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"I'm Rick James, bitch!"

Chappelle's Show is a Comedy Central sketch comedy show starring comedian-turned-actor Dave Chappelle that ran for two (or two-and-a-half) short seasons on Comedy Central. It is mainly known for spawning a slew of catchphrases and memes (including the Rick James quote mentioned above) and becoming one of the poster boys for a show simply being too good to last.

A stealth hit (Dave even joked in a season 2 promo that the show was only renewed because Comedy Central needed a show to fill in time on the schedule until Reno 911! came back), the series came into its own with its second season, becoming a massive success in terms of reception and ratings. As such, there was much hype and anticipation for the show's third season as Dave signed a massive contract with Comedy Central that granted him a large paycheck and a considerable cut of DVD sales for the show. It was smooth sailing for the show from there on in...

...or at least that might've been the case, as it was reported that Dave went missing after filming three episodes' worth of sketches for his show, ultimately resurfacing in South Africa, while the season 3 premiere date came and went with no show in sight.

As fans would find out, Dave had become disillusioned with fame and the show. His edgy, in-your-face racial humor was being taken at face value by his now-predominately-white fanbase, culminating in him coming to the conclusion that he had become the very thing he was mocking with his racially charged material. Adding to this was Comedy Central, who had given the show free rein for the first two seasons, suddenly sticking their noses into the production of the program, and Dave falling out with Neal Brennan, his partner and the co-creator of the show, who was reportedly more concerned with keeping the gravy train running than with his crisis (although Neal and others argue that this wasn't the case).

The network, tired of waiting, ultimately aired the filmed sketches as "the Lost Episodes" with introductions from Dave's co-stars, Charlie Murphy and Donnell Rawlings. This did not go over well with Dave, who felt betrayed since he had told Comedy Central repeatedly that any deal to have him come back would hinge on the sketches he had filmed never seeing the light of day. This effectively ended the series, as Dave has since returned to doing stand-up full-time, leaving fans with the memories of the show and what could have been. Meanwhile, Comedy Central has tried to continue the format of minority-led stand-up and sketch comedy in a series format, resulting in a Tough Act to Follow the network alongside perceived cases of Follow the Leader, whether or not these are accurate.

After eleven years, several of the show's most popular characters were brought back one more time when Dave hosted Saturday Night Live in a rare public appearance since walking away from the job.


This show provides examples of:

  • Adam Westing:
    • Ice-T's guest appearance As Himself in "The Playa Haters' Ball" has him playing an exaggerated caricature of his public persona.
    • Two words: Wayne Brady.
  • Affably Evil: The gay chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
  • Anachronistic Soundtrack: Intentional example in "Tupac is Still Alive". The sketch revolves around Dave dancing to a previously-unreleased Tupac Shakur song which contains references to things that occurred after his death, such as the popularity of BlackBerry cell phones, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, George W. Bush, Eminem and the War in Afghanistan. The whole time, Pac insists that the song was written and recorded in 1994. Pac then breaks the fourth wall and starts commenting on things happening in the club, such as calling Dave out for being there when he's got a wife and two kids at home.
  • All Men Are Perverts: Dave posits that this is the reason a guy version of What Women Want couldn't be made; a woman having unfiltered access to the thoughts of several men (and a teenage boy) in an elevator is not a fun time for her but all the guys have a laugh about it once she leaves.
  • Annoying Pop-Up Ad: One season 2 skit depicted what the internet would be like if it was a real place. During his travels inside the 'net, Dave unwittingly stumbles upon a pop-up ad that keeps re-appearing, temporarily trapping him in a loop, and driving him nuts. At the end of the skit, he cold clocks both the bureaucrat and roulette croupier that kept trapping him in pop-ups.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In order, Wayne Brady commits a drive-by, collects his pimp money, forces Dave to smoke PCP, kills a cop, and eats Dave's sandwich.
  • As the Good Book Says...: When confronted by friends and family about how crack is ruining his life, Tyrone tries his hand at quoting John 8:7, but ends up with his own version of the verse:
    "Y'all act like crack is so bad! Well, like the Good Book says: 'let he who is without sin, throweth the first rock; and I shalt smoketh it!'"
