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Topic: Dave Chappelle...Did he nail the Hollywood Suits?
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javier
Member
Member # 347
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posted
what does the time magazine article say? all i've read online is about his disappearance to a south african mental institution, the pressures of following a very succesful 2 seasons and price of fame (people yelling lil' jon-isms and "i'm rick james, bitch" everywhere he went), and his problems with partying and drugs (he's a known weedhead... he wrote and starred in "half baked"!).
i like dave and hope to see the show again. it was one of the funniest shows on tv the past 2 years. but i think his passion lies in stand up (been doing it since he was 14) and the show was messing that up for him.
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Evan Esparza
IE # 214
Member # 3171
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posted
Weed never made anyone go crazy or hit rock bottom...
"Ever sucked d*** for weed?" - Bob Saget
Anyways, it's true that he was overcome with instant fame. He use to be so low key and simple that it added to his charm. Now he is a superstar with a ton of pressure on his back.
When he now does stand up, people will heckle him to say 'rick james, bitch!' and ruin his own stand up show!
Very sad story, indeed.
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Greg B
IE # 118
Member # 886
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posted
There's no way Bob Saget ever said those lines and be the head of two of the world's most popular family shows.... shame on you ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Dave did mention in his article how the suits don't listen and have surveys etc.
We've all heard that crap before. Suits living by surveys instead of by their gut creative knowledge.
When you're creative you KNOW what the reaction will be. Every have the inkling to draw a funny picture of a friend of yours? He's either gonna laugh or get back at you with one of his own or some other practical joke.
You know what's funny because as a creative you're MORE than the average bear.
What Chappelle is beefing about is that the suits are trying to use him and his personna to make fun of 'their' targets, not his. I have no idea if he signed over the rights or not but I hope not.
How many times have you guys who worked at the major studios walked in doing your job which you're a specialist at and someone who has no clue stuck their two cents in? Later when all came out it was found out you had the right idea anyway?
It happens to all creatives as long as they work in an environment where non-creatives have a say so.
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Dan P.
IE # 248
Member # 893
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posted
http://www.time.com/time/
The article is on the front page as of now, so check it out. An obviously overwhelmed Chappelle sets the record straight, dispelling all those nasty rumors that have been going around these last few weeks.
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Russian Judge
IE # 174
Member # 3004
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posted
I honestly think this would be more appropriate as a Side Topic, but while I'm here...
Fred Allen was right; TV is a treadmill to oblivion. It tends to grab young comics who are still trying to establish their stage and professional identities, then throws them into sitcoms and shows that stereotype them.
Need I mention Freddy Prinze, Jimmy "J.J." Walker and Margaret Cho? No need for such mention when I can think of less melodramatic destructions of careers. Gabe Kaplan essentially lost his sense of funny when he became the straight man for John Travolta. Flip Wilson tried to take breaks between seasons of his variety show (supposedly driving cross country) but the pressure, and his family problems, wiped out his funny as well. While Paul Rodriguez survived the disaster of "A.K.A. Pablo" and done dramatic TV, he's not doing comedy on English-speaking TV any more.
I think it's being thrust onto the national stage so early that devastated these guys. Red Skelton went through intense personal tragedy, including his wife dying, but kept doing year after year of TV as long as anyone wanted to see him. He had enough years of performing in other venues, out of the pressure to succeed that TV puts on people, to get his head squarely on his shoulders. A guy like Chappelle didn't have enough time.
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Greg B
IE # 118
Member # 886
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posted
Russian Judge, well said on many points.
Chappelle is smart enough to know when to pull in his reigns. It can only be a good step forward.
After some time he'll definitely come up with something new and better. When quality is your primary concern you can't go wrong.
I thought about side topics but often people here will complain about a feature or a tv show where the suits and pressure and etc. come into play.
Here's an article on just those issues that mirror what many say here.
One of the funniest comics I've ever seen on the stage is Jay Leno. Yet on tv he's nowhere near as funny to me. Yet on that stage he RULES. Comics are like that. When I'm on the stage or in the street I will put people on the floor in stitches. In Brooklyn and the Bronx you try to be funny you have no choice. Be funny or die.
Creative people can learn a lesson that Chappelle is teaching us. I hope he moves into animation. It might suit him just fine.
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SquarejawHero
IE # 188
Member # 2601
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posted
From the article -
quote:
Success brought new tensions. Chappelle thought he was not fairly compensated for the enormous popularity of the show on DVD — which Comedy Central has said it addressed with last summer's contract, which paid Chappelle up to $50 million for two more seasons of new episodes, plus a percentage of DVD revenue.
I don't know Dave Chapelle. But no wonder he ran away, possibly feeling trapped into something he's no happy with. No matter how much you're being paid, if your confidence is undermined it doesn't matter - you can still feel like crap.
The above kind of summerises some of the thinking that concerns me when it comes to "big showbiz" suits. Fair enough, it's a huge amount of money - more than I'll ever see (but you never know) - but working for your compensation for money which by rights should already be yours anyway?
Don't they realise how that sounds?
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Fooksie
IE # 239
Member # 331
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posted
Well, big fan of Chappelle, but did he not sign a contract?
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" Every move a picture! "
Buddy Love
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The Mod
Administrator
Member # 854
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posted
This thread has been moved to the Side Topics forum. Thanks for keeping with the rules of the forum Greg.
