All language subtitles for The.History.Of.Comedy.S01E04_English

Thank you very much,
and when they say this show

features living color,
you better believe it.

[ Laughter ]

Spear chucker.

White trash!

Jungle bunny!

Honkey!

Nigger.

Dead honkey.

I not allowed
to say certain things.

I mean, I can make fun
of Jewish people,

but I not allowed to make fun
of other ethnic groups.

They don’t arrest anybody
that kills rappers.

Shit, if you want to
get away with murder,

all you got to do
is shoot somebody in the head

and put a demo tape
in they pocket.

Lopez: When you laugh,
it’s a racial joke,

and when you don’t laugh,
it’s a racist joke.

[ Chuckles ]

Just for the record,
my Arab friends,

I don’t do any Arab jokes
in my act.

It’s not that I don’t
think you’re funny.

I just, you know, I don’t know.

I don’t want to ‐‐
I don’t want to die.

[ Laughter ]

♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

Thank you, thank you,
thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you.

Whoa, whoa. Oh, wow.

I did a festival
in Telluride, Colorado, once.

It’s a ski town.
Not a lot of minorities there.

And I was talking to this dude,
and he was like,

"Yo, man, before you go,
I got to ask you one thing.

Where are you from?"

And I went,
"Well, I from South Carolina,

but my parents are from India."

And he went, "What?!

But you talk exactly like I do!"

And then I showed him a video
of an Asian kid rapping,

and his head exploded.

Bell:
The state of diversity in comedy

is the same as the diversity
in this country.

They walk hand in hand,
so, you know,

comedy’s more diverse now
than it’s ever been,

but nowhere near as diverse
as it should be.

Who’s more racist ‐‐
black people or white people?

Black people. You know why?

’Cause we hate
black people, too.

Comedy is anger, fear,
insecurity,

and self‐denigration.

It’s like the Civil War
going on with black people,

and there’s two sides.

It’s black people
and there’s niggas.

And niggas have got to go.

The Jewish kid asks
his father for $50.

The father says, "$40?
What do you need $30 for?"

I can tell that joke
because I Jewish,

and even though I making
a Jewish stereotype,

I denigrating myself.

I didn’t play violin.

[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]

I didn’t fuck Woody Allen.

[ Laughter ]

It’s just about, "Oh,
we want to hear the real truth,"

and that’s what comedy is,
is the real truth.

We can look at society
in such a way

that we have to stand outside
of it a little bit.

We’re racial referees.
That’s the superpower.

Right before the U. S. went to
war with Iraq, they warned Iraq.

"We are going to come
to your country and kill you."

[ Laughter ]

"Oh, yeah? You kill me?

Fuck you!

[ Applause ]

I kill me."

[ Laughter ]

Asian men are the sexiest.

They got no body hair
from the neck down.

[ Laughter ]

It’s like making love
to a dolphin.

Wong: Because of my appearance
and my race and gender,

it was really hard to welcome
people into this idea

that a person who looked
like me could be funny.

Barris: Comedy comes from pain.

When you look
at oppressed groups,

there’s a lot of comedy
that comes from those groups,

you know,
and a lot of times,

that comedy takes its roots
from how those groups

chose to deal with
their oppression

or what their particular
plight was.

‐I was raised Muslim.
‐Whoo!

Oh, really?

That has never happened before.

[ Laughter ]

"I was raised Muslim."
"Whoo! All right!

We’re not all doing that?

Just me?

Whoo!"

Bell: Any time you’re upset,
there’s a joke there.

And so the more
frustrating something is,

the more rife it is for humor.

So therefore,
racism is very frustrating,

therefore it’s rife for humor.

I got a jury duty notice,
you know, and you have to, like,

fill it out and send it in,
then they select you randomly.

And I filling out
this form and everything,

and my friend is like,

"Well, why don’t you
write something really, like,

inappropriate on the form
like ’I hate chinks’?"

I wanted to do it,
but then I like,

"I don’t want people to think
I racist or something.

I just want to get
out of jury duty."

So I just filled out the form
and I wrote, "I love chinks."

[ Laughter ]

I was surprised. I was upset.

I ‐‐ I was ‐‐
felt very frustrated.

Brennan:
When a racial joke goes bad,

people are hurt,
people are angry.