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: One of the sketches has Dave growing huge and attacking Tokyo in a parody of Godzilla...then he makes love to a volcano.
  • Audible Gleam
  • Author Appeal: While talking about the "Time Haters" skit, Silky Johnson & co. traveling to a 1800s plantation and insulting and killing a taskmaster made the show come to a screeching halt.
    Dave: (recovering from hysterics) Apparently, shooting a slave master is only funny to me and Neal; if I could, I'd do it every episode!
  • Badass Boast:
    Rick James: I'm the baddest motherfucker alive! I'm the greatest singer of all time! I'm the best looking motherfucker you've ever seen! Hold my drink, bitch...
    Tyrone Biggums (before getting into a box full of worms): Imma tell you something about me, Joe Rogan, that you might not know. I smoke rocks!
  • Beware the Silly Ones: Prince might dress and act like a weirdo, but he will destroy you in a game of hoops!
    "Game...Blouses..."
  • Big "WHAT?!": "WHAT?!"...."WHAT?!"...."OKAAAAAAAAAY".
  • Black Comedy: And how, jokes about racism, drug use, murder and rape.
  • Black Is Bigger in Bed: According to Paul Mooney, the old saying is, "Once you go black, you don't come back...and when you go white, you go running back to black."
  • Blind Black Guy: Clayton Bigsby, who grew up not knowing he was black and became a white supremacist.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In-Universe example, Tupac Shakur begins rapping about things happening in the club his "old" song is playing in. He criticizes a woman's choice of clothes, admonishes another patron for not tipping the bartender and making the record skip by hitting the DJ's table, and calls out Dave Chappelle for being out clubbing when he has a wife and two kids at home.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: Tyrone Biggums, of all people. One sketch shows him studying for exams. He actually ends up successfuly passing the exams and becomes a certified real estate agent. It is then revealed that he only did that so he could sell a couple's house for crack money. However, the fact that he actually managed to get a diploma implies that Tyrone could be successful in life if it wasn’t for his crippling crack addiction.
  • Call-Back: Wayne Brady's heroic sociopath end of season guest spot was set up way early in season two, with a sketch where the tame and rather non-threatening comic is mocked by way of Paul Mooney saying "white people love Wayne Brady because he makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X." Said scene is even played back during Wayne Brady's guest spot.
    • Few people are aware that the Hilarious in Hindsight element of the Negrodamus line was unintentional on Dave's part. Wayne Brady was a major reason the penultimate season two episode existed in the first place. Wayne Brady, in an interview on The Steve Harvey Morning Show, claimed that he disliked the Negrodamus joke. He didn't mind the joke being used at his expense, but he DID mind that it was (to him) completely unfunny. So Chappelle, who respected Brady very much, gave Brady a call to come onto the show, and they collaborated on that infamous Training Day parody. The rest is history.
      • That parody actually involved a fair few Call Backs, including Dave's "son"'s love for Nick Cannon and Dave's daydream of being a rapper with goat legs.
    • Season 2 had a lot of callbacks outside of the Brady episode. In the jury selection sketch, Dave is asked by a prosecutor what proof he would need to identify R. Kelly in his infamous "pee tape". He starts his ridiculous list of demands with, "He would have to be singing 'Piss On You'."
  • The Cameo: Jamie Foxx as "Black Tony Blair" in the Black Bush sketch. Mos Def also pops up there and in a couple other sketches.
  • Camp Gay: Every man (aside from Kent Wallace, the reporter) in the Gay America sketch from the episode from the second season that featured sketches that weren't fit to air.
  • Can't Hold His Liquor: One of the unaired "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories" segments (also without an accompanying skit) chronicled the exploits of "Darryl" (commonly believed to have been Clint Smith), a childhood friend of Eddie's and member of his entourage who had a bit of a Napoleon complex while sober, but became about fifty times worse with alcohol and was an incredibly abusive, mean, and violent drunk.
