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Chappell on Oprah


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Originally posted by ODS-1+Feb 4 2006, 11:55 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ODS-1 - Feb 4 2006, 11:55 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-MayorMenino@Feb 4 2006, 09:51 PM

neal seems like he was a jerk as well, and fuck comedy central for not helping out the katrina victims.

 

dave chappelle, the peoples champion.

Why would you expect a tv network to help hurricane victims?

[/b]

 

because if they did, they would have had chappelles support and shows, the biggest thing this network has ever had in its life. he made the channel, now his absence appears to be breaking it.

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it was pretty good , everyone got to see that dave isnt just a funny guy and doesnt have anything past that.it goes to show you how much of a real down to earth person he actually is.

 

oprah -"Alot of your friends are saying your paranoid dave?why is that?"

 

dave - "oprah, what would a black man be without his paranoia?! theyre saying all over the tv that i have 50 million dollars, thats like making me a marked man"

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Good look on that torrent!

 

It was a good show, Dave was just stressed out because he felt that people were making him go in directions that he didn't want to go. "I'm not wearing a dress!" He also said that everyone was telling him that he was crazy and that's why he got himself checked out. He looked good though [no homo] and said that he might go back to the show if he can create a better work environment and find a way to give back some of the 50 million dollars to his viewers.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0302967_pf.html

 

Dave Chappelle, Rematerializing Guy

 

By Lisa de Moraes

Saturday, February 4, 2006; C01

 

Dave Chappelle told Oprah Winfrey yesterday that he'll come back to his Comedy Central show if he can redo his $50 million contract so that half of the revenue from DVD sales of his series goes to charities of his choice.

 

On the other hand, he also told Oprah that he already gets half of the so-called back end on DVD sales, and "I would like to contribute my half of the DVD revenue to some of these causes."

 

So why doesn't he just cut a check to his fave charities?

 

Oprah didn't ask. Oprah doesn't do follow-up questions unless you're an author who's embarrassed her by fabricating portions of a supposed memoir she's plugged for her book club.

 

Chappelle's appearance was his first television interview since April, when -- about eight months after signing the $50 million deal to keep his series going for a third and fourth season, making him one of the most highly paid people in the television industry -- he abruptly bolted from production, aborting the debut of the third season, which the network had already spent millions promoting.

 

Chappelle fled to Africa, setting off a torrent of reporting that he was (a) missing, (b) on drugs, © spinning out of control, (d) checking into a mental health facility or (e) other.

 

Comedy Central suits have said repeatedly that they would love for him to come back to work. In December they finally announced they were going to put on a third "season" of the series with or without him, in an effort to recoup some of the money they'd already spent. The new season would have at least four half-hour episodes, composed of material Chappelle had shot before vanishing.

 

"Here's the scenario that I could come back to the show," Chappelle said during his much ballyhooed appearance on Oprah's syndicated show, which was taped last week and aired yesterday. This kickoff of his I'm Not Crazy I Just Play That Way Tour (second stop: "Inside the Actors Studio" on Feb. 12) -- in another of those incredible coincidences that make covering this industry so spiritually fulfilling -- just happens to fall a few weeks before the March 3 release of his docu-flick, "Chappelle's Block Party."

 

"I do want to do my show again, provided . . . I can make the proper work environment. . . . But more importantly . . . contribute my half of the DVD revenue to some of these causes. I would rather give the money to the people," he said, mentioning "people who suffered in Katrina and . . . people who need the money, and I can give back to my high school."

 

"Be careful, you need boundaries . . . you're on national television," cautioned Oprah.

 

"You cannot just say, 'I want to give money to the people.' . . . You just can't do that -- people will be lined up at your farm with every sad sob story in the world," she added, showing viewers some of that compassion for which she is so loved by her fans that they lobbied to get her the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Chappelle insisted he is not angry at the folks at Comedy Central or his writing partner of many years, Neal Brennan, who is the co-creator of "Chappelle's Show."

