For this unit, we explored humor across various pieces of literature and other mediums of consumption, all while keeping the end goal of producing our own comedy production in mind. In the beginning, I was quite intimidated by this project. I had never written a comedy piece before and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able too. But through various practice exercises and studying humorists, I was able to start thinking and writing with my own comedic voice.
Humorist Paper
Both a stand-up comic and sketch comic, Dave Chappelle is a master in my two favorite mediums of comedy. Breaking onto the scene as a stand up comic, he eventually landed a TV deal with Comedy Central in the early 2000s in which he created his smash show, “Chappelle’s Show”. But after leaving abruptly after a few seasons, Chappelle returned to his private life. But towards the mid-2010s, Chappelle returned, in his “old” form, stand-up comedy.
A friend and colleague of Chappelle, Chris Rock is another wildly successful comic. At an early age, he was discovered by Eddie Murphy and that landed him a few small roles in some movies. In 1990, Chris Rock joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and remained on the show for three seasons. Throughout this career, like much Chappelle, he continued to do stand up comedy as well as pursuing a career as a comedic actor.
In their stand-up work, both of these comics make immersive use of anecdotal storytelling. They will tell a story and proceed to spin jokes off of the original story. In the end, turning what would sometimes be an ordinary story into a great piece of comedy. In the case of Chappelle, he does this well in “The Age of Spin”. Throughout this stand-up piece, he weaves in the various times he has met OJ Simpson. Each story takes place at different point and time in Chappelle’s lifetime and helps move the comedy piece along. Chappelle’s OJ stories also demonstrate a common technique of his in storytelling: hyperbole. In many of his stories, he adds details or commentary for amplified comedic effect. For example, he recalls a story of one of the times that he meet OJ. It was after his set at a comedy club and OJ came backstage with his wife, Nicole Simpson. He recalls shaking OJ’s hand and his wife gave him a hug to which Chappelle said softly said to her, ‘B**ch, do you wanna get us both killed?!’ (Chappelle). Did Chappelle really say that to OJ’s wife? Did she really give him a hug? These are details that Chappelle most likely added and exaggerated for heightened comedic effect.
Another style that Chappelle has greatly perfected is voice caricatures in his stand-up. His use of voices often ties in with his black humor, often using the voices to represent a caricature of a particular race or ethnicity. For example, one of the recurring characters in Chappelle’s “Killin’ Them Softly” is Dave, his white friend. To make a clear distinction between Chappelle and Dave in his stories, he uses his “Dave” voice, which is meant to sound like what an older, stereotypical “white guy” would sound like according to Chappelle. It is quite impressive how Chappelle can jump between voices in his stories, not only showing off his black humor but his technical skill as well.
Between Chappelle and Rock, they both dive deeply into black humor in their stand up routines, willing to take on topics and material that are very much taboo in pop culture; race, sex, drugs, and inequality. These are subjects that the general public is not often looking to digest when they want to consume comedy. However, Rock and Chappelle address all of these topics thoroughly throughout their stand-up in a way that I find is extremely effective. They can make people laugh while also making their audience think about a serious topic.
The most notable black humor topic between these two comics is racism. They both take on this topic and what it means to be black in very blunt ways. In Rock’s “Bring The Pain”, he spends a large section of the routine to discuss the OJ Simpson case, being it that the special was made in 1996. Rock covers various parts of the case, Rock wasn’t afraid to dive into the race part of the case. In regard to the case, Rock remarks that ‘“black people too happy, white people too mad. The white people like: ‘That is bullsh*t!’ I ain’t seen white people that nasty since they canceled “M.A.S.H.”! Black people: ‘Yes, we won, we won! Yes! We won!’ What the f*ck did we win? Every day I look at the mailbox for my O.J. prize: nothing! Nothing!’” (Rock). While not only making the audience laugh, Rock is engaging them in a discussion about the case and how it pertains to race and how the case highlighted some of the deep-rooted racism in America.
What I found to be most inspiring in Chappelle’s work is his ability to take on topics of serious gravity, not only was this highlighted well in his stand-up, but it was also demonstrated well in his sketch comedy show, Chappelle’s Show. Similar to his stand-up, Chappelle takes on current issues through the use of black humor. This can be seen with his recurring character, Black Bush. The skits involving this character are not only funny and make good use of black humor, but sheds light and insight into current political topics. For example, in one of his Black Bush sketches, he talks about the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and accidentally reveals that the U.S. only invaded that region because of oil interests. I hope to potentially incorporate a similar style of comedy in my work. In which, the content is both funny but also discusses serious topics.
One element of Chris Rock’s comedy that inspired me the most was his facial expressions and “acting”, this can especially be seen in his stand-up. In his best stand-up specials, he has unbelievable stage presence. He uses all aspects of his body to put emphasis on his jokes. This is a good, modern version of slapstick humor to some extent. In Bring The Pain, he moves up and down the stage throughout the show to engage with all parts of the audience but to also keep the energy up. But his specialty is his facial expressions. His facial expressions and eye movements with his jokes help really take his material to a higher level. Both of these elements I hope to carry into my own comedy project. Since I am doing a live performance I want to make sure to engage the whole audience and use my body language to put more emphasis on my jokes.