  • Capitalism Is Bad: The "WacArnold's" skit satirizes some of McDonald's commercials by showing a young African-American man named Calvin who gets a job at the McDonald's ersatz while the narrator explains the benefits of working at the company in a set of commercials. Though with each commercial, it portrays it in a less appealing manner: one woman who had congratulated Calvin had died from eating cheap, high cholesterol foods from WacArnold's; his Black majority neighborhood's economic well-being is no better than it was prior to the WacArnold's restaurant opening; and Calvin can't adequately care for his family on his minimum wage job.
  • Catchphrase: See the page quote, which, oddly enough, was only used in one sketch. Dave was much more prone to using "bitch" and its variants as a catchphrase (see the entry on This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!).
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: One of the many humiliations that Darius endures at his grandmother's house in his "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong" skit:
    Darius: GRANNY, DON'T!
    Grandma: Well, hurry the hell up and finish yourself off, Darius! Unlike you, I'm gettin' a little action tonight, you punk bitch!
  • Character Development: The "The Three Daves" skit, in which Dave talks about how he's been at least three different people in the (then) past 12 years. He then explores how eighteen!Dave, twenty-four!Dave and Dave!prime react to different situations.
  • Ching Chong:
    • In a skit about the blind, black white supremacist Clayton Bigsby, the character refers to this at one point when talking about Chinese people.
    • Rick James (played by Dave), in the third part of the sketch about him, makes a string of ching chong noises after announcing the name of the bar he is at, the "China Club".
  • Clip Show: Or "Mix Tape" as Dave called them. The series had several, including several based around the music acts featured in the show.
  • Creepy Monotone: Prince
  • D-Cup Distress: Inverted in It's a Wonderful Breast; Sheila, the sketch's main character laments how much of an inconvenience her large breasts are, when an Almighty Janitor shows her what the world would be like if they were smaller, culminating in her next door neighbor blowing up the world out of having nothing to live for (Sheila's breasts gave him some degree of consolation). By the end of the sketch, she not only embraces her cup size, but also ponders getting implants.
  • Death Glare: Prince gives one, after Charlie Murphy mocks his and the Revolution's androgynous attire, and laughs hysterically at the idea of Prince playing basketball.
  • Deconstruction: Season 1 had a skit where Dave showed the consequences of what would happen if reparations for slavery were actually sent out, i.e. if the black community suddenly found itself quite wealthy. These consequences included chicken shooting up to $600 a bucket, 800 record labels being started in just an hour, and Colin Powell bitch-slapping Dick Cheney. The idea was reconstructed at the same time, however, with Sprint's stock going up after thousands of delinquent phone bills were paid off and the crime rate falling to 0%.
    • There was also a recurring sketch called "Real Movies", where Dave showed what certain movies would look like if they were actually realistic, such as a version of The Matrix in which it turns out that when Neo was called by Morpheus while in his office, Morpheus was just "Earl from down the hall" and needed to borrow Neo's stapler.
    • There was also a sketch showing what would happen if people really did "keep it real." The answer? Prison time, savage beatings, and career ruination.
    • Parodied old-school McDonald's commercials that claimed how the franchise was really beneficial to low-income neighborhoods by providing many easy jobs. Two months after "Calvin" has been working there, he's frequently mugged (because they know he has a steady paycheck), has lost all respect from his peers, and his girlfriend cheats on him while he's at work.
  • Defiant to the End: Even as he's having both of his legs broken by the Murphy brothers, Rick James never stops hurling insults at them.
  • Delusions of Grandeur: Rick James accuses Charlie Murphy of having this, which is why he felt the need to "keep him in line" so to speak.
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: During the "Black Bush" sketch, as Bush is insulting the UN.
    Black!Bush: Go sell some medicine, bitches! I'm tryin' to get that oil! (pretends to cough) Oh-oh! (looks around nervously)
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In one "Player Haters' Ball" skit, Ice-T dips into this:
    Ice-T: Next motherfucker that interrupts me is gettin' shot. Please believe that.
  • Drafting Mechanic: The "Racial Draft" sketch Parodies the drafts held by the big sports leagues in North America by having the "teams" be various racial groups and the "players" be various celebrities with some kind of mixed-race or ethnic background.
  • Dramatization: Parodied with Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories.
