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Dave Chappelle Biography & Information

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• Famous Jokes

From a very early age, Dave Chappelle could make people laugh. Chappelle realized the power of his natural talent and made some very serious goals for his art. As a teenager, he crafted his standup comedy act out of the realties of his life growing up black in the capital city of the United States. Racism and racial division became his main targets, and he approached them with an outrageous irreverence that often shocked his audiences into shouts of laughter. Though Chappelle has worked toward recognition and success, he has continually refused to tone down his style or dilute his outspoken African-American point of view in order to make his comedy "more acceptable." As a result, he has gained fame and success on his own terms, and has become especially popular with young audiences who appreciate Chappelle's sly social commentary and aggressively satiric style.

Born David Chappelle on August 24, 1973, in Washington, D.C., he grew up in the city and the nearby suburb of Silver Springs, Maryland. Summers were often spent in Yellow Springs, Ohio with his father who was a professor at Antioch University. He enjoyed the peaceful rural atmosphere of Yellow Springs, and as an adult, his home on an Ohio farm would become a family refuge from the more hectic entertainment worlds of New York and Los Angeles.

Chappelle was only 14 when he first performed his standup comedy act in public venues in Washington. His mother, a Unitarian minister, was very supportive of her son's talent and frequently accompanied him as a chaperone when he performed in nightclubs and bars. After a few years on stage, Chappelle began to win comedy contests, and by the time he was a senior in high school, he was traveling to comedy jobs on the road, excused from school by the principal so that he could pursue his career.

After his graduation from high school, Chappelle made a bargain with his parents. Instead of going to college right away, he would go to New York to work on his comedy act. If he did not succeed after one year, he would consider college. While working with other comics in the Washington area, Chappelle had learned a lot about the comedy clubs of New York, and he had grown to feel that he had to go there to become a real success in comedy.

Chappelle took two different approaches to developing his art as a performer and breaking into the national comedy scene. Other comics had advised him that the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village was a good place for younger comedians, so he began performing there to build his reputation in the city. His plan worked well, and within weeks he was not only performing regularly at the Boston, but at comedy clubs all over New York.

However, Chappelle was not content just working the club circuit. He wanted to keep an edge of street-wise spontaneity in his work. To do this, he went, quite literally, out on the street and performed comedy in the parks and sidewalks of the city, alongside other street performers. There he met Charles Barnett, a street comedian who became his good friend and mentor. Working on the streets taught Chappelle confidence and honed his fast-paced aggressive style. He was impressed by the courage and skill of street comics like Barnett, who had the nerve and skill to capture the attention of passers by, but whose work was seen by so few. When Charles Barnett died of AIDS, Chappelle planned someday to make a film about his mentor, with himself portraying Barnett.

Just before the end of his first year in New York, Chappelle performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival. His success at that large event left no doubt that he was destined for a career in comedy. His dedication and nerve were tested during the early 1990s when he was booed off the stage during his standup comedy debut at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. However, in 1992 he won critical and popular acclaim for his television appearance in Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam on HBO. His popularity began to rise, and he became a regular guest on late-night television shows such as Politically Incorrect, The Late Show With David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien.

In 1993 Chappelle landed his first film role: the Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He had small roles in several other films, but it was his role as the nasty comic Reggie Warrington in Eddie Murphy's 1996 film The Nutty Professor that brought him to the attention of Hollywood.

Suddenly Dave Chappelle was in demand for character roles, and he did several films in the next few years. In 1998, he co-wrote his first film, Half Baked, a tribute to Cheech and Chong, a comedy duo who had made a series of recreational-drug-related slapstick comedies during the late 1970s and 1980s. Though Half Baked enjoyed some success, Chappelle was disappointed with his first experience in filmmaking. He felt that the studio had weakened the film by trying to make it more acceptable to conservative audiences. He did not like losing control over his work, and this experience would influence his later choices.

Chappelle had dabbled in developing television pilots beginning in the early 1990s. After creating more than ten, one pilot, called Buddies, was picked up by ABC in the early 1990s. But as Chappelle recalled to 60 Minutes, as quoted on the CBS Web site: "It was a bad show. It was bad. I mean when we were doing it, I could tell this was not gonna work." Indeed, it aired for only 13 episodes before cancellation. As his comic popularity continued to rise, Chappelle attracted network attention. The FOX television network offered to build a situation comedy around Dave Chappelle's comedy in the late 1990s. Chappelle was interested, but when network executives began to suggest adding white characters to the cast in order to broaden the show's appeal, the comic withdrew from the deal. As much as possible, he would always refuse to compromise his principles or his comedy.

Chappelle continued to write and perform in films as well as on stage. In 2000 he did a very successful one-man show for HBO called Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly. In 2003 he was offered a chance to do television on his own terms. Comedy Central, a comedy network, offered Chappelle his own show. Chappelle's Show, a half-hour program, repeated several times each week, featured Chappelle and a cast of regulars and guests performing satirical skits. Cable television proved to be a more comfortable location for Chappelle's outrageous comedy, and the show soon developed a devoted following. Though no topic was safe from Chappelle's sharp satire, racism remained a major focus of his biting humor. His first show, for example, featured Chappelle playing a blind leader of a white supremacist movement who does not realize that he is black. Each half hour was packed with skits like "Race Draft," in which members of different races get to claim celebrities as their own, and "Ask a Black Dude," in which whites ask show regular Paul Mooney questions about being black.

