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[Clash!]

Attempt number 2, or is it 3, at his own show.

This time its not some crappy looking sitcom that ripped off the Bob Newhart show. This one is a sketch comedy show with him in every skit. The commercial made it looks somewhat funny, but also not super funny. I LOVED him on SNL, but that was because he managed to be so offset from the rest of the cast that it was nice to get his stuff every now and again. Not so sure how good it will be when its all him.

It begins this Sunday at 10:30 Est, 9:30 Cst on Comedy Central

[cka]

I came expecting George Wendt, I left unfulfilled

[Revoltor]

I smell disaster #3

I say that because with 5 days remaining I didn't even know this show was happening. Good job advertising it Comedy Central.

[Clash!]

Yeah I made this thread after seeing the ad this evening.

[Diff-chan]

Looks like Comedy Central is trying to soften the blow from Chappelle's tomfoolery.

[station82o]

makes you wonder if anyone will find chapelle funny again now that we all know about his little tantrum. Poor baby couldnt handle the success?

[Hot Like Wasabi]

Any one seen his movie Dirty Work? It is one of those so stupid it's funny type of movies. It was also the last film Chris Farley did.

Also, Comedy Central just needs to make the Norm Chappelle Show.

[1CCOSA]

From a Time magazine interview last week:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/articl...061415,00.html

The first thing Chappelle wants is to dispel rumors—that he's got a drug problem, that he's checked into a mental institution in Durban—that have been flying around the U.S. for the past week. He says he is staying with a friend, Salim, and not in a mental institution, as has been widely reported in America. Chappelle says he is in South Africa to find "a quiet place" for a while. "Let me tell you the things I can do here which I can't at home: think, eat, sleep, laugh. I'm an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I've been doing a lot of thinking here."

The picture he paints—and it seems a fairly honest and frank assessment— is of someone struggling to come to terms with a new position and power who's still figuring out how to come to grips with how people around him are reacting to the $50 million deal he signed last year with Comedy Central. Without naming specific characters, he seems to blame both some of his inner circle (not his family) and himself for the stresses created by last year's deal.

"There were things that overwhelmed me," he says. "But not in the way that people are saying. I haven't spent any of the money. All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true. Why do I live on a farm in Ohio? To support my partying lifestyle?"

The problems, he says, started with his inner circle."If you don't have the right people around you and you're moving at a million miles an hour you can lose yourself," he says. "Everyone around me says, 'You're a genius!'; 'You're great!'; 'That's your voice!' But I'm not sure that they're right." And he stresses that Comedy Central was not part of the problem and put no more than normal television restrictions on what he could do.

"You got to be careful of the company you keep," Chappelle says. "It's hard to know how much to say. One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change.

"During my ascent, I've seen other people go through that wall to become really big. They always said that fame didn't change them but that it changes the people around them. You always hear that but you never really understand it. But now that I'm there that makes a lot of sense and I'm learning what that means. You have to have people around you that you can trust and aren't just out for a meal ticket."

The breakdown in trust within his inner circle seems to have led him to question the material they were producing. He seems obsessed with making sure the material is good and honest and something that he will be proud. "I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling," he says. "What ever decisions I make right now I'm going to have live with. Your soul is priceless." The first two seasons of his show "had a real spirit to them," he says. "I want to make sure whatever I do has spirit."

But Chappelle also says that he must share the blame for the stalled third season. "I'm admittedly a human being," he says. "I'm a difficult kind of dude. (continued)"

During most of the hour and a half that we talk, Chappelle is serious and introspective. But he still has his sense of humor, which comes out as we near the end of our conversation: "Is that enough to prove I'm not smoking crack or hanging out in a mental institution?"

Whether or not it was wise to ditch the show altogether, seems like a legit explanation to me.

[Diff-chan]

Any one seen his movie Dirty Work? It is one of those so stupid it's funny type of movies. It was also the last film Chris Farley did.

Also, Comedy Central just needs to make the Norm Chappelle Show.

No, the last movie Chris Farley did was that shitty one with Matthew Perry.

Dirty Work was directed by Bob Saget, rock on.

[Hot Like Wasabi]

I have been corrected. Thanks for the heads up.