another monster in Newsweek:

"It is November 2004, just a few weeks into shooting on the third season of 'Chappelle's Show'?a process that will soon become far more tortured than anyone ever expected. At the moment, though, all is tranquil. Today's scenes are part of a delicately titled sketch, 'The N----r Pixie,' in which Chappelle plays a cackling, devil-on-the-shoulder creation who serves as the self-hating conscience of famous black men, such as Tiger Woods and Chappelle himself. Hence the racially combustible costume. In Chappelle's universe, this is high comedy?the kind of brazen stunt that has become his show's calling card. As he heads back for another take, he flashes the journalist a giant grin: 'Bet you never met a real live coon before!'"

Could it be -- as has been suggested elsewhere -- that the network execs at Comedy Central thought this material too "racially incendiary"? Richard Pryor had this same problem back in the days of his legendary sitcom (Where, incidentally, Chappelle Show writer Paul Mooney also worked) which got into such pitched combat with network exec censors that it got axed after only 4 *classic* shows (Why don't you already have this DVD?). That's hard to believe, though. Although, of course, the execs at Comedy Central are most probably all white, this is a comedy network. The first rule of Comedy is that anything goes. Anything. Incest humor, black jokes, AIDS jokes -- everything is on the table (That's also why comedians are the most simultaneously fucked up and cool people you will ever meet).

It's hard to imagine how Dave Chappelle could be unfunny, but, as Lloyd Grove says (and he's been on a roll lately avec scoop) that might just be it. If that's the case, or Dave is pulling the diva card on creative differences, then -- and this won't be funny -- the haha network will probably bring suit. Anyway, Let's just suspend judgment until someone talks to Paul Mooney.