Though Chappelle's Show is designed for hilarity, a very serious political message underlies the show's attacks on racism and bigotry. Even the musical guests reflect the show's hard-hitting social critique, by focusing on hip-hop artists, whose music contains pointed political messages and appreciation of black culture. Critics recognize the similarities between Chappelle's comedy and that of comedian Richard Pryor during the 1970s. Pryor's wife spoke for her ailing husband on 60 Minutes, saying that Pryor approves of Chappelle's work and has "passed the torch" to him. Chappelle's respect for Pryor showed in his response: "That's a lot of pressure. He was the best, man. For him to say that is, you know, that's something, I don't even know if I'll attempt to live up to that."

Despite his modesty, in the early 2000s Chappelle seemed well on his way to such super stardom. The DVD of the 2003 season of Chappelle's Show quickly became the best selling DVD of all time, surpassing the popular Simpsons cartoon show. In 2004 Comedy Central signed Dave Chappelle to a two-year contract to continue his show.

Taken to the ghetto
I was taken to the ghetto once That's the worst when you're taken and you're not expecting to go. Usually you want to know when you're going to the ghetto, like, "I'm gonna see some wild s**t, I gotta prepare myself to see something crazy." When you're taken its different. I had a limousine driver, it was after the show, at like 3 in the morning. I had a limousine driver, he's a nice guy, talking to me and s**t. He's like, "Where you from, dog? D.C.? Word. That's a rough city, man." And his cellphone started ringing, he's like, "Hold one one second. Hello? Oh, what's up nigga? What? What the f**k, slow down, what? What the f**k? No! No! No! F**k it, I'm on my way!" Boop. "Hey, I gotta make a stop real quick."

At 3 o'clock in the morning, and I didn't know he was taking me to the ghetto at first. I started looking out the window, see gun store, gun store, liquor store, gun store, where the f**k you taking me? This don't look good. He didn't say s**t. He just pulled up in front of an old rickety building that looked like a project. I've never been there before, I'm not sure if it was a project, it certainly had all the familiar symptoms of a project. A f**king crackhead ran this way, tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk! Then another one jumped out of a tree and s**t, tk-tk-tk! The guy said, "I'll be right back," and left me. Took the keys with him and just left me.

At 3 o'clock in the morning, in front of a project, in a f**king limousine. This was not good. I was like, "I gotta look around, find some landmarks, see if I can figure out where I'm at. I might have to escape on foot." Now this is when I know I'm in a bad neighborhood, you only see this in the worst neighborhoods. Remember, this was 3 o'clock in the morning. I looked out the window, and there was a f**king baby standing on the corner. And the baby didn't even look scared, he was just standing there. And it made me sad you know, because I wanted to help the baby. I was like, "Mm mm I don't trust you either!" Click! Cllllick! The old baby-on-the-corner trick, eh? Not gonna fall for that s**t. But where is this limousine driver?"

As time goes by I start feeling worse, I was like, "What the hell is wrong with me, I'm scared of a baby! But this baby could be in trouble, he may need my help. I gotta do something." But I wasn't gonna get out of the car. I'm serious, man. I just cranked the window open a little bit. "Hey baby! Baby, go home, man! It's 3 o'clock in the morning man, what the f**k are you doing up?" The baby says, "I'm selling weed, nigga!"

911
Hello, emergency...
Help! Help, motherf**ker, they coming to get me!
Now, just come down sir. Where are you?
Oooohhh! Oh, I shit on myself! I can't stop crying!

They play that s**t 30 or 40 times a day. Man, you see your buddies at your funeral. You know Dave s**t on himself before he died. Saw it on the news, died crying like a bitch. I be dead, I can't defend myself. That's not a nice thing to do. That's not a nice thing to do. No one calls 911 cool and relaxed. Now that s**t would sound ridiculous:

Hello, emergency...
Hi. Hey 911 how are you? Yeah, aah, look... There's a group of hooded white men gathering outside my house. And it looks like they mean business. "Get out here ni**er." I gotta go. You guys try and hurry.

More Jokes
You'll be walking down the street and you'll see a bunch of black dudes walking, not just any old black dudes, we're talking thugs. And in the group, they got one, or two, sometimes as many as three white guys with them, you ever seen that s**t? Well let me tell you something about those white guys. Those white guys are the most dangerous motherf**kers in them groups. It's true, man. There's no telling what kind of crazy s**t they've done to get them black dudes respect, but I'll tell you they've done some wild s**t.

It is truly an honor and a privilege for me to be here at Pinehurst School, or whatever your school is called today. I say it's a privilege, because its a violation of my parole to be around children. But enough about that! Hello little boys and little girls! Mmmm mmmm mmmm!

Somebody broke into my house once. This is a good time to call the police, but mm mm, nope. The house was too nice. It was a real nice house, but they'd never believe I lived in it. They'd be like "He's still here!" Whack! "Oh my god. Open and shut case, Johnson. I saw this once when I was a rookie. Apparently this ni**er broke in and put up pictures of his family everywhere."

Dave! Relax! Close your buttcheeks!

 

 

 

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