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Caloroga Shark Media. We got to talk about Dave Chappelle’s new special, The Dreamer. It is not good. I am Johnny Mick with your Daily Comedy News. But before we get to that, there’s other Chappelle news.
He stormed off stage the other night. Has that happened? Last Wednesday? Dave was at the hard Rock. Fans had paid over one hundred dollars a ticket.
There’s no video of the incident, but according to widespread reports, Dave Chappelle stormed off the stage after a man in the audience whipped out a cell phone. One fan on social media wrote, I saw Dave Chapelle the hard Rock tonight and he rightfully so dropped the mic and stormed off the stage. My favorite comedian ever, my first time seeing him so excited, and some p is starstar s not sure what that word’s supposed to be. Use your imagination. I’m not sure I had to self insert.
Another fan on social media wrote, some fing a hole pulled out his phone at the Dave Chappelle show at the Hollywood hard Rock. It is unclear to me how far into the show this happened.
Also, Dave had a few other shows over the weekend.
Apparently those went fine. For CNN, Dean Obadalla wrote an editorial titled Here’s who you should Blame for Dave Chappelle walking off stage. Dean writes, typically, I don’t blame the audience when things go off script, but in the case of Dave Schapelle walking off the stage, blah blah blah. In my view, one hundred percent the fault of the audience member. What was it that set Schapelle off?
A cell phone? Not one ringing in the audience, which every comedian has to deal with at some time or another, but a person using their phone record Chapelle’s act in violation of numerous explicit warnings. Not to what anyone who thinks this was an overreaction doesn’t get is that Chappelle and comedians at his level or not just concerned with getting laughs, but also with the business end of their craft. That’s why for years, comedians like Chappelle, Chris Rock, John Mullani, and others have been requiring audience members to lock their phones in a pouch to prevent the recording of the show. The measures are partly to prevent people in the audience from recording new material comedian is developing that isn’t ready for prime time.
Imagine seeing countless videos of famous comedians presenting material that wasn’t any good. Beyond that, there’s also the concern that if people can watch a well known comedian’s current tour for free on a bootleg video, they might not be willing to pay for a ticket. Or people may attend and complain they had already seen the jokes before. But something else is at play. Here’s some famous comedians don’t want to be recorded in case they say something offensive on stage that could hurt their career even lead to them being canceled.
In a case of Chapelle, however, I doubt that was his rationale for being one of the first comedians require audience members to lock their cell phones away during his show. During his shows, Chappelle’s history tells us he seems to love to court controversy even if audience members aren’t recording Zach Chappelle knows his jokes and comments will get pressed. Given a stature and pension for telling provocative jokes that sometimes upset people. Onto Dave Chappelle Dreamer, I’ve gathered a few reviews that I have not pre read other than you know, as I cut and paste them into my working document here that do you do the podcast off. I’ve seen the headlines and it seems people agree with me.
Dave Chappelle dreamer, It’s just not good. I think there were like eight jokes in the entire fifty five or so minutes of the special. I did laugh out loud at least twice. I think three times. I’ve explained in the past my psychotic emperor of rooms and drome that I have.
So when he went for humor, it was good, but a lot of speech giving the last twenty minutes is Dave as philosopher or something. Big long stories that got in one very funny punch line towards the end, but just not a funny special. And the front half when he started joking about punching down and cycled back to transgender jokes yet again, Dave, please let it go. I was watching it and I was thinking, this is pretty hack. This special has not quite jumped the shark, but this is this at least temporarily knocks Dave way down the list of comedians that are at the top of their game as we head into twenty twenty four.
Here I had been frustrated that the special came out New Year’s Eve, so I couldn’t incorporate it into my Top twenty three of twenty three list. It wouldn’t have made it. As I finished the special. I’m like, I couldn’t in good conscience put this on the list if I left off things like Jim Gaffigan or Mulaney or Bigly Gaffigan, all of those I did leave off. I’m like, I can’t put Schappelle ahead of any of those if I had ranked further.