  • Drugs Are Bad: Semi-parodied with Tyrone Biggums, who is "the kookiest crackhead in the town." His behavior includes smoking rocks, winning Fear Factor by not being surprised with the stunts, promoting a energy drink made from cocaine which leads him to lift up a bus just to get a penny and break out of prison through the wall, and stealing a kid's lunch money for his crack fix.
  • Drugs Are Good: Episode 1-4 featured a parody of the TRUTH.com anti-smoking ads ("TRUF.com") in which the announcer says that cigarette smoking causes "feelings of euphoria, increased alertness, rises in short-term memory, and can have a calming effect on nerves."
    Dave: And they're not bad after unprotected sex with multiple partners, neither.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: During the Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories skit about Prince, Charlie Murphy remarks how Micki Free, a member of Prince's crew, looked like a girl.
    "When he joined the group, I heard mad cats like, 'Yo, Shalamar got a new girl in there, man, that bitch fine like a motherfucker.' They was talking about Micki Free, man, okay? Micki Free is not a girl."
  • Emergency Presidential Address: Chappelle mocked Deep Impact by having his black president (in response to a headline of "Asteroid Coming... Black President's Fault") reveal various secrets the U.S. government were hiding from the public and then give a "So Long, Suckers!" speech to the nation as he beamed off the doomed Earth with his alien friend.
  • Euphemism Buster: A parody of a PBS Frontline documentary has the narrator (a white man) warn viewers:
    Narrator: For viewers sensitive to issues of race, be advised that the following piece contains gratuitous use of the "N" word.
    (Beat)
    Narrator: And by the "N" word, I mean "Nigger".
    (beat)
    Narrator: There, I said it.
  • Excrement Statement: Because one could not parody R. Kelly without one at the time.
  • For the Evulz: The Playa Haters do their activities of hating on people because... they hate people. They go as far with their hate as to commit what is essentially criminal activity, for example Silky Johnson winning the "Hater of the Year" award for calling in a bomb threat to the Special Olympics.
  • From Bad to Worse: Tyrone Biggums’ classroom visit.
    The Teacher: I thought the worst was over. I was mistaken.
    Tyrone: That, children, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack!
  • Full-Name Basis: Every male to Rick James.
  • Fur and Loathing: Spoofed a couple of ways.
    • In the "Player Haters' Ball" skit, Dave plays wearing Pimp Duds, and when some guys mock his coat, he throws it back at them, saying "it was made from yo mamma's pubic hair!".
    • In a skit where he meets with an ex, he convinces her to run away with him. She wears her rabbit fur coat so she can be Pretty in Mink when they meet again, but it was part of a prank. He's still with his family, and he mocks her fur as the family gets in their limo.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: "Player Haters' Ball" features a whole convention of them.
  • Hatedom: The Haters In-Universe, who hate on anything and everything, especially each other.
  • Hidden Depths: Tyrone Biggums can actually be smart when he puts his mind to it as one sketch shows him successfuly passing exams and becoming a real estate agent.
  • Hilarious Outtakes: Parodied with the Roots gag reel.
  • Honor Before Reason: During the "World Series of Dice" skit, a gang led by Rodney "Quills" Dinkins breaks in to the game with the intent to rob the players and spectators. The Stoic Leonard Washington is not fazed, and refuses to hand over his money.
    Dinkins: What you waitin' for, cool breeze?! Get butt naked right now! Get it off, son!
    Washington: First of all, you better check your tone with me, man. I don't think you know who you talkin' to. I'm Leonard Washington. I don't get butt naked for nobody. You want this roll, nigga? You gonna have to shoot me.
    (Beat)
    Dinkins: [deadpan] Okay. [casually shoots Leonard in the kneecap and takes the money out of his hands]
    Washington: (collapses, Phiuck Yu catches him) This nigga gone lost his god damn mind!
  • Identical Grandson: Referenced in the Time Haters skit, when Silky Johnson, Buck Nasty, Beautiful, and Phyuck Yu go back in time to an 1800s plantation, complete with slaves. Then again, it was Charlie Murphy Acting for Two...
    Silky: Good god! Incarcerated African-Americans! Slaves, if you will! Gentlemen, these men work for the minimumest of wages—grits and tattered clothes!
    Buck Nasty: Man, these cats ain't even got shoes on! I could never go out like that!
