10 Forgotten Chappelle’s Show Sketches to Get You Through Your Mid-Week Blues
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Its almost mid-week, and by now, the fun and freedom you’ve uncompromisingly experienced during the weekend has unwillingly died down, the rule of your corporate overlords is etching away at the place where your once rebellious spine used to be, as you think to yourself “I had dreams dammit,” and new, disturbed dreams, begin to take over.
Dreams, of burning down your cubicle and running off into the woods, with the oppressive prowess of your power-tie tied over your forehead ala Rambo. Violent dreams, of taking Andrew from accounting and pressing his head into the photo-copier, until the recurring light of the machine’s scanner burns a hole right through that bastard’s brain, if he decides to tell you another one of his “classic” dad jokes. Dreams, even, of leaving it all and flying to Africa to find out how beautifully small we are in this world. Despite this, the only phrase you find yourself saying, as your boss symbolically thrusts his corporate phallus into the emptiness of your devoid soul, is: “Thank you sir, may I have another?”
We’ve been there, we get it, and believe it or not, it happens to comedians as well.
Enter Dave Chappelle.
Long after his figurative “fuck you” to Comedy Central, we still can’t get over the testicular fortitude that powered this man to live out every American’s dream of leaving their corporate job. To celebrate his actions, here are 10 Chappelle’s Show sketches to get you through the week. And while we can bombard you with clips of well-known sketches you’ve seen so many times (“I’m Rick James bitch,” “I smoke crack” or “Dy-lan, Dy-lan, Dy-lan!”), in keeping with the hipster tradition, we at Paste would like to celebrate 10 forgotten sketches that are just as hilarious as the main ones. Enjoy.
1. “PopCopy”
Can something be both a terrible business model and still look like an awesome place to work? PopCopy thinks it can. First aired in the debut episode of Chappelle’s Show in 2003, “PopCopy” stars Chappelle as spokesperson, Ralph Henderson, in a copy store’s trainee video. Whatever you do, don’t ask to see the manager.
2. “Fisticuff”
Turn your head phones up. After getting shot in the ear eight times, Fisticuffs became the hottest rapper out there. His single “Turn My Headphones Up” reached the top of the charts and went “double uranium.” A precursor to Chappelle’s better known “Little John” sketches that follow a similar premise, “Fisticuff” featured Chappelle alongside producer Funkmaster Flex, one of the many musical contributors during Chappelle Show’s run.
3. “Wu-Tang Financial”
Need to diversify your bonds? Then enter the 36-chambers of Wu-Tang Financial. The N.Y. rap collective’s GZA and RZA play financial advisors in this hilarious sketch. While Wall Street collapses, you’ll feel safe knowing that your stocks and bonds are protected by the RZA, the GZA and the Wu-Tang members, whose financial knowledge is, for sure, “nothing to fuck with.”
4. “Tron Carter’s ‘Law & Order’”
In this sketch, Chappelle explores an alternate reality in which a race’s privilege is reversed. Can he get away with killing off Air Bud? Who cares, its hilarious. Look closely and you’ll find a red-headed gem, as the mustachioed Bill Burr can be seen putting his cigarette off in the culprit’s forehead. Goddamn!
5. “Wrap it Up!
A magical contraption out of Chappelle’s own mind, the Wrap it Up! box gives you the power to make people who drag on pointlessly finally shut the hell up. While this sketch may not be as well remembered as Chappelle’s Show’s others, it highlights the comedian’s ability to take a simple premise and expand it into a fully satisfying sketch. The end result is a perfect representation of just how awesome Chappelle’s Show really was. How High’s Guillermo Diaz makes a cameo in this sketch by taking the Wrap it Up! box to court, something we here at Paste would not recommend.
6. “Stereotypes Pixie”
As always, Chappelle comes back with a unique perspective on race relations. In this sketch, Chappelle introduces us to the stereotype pixie, there to remind the white man of “the bane of their existence.” While your shriveled member may never be as prolific as that of your minority counterparts’, keep your head up—at least you run the goddamn world.
7. “Kneehigh Park”
This sketch definitely crosses the line, but then again it’s Chappelle we’re talking about. The comedian teaches kids about the facts of life in the only way he knows how, by taking his puppet friend, Dangle, to the doctors to treat his venereal disease. Voiced by the west-coast rapper Snoop Dogg, Dangle talks to the kids before musical crabs bust out in song.
8. “Electric Guitar, Drums or Electric Piano”
In another social commentary sketch, Chappelle enlists the help of guitarist John Mayer to help identify what makes each race move. In part one of the two part sketch, Mayer and Chappelle take over a corporate office where they find out that groovy guitar tunes make white people dance. Now the pair sets up to study black people and latinos with the help of Roots drummer Questlove.
9. “The Mad Real World”
In the surge of reality TV shows, Chappelle’s Show poked fun at a lot of reality TV. MTV Cribs had their day on the comedy show’s circuit, as well as Making the Band. In this parody of The Real World, Chappelle introduces us to Chad, a nice guy who has a stable job, a devoted father and loving girlfriend. He soon finds out that those things won’t last in the “Mad Real World.”
10. “Wu-Tang Torture”
A literal interpretation of the torture intro to Wu-Tang Clan’s single “Method Man.” Chappelle takes the horrific details described on the track and gives them a gut-busting twist. In the slums of Shao Lin, the RZA, the GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Reakwon the Chef, U-God, Inspectah Deck and, of course, the Method Man take this poor victim and commit unspeakable acts. This video here is just to let you know that, even though your life sucks, it could get a lot worse.
And there you go, 10 forgotten Chappelle’s Show sketches to get you through the week. Climb of your desk, carefully take the impromptu-noose off your neck and get back to work, you slacker—the boss needs those reports by 5.
Abdiel Vallejo-Lopez is an intern at Paste.