In 'Lost Episodes,' Found Comedy
Mining 'Chappelle's Show' Remnants Yields Real Gems
Saturday, July 8, 2006; Page C01
"The show must go on." Now and then, someone dares to ask why, and the answer: Because management doesn't want to give out refunds, that's why.
Thus arrives "Chappelle's Show: The Lost Episodes," a tour de force not only for comic Dave Chappelle -- who famously walked out on his $50 million cable contract last year -- but also for whoever did the tape editing that turned scraps and snippets that the comic left behind into a coherent half-hour of humor.
  (By Joshua Roberts -- Getty Images) |
Comedy Central, which had been Chappelle's home, never has to give "refunds" to viewers, of course, but letting the Chappelle footage go unaired, gathering dust, would be kissing plenty of advertising revenue goodbye. It was the inspiration of some executive not only to fashion as many Chappelle shows as possible out of the remains -- three being the apparent maximum -- but also to attempt an end run that would make it look (at least to the gullible) as though the network planned it this way all along.
Now the Chappelle scraps are made the centerpiece of "All New Sundays," which Comedy Central calls "a fresh lineup of . . . the network's hottest series" and "the perfect way to end the weekend." It kinda makes you wonder if "Our American Cousin" continued to run at Ford's Theatre after Lincoln was shot there: "See the play that gave Honest Abe his last laughs -- ever!"
"Lost Episodes" airs tomorrow night at 9, followed by a repeat -- correction, "encore" -- of the same show at 9:30 (followed by "Mind of Mencia" and "Reno 911!"). Somehow, Comedy Central resisted the temptation to join the two airings of "Lost Episodes" and call it "Dave Chappelle's Comedy Hour."
As for what's on the screen, the quality is not as consistently high nor the content quite as daring as Chappelle's show was at its best, but that's still his image formed by electrons and zapped onto videotape, and he can still be crazily and courageously funny even in bite-size morsels.
In the first "lost" episode, Chappelle toys with the paradox of being a would-be renegade artist who nevertheless accepts an offer of millions from The Man, or The Establishment. In the early scenes, the New Dave is a man victimized, as friends and associates try to claim some of that $50 million they keep seeing in headlines. Chappelle is sitting in the barber chair, expecting everything to remain as it had been, when he sees that -- for him, anyway -- the price of an $8 haircut has been raised a shade, to $11,000.
Moments later, Chappelle discovers that a $28 car wash has been marked up to $873. Those are mere indignities, however, compared with his adventures at the Internal Revenue Service. These guys see nothing wrong with Chappelle working half the year for Uncle Sam, and assess him $25 million in taxes. And like other virtual holdup men whom Chappelle encounters, the IRS agents are armed. Actually, they're armed at their feet -- with holsters in their boots.
Chappelle's adventures and misadventures (he's briefly in whiteface again, among other reprised bits) don't quite qualify as sketches. They're too short and unformed. They're vignettes, at best, but whatever they're called, there are moments when Chappelle is very, very funny.
Obviously if Chappelle had taken the time to develop these ideas and turn them into cruel, coherent satire, the laughs in this first "lost" show would be more plentiful. But if it's not a thoroughly satisfying half-hour, it's still a fascinating one, a chance to see Chappelle grappling with his strange new tragicomedy of a life. He's joining the ranks of the greatest and most dangerous stand-up comics ever -- such legends as Sam Kinison and Richard Pryor.
What really did happen, and why did Chappelle walk away from that contract? He hasn't been a recluse in the months since, but although he's appeared on talk shows and given interviews, he still hasn't really answered the question. Whatever the next chapter in Chappelle's life, these "lost" episodes don't answer it, either. They're more of an intermission than a second or third act -- but one of the greatest intermissions ever.
'Brotherhood'
About the most that can be said for "Brotherhood," Showtime's new serialized drama, is that it's a first-rate secondhand "Sopranos."
Comparisons to HBO's mega-hit about a New Jersey crime family are inevitable. Showtime's version moves the locale to Rhode Island -- primarily Providence, the capital -- and concerns not a crime family but a sort of half-crime family, with a good guy doing his best to salvage the family name.
The catalyst for the drama is not the good guy, politician Tommy Caffee (Jason Clarke), but the arrival in town after seven years' absence of his prodigal brother, Michael (Jason Isaacs), a thief, thug and schemer who falls in with even more ruthless thieves, thugs and schemers. For every Mr. Big, there's a Mr. Bigger.
Writer and series creator Blake Masters fills in the details, spreading out quirks and idiosyncrasies among the characters and, with almost mathematical precision, making sure there is a scene of explicit sex or even more explicit violence every few minutes, lest viewers weary of any subtleties that sneak into the pseudo-Shakespearean struggle for power. Actually, Masters aims higher even than Shakespeare: Each of the first 11 chapters has a Bible verse for a title.
The first episode's opening image is a model of cheap meaning: The American flag flies over a ramshackle construction site, the image suggesting a devastated battlefield. Before long, the expletives are flying through the air, a viciously corrupt union boss is warning that he'd better get his "taste" of spoils from a building project -- and then, the show barely 10 minutes over, someone gets his head bashed in with a shovel while another man exclaims, half-admiringly, "Wow!"
Only a few scenes later, a man's leg is crushed by more thugs and a woman's earring is yanked out, leaving her earlobe a shredded, bloody mess. Eventually she will receive new earrings in a box -- a box that also contains someone's severed ear. Indeed, that one particular organ is so prominent in the first episode that it could have been called "All Ears." Or "An Ear for an Ear."
"I'm not who I need to be," declares Michael, the apparently bad brother. And to prove what a reformed sweetie he's become, he hands his mother an envelope bulging with cash. Cute touch: It's counterfeit. Too-cute touch: She doesn't really care. She forgives him.
Mom is played by Fionnula Flanagan, who brings something really different to the characterization. Unfortunately, mom's devotion to Michael comes off not as a testament to mother love, but as evidence that the woman is an idiot.
Annabeth Gish, meanwhile, plays another kind of mom. As hardworking Tommy's wife, she sends their three adorable little girls off to school and then gets down to a day of smoking pot (Gish's "I'm stoned" laugh is pathetic) and seducing blue-collar lover boys, among them the mailman and a department-store shoe salesman. Gish gives provocative clues as to what makes her tick.
The best things about the show are the location shooting in and around Providence -- a highly photographable area that until recently has been little seen in other movies and TV shows -- and Clarke's charismatic, multilayered performance as the "good" brother, Tommy, tireless in his attempts to upgrade the city and its image.
From the first night of "The Sopranos," you knew you wanted to see more of these people, learn more about their motivations and relationships. That simply isn't true of "Brotherhood." It will take time to develop interest in the Providential population -- more time than many a viewer is willing to give.
Chappelle's Show: The Lost Episodes airs tomorrow night at 9 on Comedy Central. Brotherhood debuts tomorrow night at 10 on Showtime.