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Charles
Administrator
Member # 7
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posted
Poor guy. Gets $50 million for a 2 year contract plus a percentage of DVD sales, then he takes off without notice. He really nailed those suits alright. When he gets back, he should start his show with a skit about a comedian who gets a two year $50 million contract plus a percentage of DVD sales, then takes off without notice.
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Russian Judge
IE # 174
Member # 3004
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posted
On a documentary about Rod Serling, they included a segment of one of his teleplays, about a writer who went Hollywood. The writer (who might have been played by Jack Klugman, I'm not watching it now) talked about how the business sucked him in. "They pay you $1000 a week. Then you get used to living on $1000 a week. Then they make you live in fear that they'll take that $1000 a week away."
It's also true that there's another party who got involved in this - his agent. Quite often, agents aren't interested in their clients developing their talents and using them wisely; they want the fast money, and hang whatever happens to the client. By the time he burns out they're already on to the next disposable opportunity for a paycheck.
I'm not saying this is what happened. Who knows what the situation is? But it's sure true in the world of rock music and stand-up comedy. Career development is the last thing agents care about. (Curiously, about the only organization that did it in the 50's and 60's - and extracted a huge financial price for it - was Motown. They taught their performers, not only how to dance and move and handle mikes on-stage, but what fork to use at formal dinners. I suspect Mr. Chappelle didn't get anything like that from his handlers.)
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OFFBEAT
IE # 39
Member # 873
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posted
I met Dave Chapelle.. really nice, and down to earth guy. It sounds like he's just fighting for more creative control. Sounds like after the deal was signed, they came in and said you can't do this, this, and this.. where as before, it was allright.
I read about it in this Time article...
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1061415,00.html
On the Beach With Dave Chappelle
In South Africa, TIME's Simon Robinson talks with the comic about his sudden disappearance from Chappelle's Show
Posted Sunday, May. 15, 2005
In this week's TIME, Christopher John Farley reveals why Dave Chappelle decided to leave his hit show and what he's been up to since he disappeared to South Africa two weeks ago. Last Friday night, TIME Johannesburg bureau chief Simon Robinson met with the comic at uShaka Marine World on the beach in the South African port of Durban. In a ninety minute conversation, Chappelle was eager to set the record straight on why he suddenly left the U.S. and what he's doing in South Africa. Here's Robinson's account:
Dave Chappelle shows up to our interview in a red t-shirt, blue jeans and shiny white sneakers. He lopes around in his usual style, pacing a lot, but does not seem like a man struggling to speak or to order his thoughts at all. He's lucid and thoughtful and a couple of times asks me to give him some time to think about answers. He concedes that he is dealing with a lot of issues and mentions that he had consulted a psychiatrist about a week ago for a forty minute session. He is also quite fastidious about keeping his new sneakers clean and stops at least twice to wipe smudges off their toes.
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 Domar, 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." His earlier walkout during shooting "had a little psychological element to it. I have trust issues, things like that. I saw some stuff in myself that I just didn't dig. It's like when I brought a girl home to my mom and it looked as if my mom really didn't like this girl. And she told me, 'I like her just fine. I just don't like you around her.' That's how I feel in this situation. There were some things about myself that I didn't like. People got to take inventory from time to time. That's what this [coming to South Africa] is for."
This is Chappelle's second trip to South Africa. He first came to Durban, and visited Salim, in 2000. Chappelle won't tell me exactly how he met Salim but describes him as a family friend. A soft-spoken Muslim, Salim seems also to be something of a sounding board to Chappelle, who converted to Islam several years ago. While Chappelle is not doing a formal religious course in Durban, says Salim, who wore a simple cotton robe and hung back through the interview and photo shoot and only spoke when I asked him a question, "if he wants to talk religion then I'm there as someone to talk to." Says Chappelle: "This is kind of my spot where I can come to fill my spirit back up. Sometimes you neglect these things if you are running on a corporate schedule." The crux of his crisis seems to boil down to his almost obsessive need to "check my intentions." He uses the phrase a few times during the interview and explains that it means really making sure that he's doing what he's doing for the right reasons.
His family, he says, has been a huge support over the past eight months. "They've been phenomenal really, just incredible. What beautiful people. Everyone loves their family but it's good if you can like them too."
His religion is also crucial. "I don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is a beautiful religion if you learn it the right way. It's a lifelong effort. Your religion is your standard. Coming here I don't have the distractions of fame. It quiets the ego down. I'm interested in the kind of person I've got to become. I want to be well rounded and the industry is a place of extremes. I want to be well balanced. I've got to check my intentions, man."
That includes planning for the future. When I ask him if he would ever buy a place of his own in South Africa, Chappelle replies, "First of all I've got to make sure I've got a job."
He says that he's only been recognized five or six times in the two weeks he's been here. "It happens so sporadically that when it does it freaks me out because I have to remember, 'Oh, yeah, I'm famous.'" At the end of our interview/photo shoot an American woman does recognize him. "Number seven," he cries. "Wow, I'm not that big in Africa. I've got to do an action film here."
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?"
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OFFBEAT
IE # 39
Member # 873
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posted
But.. I agree with Charles.. I can't think of a problem in the world that 50 million dollars couldn't solve.
![[funny]](graemlins/funny.gif)
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j-dog
Member
Member # 2839
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posted
dont beleive this stunt -------daves second session of the chapple show comes out next week ---we have been punked.
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siskavard
Member
Member # 3175
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posted
I find it difficult to feel sorry for millionares. He seems to be fine though, according to the TIME article.
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