    Silky: Buck Nasty, show a little respect. One of these men could be your great-grandpappy.
    (Buck nasty look at the slaves in surprise, only for one of the slaves—who looks just like Buck Nasty—to return the look)
  • Immediate Self-Contradiction: Rick James makes a comment about ruining Eddie Murphy's couch that very easily comes off this way, though he might have meant that he did it with purpose rather than just as "something to do". Either way, it sounds ridiculous enough to get a Rewind, Replay, Repeat treatment.
    Rick James: I mean, what am I gonna do, just jump up and grind my feet into somebody's couch like it's something to do? Come on, I have a little more sense than that. (beat) Yeah, I remember grinding my feet in Eddie's couch.
  • It Amused Me: Rick James's rationale for grinding his muddy boots in Eddie Murphy's couch.
    Rick James: Yeah, I remember grinding my feet in Eddie's couch.
    Neal Brennan: Do you remember why you did it?
    Rick James: Because Eddie could buy another one.
  • Jerkass: In-universe, the Hater Of The Year Award is given to the biggest one that year.
  • Left It In: In one segment, a reporter is investigating a Jedi abuse scandal analogous to the Catholic priest pedophilia scandals. While interviewing a "Jarth Mader", an anonymous victim who wears a helmet and has a respiration problem, Mader puts his head in his hands in tears. The reporter says "Cut" to the cameraman, but mouths the words "keep rolling" since Mader's not looking.
  • Motor Mouth: The "Lemme holla at ya" guy
  • Mundane Made Awesome: The Slow Motion skits would turn Dave from a complete loser to a total badass when they "replayed" the video in slow motion. (The slo-mo replays were actually different clips that followed a similar sequence of events to that of the regular-motion clips, but the events played out in Dave's favor in the slo-mo videos (except when he sat on the toilet).)
  • Neck Snap: In the Wayne Brady sketch, both Chappelle and Wayne are pulled over by a traffic cop. Wayne uses his white-friendly image to charm the cop, then snaps his neck to get out of a potential ticket.
  • No Indoor Voice: The Sam Jackson Beer sketch.
    "NO I CAN'T STOP YELLING, CAUSE THAT'S HOW I TALK! HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN MY MOVIES?! JUICE?! THAT WAS A GOOD ONE! DEEP BLUE SEA?! THEY ATE ME, A FUCKING SHARK ATE ME! DRINK, BITCH! JURASSIC PARK?!"
  • N-Word Privileges: Nigga, this show loved playing with this.
    • Case in point: "The Niggar Family", about a (white) family with a very unlikely last name.
    • Also subverted in the extended Paul Mooney interview for "Ask a Black Dude" in the season 1 DVD special features. After Mooney ends his answer to Stephen King's question by saying that he wrote a horror film called "Niggas in School", one of the white guys off camera repeats the title while laughing, which makes Mooney laugh as well.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: As Charlie Murphy tells his Prince and Rick James stories, he has to insert that he's not lying. It helps that both Prince and Rick James have confirmed the stories, albeit just tweaked for comedic effect as well as their own idea of the events. Micki Free himself has also confirmed the Prince story to be true.
    "After it was all over, he took us in the house and served us pancakes. (Beat) Pancakes."
  • No, You: In one of the interludes with the audience, Dave mentions how his post-"Piss On You" conversation with R. Kelly went:
    R. Kelly: How you gonna make a video about peeing on somebody?
    Dave: Nigga, how you gonna make a video about peeing on somebody?
  • Once an Episode: The same extra doing The Robot.
  • Orphaned Series: After Comedy Central aired the filmed sketches for season three, Dave Chappelle pretty much disowned the show outright (up until they announced they would air the filmed sketches, Chappelle claimed that he was open to coming back but the decision to air those sketches burnt those bridges).
  • Overly Long Gag: The Lil' Jon sketches (WHAT?!) I said, the Lil' Jon sketches (WHAT?!) the Lil' Jon sketches! (O-KAAY!)
  • Parody Commercial: A staple of the show—"The Love Contract," "Samuel L. Jackson Beer," Roots on DVD with "outtakes"....