Ah. Oh, this is the thirty sixth the best special of the year, maybe by far Chappelle’s worst. Sean McCarthy for The Daily Beast writes, Dave Chapelle’s new Netflix special proves he learned nothing. Sean writes, it feels so frustrating to sit watch comedians with the stature of Chappelle and Gervaise devote so much of their time and energy to bullying the LGBTQ plus community, where they could be doing anything else on stage, and then they have the temerity to question us the audience for not laughing with them. Cracked under the headline, Dave Chappelle mostly moves on from troll to philosopher In Dave Schpelle’s new special, it’s almost as if he has to get the you can’t tell me what to say is out of a system before we can get to the good stuff.
I’m not sure the good stuff ever arrived. Cracked. Minor spoilers here. The Dreamers signature bit is a long story he tells to end the show, to tale about the first HBO showcase when he was twenty two, and then details of that story. I won’t spoil it.
Yeah, it’s a twenty two minute story that has three jokes in it, maybe twenty two minutes. Crack rights. There’s still no excusing the handful of trans and gay jokes that dot the special half hearted punchlines as lazy. Yeah, they are lazy as they are unnecessarily goading. I feel like Dave handed in a special and didn’t have any material.
It’s like, all right, if I hand it an hour, I get a paycheck from Netflix. It almost feels like that there’s just there’s no material here. My Google search surfaced a blog by Ian Thomas Malone. I’m unfamiliar with Ian’s work, but if you go to Ian Thomas Malone dot com The subheading says Transgender comedian, film critic and podcast host Ian writes The Dreamer is a pathetic mess from a man who simply doesn’t care anymore. Ian writes The Dreamer is a lazy victory lap from a man with nothing else of value to offer the world beyond self congratulatory musings on his own legacy, a lethargic effort.
I’m solely it fueling the far right grievance industrial complex for another week. While Chappelle claims early on in The Dreamer that the controversy wasn’t worth the trouble, it’s kind of clear that it was, if only for one sad reason. Trans jokes are pretty much all he’s got left. There’s something fundamentally sad about watching Chappelle reflect on how hungry he used to be while he tries to fill time in a special and often forgets that it’s supposed to be funny. Great review there, I think you nailed it.
Comedian Shecky Green, passed away on Sunday at age ninety seven, is a really good. Oh bit of Shecky in The New York Times. I’m completely unfamiliar with Shecky’s work. Other than just knowing the name as someone who would get referenced when you want to do name check an old comedian, So I’ll refer you to the New York Times. Oh bit.
There. On Gossip Corner, Pete Davidson spotted out in public with current girlfriend Madeline Klein. They were Bobo’s Cafe. They were seen looking at the menu and ordering drinks. Boy, that’s some gossip.
TMZ says. We’re told Pete’s a regular at the place and he ordered an ice macho latte before smoking a cigarette outside while waiting for his drink. This was Pete’s first sighting after canceling last week’s shows. Pete is scheduled to play Foxwoods on January sixth. We’ll see if that happens.
Ricky Gervais has explained why Netflix didn’t bother promoting his new stand up special on Twitter or Ricky said Netflix aren’t doing any posters because they can’t be arst they think it’s going to be huge whatever, and Jim gaff again in his weekly post Force CBS wrote his own oh bit, Jim Wright, So I’m not going to use this time to write about my offbeat good looks. What a great father? Was or my humbleness. I’ll let the President do that in his impromptu televised address. Another issue that might hinder the integrity of this self memorial is the fact that I’m still live.
Therefore, this memorial is certainly incomplete. Sure, as of today, I’m a grossly undappreciated comedian and actor. But maybe in the future I will be acknowledged. I mean, probably not, but I might receive the respect I deserve. It’s possible a reviewer we’ll be able to describe one of my acting performances as something other than surprising.
Then again, I could have suddenly passed away prior to the airing of this commentary. All right, that’s your comedy news for today, Yeah, Chappelle, I don’t know, man. If you enjoy the program, A couple of ways you can support. You can go to buy me a coffee. Dot com slash Daily Comedy News, throw a couple of bucks in the tip jar.
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