Another part of Chappelle’s material that I find to be inspiring is his caricatures in his sketches. His ability to poke fun at famous people in our society is unmatched. This is especially well depicted in his sketch comedy. In addition to Black Bush, Chappelle portrays various characters of well-known people. He has appeared in sketches as Rick James, Prince, and R. Kelly, just to name a few. In each of these cases, Chappelle does a great job of taking the physical and personality characteristics of these people and blowing them out of proportion. Going off his caricatures, Chappelle also creates recurring characters for his sketch comedy skits. He has Leonard Washington and Chuck Taylor, stereotypical caricatures of black and white men. These characters are also continuations of Chappelle’s black humor. While I am not planning on this avenue of black humor caricatures, I do find the idea of creating character inspiring and will keep that in mind when creating my own comedy sketch.
Another style of Rock’s comedy that I hope to implement is his dynamic vocal delivery. In addition to his body language, Rock’s delivery of his jokes is very dynamic depending on the tone of the joke that he is trying to emphasize. In Bring The Pain, he will go from a high loud joke to a soft, quieter one. While this is not a unique style of performance, it is effective in adding more punch and gravity to jokes; jokes that without a dynamic delivery, would not be as strong. In comparison to Chappelle, Rock is much more dynamic in his performance while Chappelle relies more heavily on the strength of just the jokes themselves to carry his stand-up. For my project, I definitely want to utilize many of Rock’s acting cues to help make my content stronger in a very simple, yet effective way.
Having studied these two great comics for quite some time, I look forward to using a lot of the knowledge in my own upcoming comedy project.
Works Cited
Central, Comedy, director. Chappelle’s Show – Black Bush. YouTube, YouTube, 30 Dec. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DLuALBnolM&pbjreload=10.
Chappelle, Dave. “The Age of Spin.” 2017.
“Chris Rock.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Oct. 2018, www.biography.com/people/chris-rock-9542306.
“Dave Chappelle.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 29 Jan. 2018, www.biography.com/people/dave-chappelle-538184.
Lathan, Stan, and Dave Chappelle. “Killin’ Them Softly.” 2000.
Rock, Chris. “Bring The Pain.” 1996.
The Script for my Sketch
Owen is sitting idly at a desk playing Tetris on an English laptop and the project is showing him playing Tetris. Ben quickly rushes in, bumbling from enthusiasm. Owen sighs in disgust as he sees Ben approaching
Ben: Yo, Kyle, I’ve decided to work on the humor project with you!
Owen looks slowly up at Ben.
Owen: Ok.
Ben sits down at the table.
Ben: Ok, Ok, Ok, I’m pretty sure we have time to work on it, so lets, uh, let’s plan it yeah! What do you think about a duo stand up routine?
Owen: Sure I think that’s fi–
Ben(Interrupting): No, No, no No, wait wait, what if we did a comedy song, like a musical number?!
Owen: Yeah, I guess that cou–
Ben(Interrupting): Nah that’s stupid, you can’t sing. Uhhh what about a short comedy skit?!
Owen: (sarcastically, in a low voice) Huhuh Look at me I’m Ben Shell
Ben: Nononononononono I GOT IT, A FULL-LENGTH FEATURE COMEDY FILM!!!
Ben is clearing very excited
Owen: Ehhhhhh—
Ben: That’s what we’re doing!!!! Write this down!!!
Owen: Ok…
Owen starts making fun (trash talking) Ben on the Doc for the audience to see
Ben: Alright Alright, when will you be available for scripting and filming and all that stuff?
Owen: I’m available anytime really.
Ben: Awesome! How about next Thursday?
Owen: Nah. I’m not available then.
Ben: But you said you were–
Owen: (At the top of his lungs) NOOOOO. I AM NOT AVAILABLE THEN BENJAMIN!!!
They stare at each other blankly for a moment.
Ben: Ok… (turns back to positive) Well since we’re here, let’s make some jokes. Ughhhh what’s Mr. Flo’s favorite drink? CHAI TEA
Ben immediately starts yucking it up, laughing almost uncontrollably. It is a really bad joke but Ben still think it’s hilarious. After Ben’s laughter begins to die down, Owen follows up with a very pathetic/unnerving laugh.
Ben: (Laughing) Ok, Uhhh. I got another one. So Mr. Greco’s favorite poems are Haiku’s right. Haiku? MORE LIKE HAIPOO
Mr. Greco: HEY!
Mr. Greco stands up in the audience.
Mr. Greco: Hey, Guys, can you wrap it up. This is getting a bit out of hand.
Ben: What? We were just–
Mr. Greco cuts off Ben
Greco: Quite frankly guys, this… this isn’t very funny, I mean seriously like, I know you were trying really hard, but this whole sketch is just a big Joke. (emphasizes it, so that people realize that he is part of the skit)
END