  • The Place Which Must Not Be Seen: Walbogs, the department store in which many of the fictional products from the Parody Commercials is sold. Unlike the various other fictional establishments such as WacArnold's and Popcopy, we never see a Walbogs store.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Used by Buck-Nasty in the Time Haters sketch...
    Slave Master: (brandishing a whip) You better watch yo' mouth!
    Buck Nasty: Actually, you better watch yo' mouth, before I stick these gators up your ass and show your insides some style!
  • Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Parodied in the pilot episode.
    White Kids: Did he just call us ni***s? AWESOME!
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: At the end of the extended Paul Mooney interview for "Ask a Black Dude" in the season 1 DVD special features, someone off camera asks Mooney who he thinks came up with the questions. When he guesses that it was a combination of "Dave and the white writer," everyone tells him they were real questions asked by those who were interviewed. He doesn't believe it at first and insists that all of those people should have been arrested for asking such questions.
    • This is also true of Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories. While the tales themselves are over exaggerated to the extreme for the show, many of the actual events mentioned in Charlie Murphy's monologues were confirmed by both Prince and Rick James in interviews (Rick James even confirmed the Prince story in unreleased interview footage from his episode).
  • Refuge in Audacity: Watching even one episode will make that abundantly clear.
  • Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Happens once during Rick James' interview, when he denies, and shortly afterwards confirms, that he did in fact grind his feet in Eddie Murphy's couch to show him up.
  • Rule of Funny: In the "I Know Black People" game show, the question asked is "Is pimpin' easy?" All of the white contestants (accurately) answer, "Pimpin' ain't easy!". The only black person in the contest thinks it over for a moment, and responds, "Hell yeah!" Ding!
    Host!Dave: Somehow, that is correct!
  • Running Gag: "Cocaine is a hell of a drug." Mildly amusing the first time, downright hilarious by the time it's finally said in context.
    Rick James: I mean, can you imagine two grown men doing this?... Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
    • Dave's character Chuck Taylor is a white guy who gets progressively whiter in each episode he appears in. In his final appearance he is almost literally white.
    • References to the lets-just-say "legal problems" of R. Kelly (and less frequently, OJ Simpson's).
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Parodied by inversion in "Tron Carter's Law & Order". In response to the Enron scandal, Dave did a skit where the titular Tron got the lenient, white-collar treatment and got to plead the "fif" in front of Congress while his white-collar business counterpart got treated harshly, abused, and sentenced to life in prison. And in a month, Tron will be out and back to trafficking rocks... to the community.
  • Self-Deprecation
    • A lot of jokes came from Dave's supposed inability to satisfy women sexually. Also:
      Little Girl: Hey, you're Chris Rock!
      Dave: Dave Chappelle, but close enough.
    • Also the entire point of the "Three Daves" sketch.
  • Self-Serving Memory: Rick James seems to have this, though most of this could be attributed to cocaine being a hell of a drug. Aside from the already mentioned denial (than admission) of grinding his muddy boots into Eddie Murphy's couch:
    [Recounting sucker punching Charlie Murphy at Studio 54 later in the evening to some bitches] "So then, he walks in to the club, and I'm like "Look bitch, I'm Rick James!" And I slapped him!"

    [after getting slapped silly by Charlie Murphy in revenge for slapping him at the China Club, five minutes earlier] That was weeks ago, motherfucker!
  • Shout-Out: Both editions of Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories contained numerous references to both Rick James and Prince's careers.
    Charlie: (while playing basketball) Hey Prince, man, you got a towel? It's kinda hot out here.
    Prince: Why don't you purify yourself, in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?
    • The premise of the famous Wayne Brady sketch takes its cue from Training Day, right down to Wayne forcing Dave to smoke PCP.
  • Show Within a Show: I Know Black People, The Mad Real World, and Mooney on Movies.
  • Side Effects Include...: Some of the side effects of Ribs include laziness, high cholesterol, barbeque stains, wile bowels, doo-doo smelling worse, and mud butt.
  • Sketch Comedy: The basic format of the show.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Wayne Brady. Is Wayne Brady gonna hafta choke a bitch?
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Black Tony Blair, as played by Jamie Foxx in the "Black Bush" sketch.