 

But he had nothing good to say about either.

 

On Comedy Central:

 

· We're having all these arguments: "Dave, you've got to cut the poop jokes." And we had a lot of discussion about "We know what our audience wants." Yeah, whatever. I mean, they were wrong 100 percent of the time.

 

· I was doing sketches that were funny but socially irresponsible. I felt like I was deliberately being encouraged and I was overwhelmed. It's like you are cluttered with things and you don't pay attention to things like your ethics.

 

· They put in the paper that I had pneumonia. . . . And they were, like, "'Well, Dave, you know, you should just back up the pneumonia story." And I was, like, "That was your thing. I'm not backing up a pneumonia story." And then, the next day, it was in the paper that I had writer's block. Then I knew something was getting ready to get stressful because I hadn't even started writing.

 

· I went back to work and the vitamin love was gone because it was a real ugly negotiation. . . . It was getting ridiculous, and I knew I was going to leave. . . . I didn't tell anybody where I was going. The whole time, they are trying to convince me I'm insane. They were trying to get me to take psychotic medication.

 

· I show up to work the first week and they, where my office used to be, they built a wall there."

 

Called for comment yesterday, Comedy Central issued this statement:

 

"Dave is a comedic genius whose work we truly value and our door will always be open to him."

 

Which is just so creepy that you wonder if maybe there isn't something to what Chappelle was saying.

 

Anyway, he also pounded away at Brennan:

 

· How many times do you think he called his "'sick" buddy since he went to Africa? I haven't heard from him.

 

· I also thought it was strange that the whole media was dumping on me and he had a quote, like, "Dave was spinning out of control." I was, like, "Dude, they called me a crackhead. Why didn't you say, 'Dave doesn't do drugs'? Come on, buddy, tell them!"

 

Calls to Brennan's agent and attorney were not returned yesterday.

 

And, through the whole show, Oprah worked as hard as she could to do what she does best: Make it all about Oprah.

 

Starting with her introduction, in which she told viewers that Chappelle had become so huge that "his skits have been quoted by fans everywhere" and "nothing was off-limits -- including me."

 

Cut to a clip of a "Chappelle's Show" skit in which someone impersonates Oprah.

 

A couple of minutes later, Chappelle was onstage, telling Oprah that his show was "fun and all these things, but there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into making a show like that."

 

"Yeah. I wanted to just take a look at one of the skits. Me, having your baby," Oprah segued.

 

Oprah's production people had trouble bringing up the clip. Oprah stared daggers.

 

Dave and Oprah chatted a couple more seconds.

 

Oprah: "Okay. All right. Do you have it? Are you going to roll it? Let's take a look. I thought this was hysterical."

 

Cut to a skit in which Oprah calls Chappelle to tell him she's pregnant with his baby, and Chappelle moves into her house in Chicago and sits around holding a wad of money, wearing a crown on his head.

 

Oprah: "Okay. So we see how much work -- I mean, it's a lot of work."

 

Later Chappelle was telling Oprah about a sketch he did for the third season involving a character in blackface and how he was uncomfortable with the laugh it got from a white person on the set when Oprah cut him off:

 

"I completely understand. . . . Finish, because I have a story to tell you."

 

She launched into a lengthy account of the time she had some KKKers and skinheads on her show and realized halfway through that giving them airtime was giving them a voice. Duh.

 

"That moment occurred when I realized what comes with this kind of power is a responsibility," Oprah said.

 

And again, when Chappelle told Oprah, "You cannot imagine what celebrities go through as far as how your integrity, your self-image and all these things are challenged."

 

You can imagine how this played with Oprah, having someone tell her she could not imagine what celebrities go through.

 

"Okay!" she said. "This is a theory that I've always had and I've discussed this with other people. The idea that if you don't know who you are when natter, natter, natter, natter, blah, blah, blah, blah, because everybody is pulling on you. Would you say that that was part of your issue?"

 

"Absolutely," Chappelle responded.

 

But then, what else could he say?

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