It’s painful.
It’s like you can feel the air.

Calling a Chinese person
a chink is the same thing

as calling
a black person nigger.

‐Absolutely.
‐This is the way we take it,

and we don’t think
that racial slurs

should be used as kind of
off‐the‐cuff kind of way

because it gives
more permission for people

to use it in less
appropriate situations.

And I believe that comedy
reflects society,

and I feel that
that joke is a joke

that points a finger
at racism,

just like it’s your job
to point your finger at racism.

I think you’re giving
yourself too much credit.

I think that ‐‐ first of all,
I understand satire.

She said this was satire,
it was taken out of context.

I said there was no context.

Peters: The comedian’s intention
isn’t to hurt your feelings.

His intention is to present you
with something

that you’re gonna think about
and laugh at the same time.

People get so hung up
on words nowadays.

It’s not the words that are bad.

It’s the intent behind
the words that are bad.

What you could’ve said ‐‐
what you could’ve said,

she could’ve said,

"I hate Chinese people,
I love Chinese people."

Would’ve gone,
"Okay, funny joke. Ha, ha."

And that would’ve
been over with.

That’s not the point
of the joke!

The point is you use
a slur...

I learned really huge
lessons,

which is I not gonna be
for everybody,

but I certainly do not want
to be seen as a racist

because it came from
the opposite place, you know?

I could’ve said "dirty Jew,"

but it wouldn’t have been
as funny

because I a Jew
and it’s safe.

It’s too safe.

You know, when you’re
playing with racial slurs,

you’re playing with fire,

and if you’re gonna be
playing with fire,

expect to get burned.

[ Cheers and applause ]

‐You know what?
‐That is so jackass!

Johnson: Let me tell you.

[ Boat horn blows ]

Lopez: The one connective thing
through all the ethnic groups

is if you think
about immigration,

it’s the not having
a lot of money

and doing the best you can
with very little.

The not having is always
a great place for humor.

Prinze: I a Hungarian
and Puerto Rican,

which is strange
in itself, right?

I a Hunga Rican.

Which I could never figure,
’cause, like,

I couldn’t figure out
how my parents met.

A gypsy and a Puerto Rican.
And I asked my mother.

She said they were on the subway

trying to pick
each other’s pocket.

Talking about being
Puerto Rican,

there’s prejudices,

and I think
if you can take a prejudice

to its most ridiculous degree
and make somebody laugh with it,

then it’s not prejudice anymore,

and eventually, you wipe it out.

Well, see, the beautiful thing
about ethnic humor

is while you’re making
those observations about us,

hey, we’re making
observations of you.

We are. We’re looking
in the rear‐view mirror going,

"Look at those Caucasians.

Lookit. What a waste of space.

Only two people
in that big car."

When you are fighting a power
that you cannot defeat,

you will tend to find
other outlets

so that you can survive.

One of those natural outlets
is humor.

Announcer:
It is the huge resort hotel

which is the best bet
for the city dweller

who is looking in the country

for the same amusements
he has in town.

The Borscht Belt basically began
after World War II.

You had a lot of middle‐class
Jewish families

living in the city.

They were looking for a place
to go.

There were these hotels,

and people would be able
to go up there

and have a relatively
economical vacation.

I have the system, how you beat
the gambling in Las Vegas ‐‐

Soon as you get off
the airplane,

you walk right into a propeller.

You people come here
for the reading of the will,

or why’d you come here?

Come on, these are the jokes!
This is it!

The root of a lot
of Jewish humor

is it’s attacking back
with our minds,

because Judaism is a religion
that encourages study,

it encourages questioning,

it encourages embracing
of nuance.

Words were for many years
the way that Jews fought back.

"Where you was
this past winter?"

[ Laughter ]

Said, "I was in Pelham Springs."

[ Laughter ]

Says, "You was where?"
He says, "Pelham Springs."

"Not Pelham Springs.
It’s Palm Springs."

Says, "You know, you’re right.
I had a confusement.

Pelham Beach."

[ Laughter ]

Charles: Those guys were
working at the hotels

and then doing stand‐up
at the hotels

eventually became the big Jewish
comics of the ’50s and ’60s.

Caesar: It was a tremendous
training ground.