    Black Blair: (in posh accent) We don't know much about Saddam, but we can't trust random niggas with things like that, as George so eloquently put it.
  • Sorry Ociffer: Several skits show various reactions to this. In one instance, the stoned driver convinces the cop to smoke his weed, and then speeds off.
  • Special Guest: Nick Cannon appears as himself in a sketch. After being picked over Dave for a project. Dave's son thinks he's "hilarious", Dave doesn't.
    "I'm BROKE, son, I'm BROKE!"
    "FUCK Nick Cannon!"
  • The Stoner: Dave-at-24 is portrayed as such in The Three Daves sketch; when harassing two police officers, he yells "And you know what? I am high. I'm HIGH!;" 30-year-Dave mentions he's a reefer addict; and he closes the sketch by telling the audience "Hey hey hey hey... smoke weed everyday."
  • Strawman Political: Chuck Taylor, the preppy, white newscaster Dave Chappelle played.
  • Subverted Kids' Show: The show had one sketch where puppets (voiced by the regulars of the show) taught the kids about things like homelessness, drugs, masturbation, and STDs.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Tupac's latest hit which was definitely written in 1994. No doubt about it.
  • Tempting Fate: "What? What, he gonna smack me back? I'm Rick James! He's Charlie Murphy!"
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Apart from the obvious one, the show used a few more this a lot:
    "Konichiwa, bitches."
    "Thank you, bitches."
    "Mmm, mmm, bitch!"
    "It's a celebration, bitch!"
    "Kiss the rings, bitch."
    "Yes, I'm sure, bitch!"
    "What's really hood, bitch?"
    "I'm Wayne Brady, bitch!"
    "Spambusters, bitch!"
    "That's 'cause she is never gonna know about it, bitch!"
    "Go sell some medicine, bitches!"
    "Do you guys want some grapes...Bitches..."
  • Token Black Friend: Inverted with Neal Brennan, Dave's white best friend.
  • Token White: When Chappelle brings up how The Real World always puts one black guy around six of the craziest white people the show can find, he decides to reverse the roles in a sketch titled The Mad Real World. (Hoboken!) True to form, Chad, the sole white guy in the house is terrorized to no end by the blacks living with him; including but not limited to having his girlfriend stolen from him and his dad getting stabbed.
    • The entire sketch had a much darker origin, as a Take That! against MTV and the producers of The Real World. Dave Chappelle is close friends with Dave Edwards, a comedian who was kicked out of the second incarnation of The Real World under similar circumstances.
  • Uncle Tom Foolery: Deconstructed, inverted, parodied, and in every other way turned on its head. Sadly, this was lost on at least a few people.
    • Ironically enough, this was the very reason why Dave Chappelle decided not to go on with the show. He felt he became what he was mocking.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Wayne Brady.
  • White Dude, Black Dude: Played with in a few skits.
  • White Like Me: Chuck Taylor, as well as when Dave plays the white dad in the Trading Spouses skit and the white pixie in the "Racial Pixies" skit.
  • You Are What You Hate: The skit "Black White Supremacist" featured a blind black man, named Clayton Bigsby, who grew up in an orphanage, unaware of his own race and became a prominent white supremacist writer and Klan leader. His best friend makes sure he is never seen in public out of his robes and doesn't tell him he's black out of fear that he will kill himself just for the sake of having one less black person in the world. He does eventually find out that he is black and after a while he comes to accept it, although he still divorces his wife for being a "nigger-lover".
  • You Killed My Father: Played with. The real-life Iraqi assassination plot against George Bush Sr. is used by black Bush Jr. as a reason to invade.
    "He tried to kill my father, man... THE NIGGA TRIED TO KILL MY FAAATHER!"
  • Your Costume Needs Work: In one episode, Ice-T appears As Himself to host the "Playa Haters' Ball." At one point before he names the winner of the "Hater of the Year" award, an audience member can be heard shouting, "You look like a bootleg Ice-T!"
  • Your Head A-Splode: In the Clayton Bigsby sketch, this happens to one of the Klansmen after he finds out that Clayton, the white supremacist leader, is actually black.

 
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The N-Word Family

One of Chappelle's more interesting skits involves a 1950's middle-class white family with a very unfortunate surname.

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