When you were up here
in the social staff,

you stayed there
for a whole 10 weeks.

You got used to the people,
you got used to the audience,

and you honed your craft.

I don’t do jokes. I don’t do ‐‐
I do characterizations.

The fun comes form
the character.

It comes from what he’s doing,
what he’s thinking about,

what he’s thinking of doing.

So, that’s the way I do comedy.

I don’t go out and just tell
a string of jokes.

Ladies and gentlemen,
we’ll see you on January 26th

on Sunday night.

ABC! ABC!
ABC! ABC! ABC! ABC!

Can you hear me?

Is the sound on,
Mr. Hamstead?

Is the sound on?
The sound is on.

The air is off.
The air is off.

Would you put the air on
for Mr. Hamstead?

A show is usually as good as
its top banana and its writers.

We had writers that
you couldn’t touch.

You had Jewish writers ‐‐
Neil Simon,

you had Carl Reiner,
you had Mel Brooks,

you had Woody Allen.

Anything you laughed at in the
second half of the 20th Century

was provided by them.

Do you recognize
this voice, Al?

Man: Hello, Al. Remember me?

I used to encourage you.

I helped you
in those desperate years

when you needed help
so very much.

I ignited you, encouraged you,

and did so much to mold
your character

and make you the person
you are today.

Could I hear it again?

"Your Show of Shows" is now
looked at by comedy mavens

as sort of, like, one of
the great early comedy shows,

if not the great early
comedy sketch show.

A precursor by many, many years
of "Saturday Night Live"

and everything that followed.

Al. Al. I wonder
if you’d tell our audience

exactly who this lady is.

I don’t know who she is,
but she’s all right with me!

[ Laughter ]

One of the fastest rising
of these comic commentators

is young Woody Allen!

[ Applause ]

The telephone company
has a service

for emotionally disturbed types
called Dial‐A‐Prayer.

Yeah.
[ Laughter ]

They got a number that you dial
if you’re an atheist.

You don’t hear anything
on the other end of the phone.

[ Laughter ]

Zoglin: Stand‐up comedians
before Woody Allen

were sharp‐talking guys
in good suits

and fast talkers
and pretty snazzy guys.

Here comes Woody Allen,
this schlemiel.

This was something really new
in stand‐up comedy.

Man:
Where do you get your humor?

Allen:
It’s like a genetic mutation.

I say it, and it comes
as a great shock to me.

It’s like a pleasant surprise
to hear myself say it.

It’s like I not even conscious
of the thing happening.

He happened to be an incredible
craftsman of jokes.

When you listen
to a joke of his,

it’s almost like a little haiku.

He was very, very conscious
of the writing of the joke,

and that also was inspirational.

Woody Allen is about as secular
a Jew as they come.

He really never felt connected
to Judaism as a religion.

Woody’s always been
much more interested

in the big questions
than the day to day.

He’s still asking about
the nature of existence

and is there a god?

It’s a them that he works again
and again in his movies.

Mom, come out!

Mickey’s mother: Of course
there’s a God, you idiot.

You don’t believe in God?

But if there’s a God,
then why ‐‐

why is there so much
evil in the world?

What ‐‐ just on
a simplistic level,

why ‐‐ why were there Nazis?

Tell him, Max.

Max: How the hell do I know
why there were Nazis?

I don’t know how
the can opener works.

Jewish history, filled as it is
with persecutions

and oppressions and expulsions,

inclines Jews to be pessimists.

Judaism, on the other hand,
is optimistic.

Hence we end up as optimists
with worried looks on our faces.

Cavett: With "Annie Hall"
widely accepted now,

can you in 30 seconds admit
that you are in danger now

of total mass acceptance
and universally?

I think two things ‐‐
I think one is

I making progress
toward it,

but let’s not exaggerate
the success of "Annie Hall."

I gonna try and make decisions
to keep myself from acceptance

by the masses.

I gonna try and make
all those decisions

counterproductive
to my best interests.

♪

Telushkin:
The areas in which Jewish

and African‐American humor meet

would be in dealing
with issues of oppression

and issues of persecution.

Gregory:
There was an unwritten law

that black folks couldn’t work
white nightclubs.

You could sing, you could dance,

but you couldn’t stand
flatfooted and talk.

[ Applause ]

Do you know how to make love?

All my natural life,
that’s all I’ve ever done.

‐Oh, yeah?
‐Yes, sir.

‐You’re a heavy lover?
‐Very heavy lover.

The Chitlin Circuit,
as it was called,

was a series of black venues

that featured black performers

for exclusively black audiences
in various locations.

Did you all here the one
about the guy that, uh...

Did I say something funny?

The entertainment and the venues
on the Chitlin Circuit

was more realistic.

Black comedians were much freer
to be themselves

in terms of the authenticity
of their comedy

in a way that they had
not felt before.

This is a country that was
built on slavery, you know?

It was built on
the backs of free labor,

and with that in mind,

that means that slavery is
this country’s recessive gene.

African Americans are not
allowed to represent themselves,

and so out of that comes a world
of popular entertainment

where white people are allowed
to represent black life,

where the slave is represented
as happy, as foolish.

You had better have
my dinner cooked

if you know what’s good for you!

If I do,
you better not eat it,

if you know what’s good
for you.

Any time a black entertainer
goes on stage

and wants to make
the audience laugh,

and especially
if it’s a white audience,

you have that legacy
of blackface minstrelsy

behind you, haunting you.

Weide:
Up until the early ’60s, comedy,

and especially stand‐up comedy,

was a very segregated
proposition.

And Dick Gregory changed
all of that single handedly.

I hate to see any
baseball player having trouble,

’cause that’s a great sport
for my people.

That is the only sport
in the world

where a Negro can shake
a stick at a white man

and it won’t start no riot.

[ Laughter ]

I realized that
if I made people laugh,

they would stop talking
about me,

so that’s what I set out to do.

Bell: Dick Gregory was one
of the first black comedians

who really crossed over
to the mainstream

and did so in a way
where he kept his integrity.

There was a not a sense that he
became less culturally black

or less committed
to his own race

because he played white rooms.

And you heard what Bobby Kennedy
said about eight weeks ago?

He said 30 years from this year,
a Negro can become President.

So treat me right, or I’ll get
in there and raise taxes on you.

[ Laughter ]

I mean, now don’t get me wrong.

I wouldn’t mind paying
my income tax

if I knew it was going
to a friendly country.

[ Laughter ]

There’s something
about giving somebody a fact

or a piece of information that
may be a little confrontational,

that people maybe object to it,

but if you can turn it
into a punch line,

they’re much more open to it,

and Gregory understood
the power of comedy.

Gregory: Sunday, New York,
the phone rang.

My wife said,
"This is Jack Paar’s office."

I get on the phone.

"Hi, Dick. Would you come
on the show tonight?"

And I said, "No, thank you,"
and I hung up.

’Cause a black person couldn’t
sit on the couch, okay?

The phone rang again. It’s Paar.

"Dick, Mr. Paar. How come you
don’t want to work my show?"

I said, "’Cause a black person
never sits on the couch."

He said, "Come on."
I said, "No, no."

Said, "Well, come on, then.
I’ll let you sit on the couch."

That’s how it happened.

What kind of a car you got?

‐A Lincoln, naturally.
‐Oh, well, that’s ‐‐ yeah.

[ Laughter ]

Dr. Boyd: To have Dick Gregory
on "Jack Paar" in the early ’60s

is an indication
of things to come.

Television and comedy
will be a space

where one will see a strong
African‐American presence

going forward.

The movement came,
and something came over me.

Civil rights. Oh, man!

Weide: Dick Gregory
was actually getting arrested

time and time again
for making the marches,

but then what he would do
was he’d get bailed out

and then he’d do a show
that night,

and what had happened that day

would all be fodder
for his comedy.

You wear a tight shoe,
you get a corn.

You keep your shoe
on long enough,

you get a callous,
then you get a bunion,

then the shoe is worn out.

The Negro in this country have
a callous around his soul,

and if the shoe don’t back up,
we in trouble.

I would never stoop to the level

to believe I could wipe out
slavery and racism

with some fucking jokes.

I didn’t go down there to tell
jokes and make people laugh.

I went there for liberation.

Weide:
White audiences accepted him.

It just opened the door for
every African‐American comedian

who came after that.

Football can be combined
with history,

as I found out sitting
in history class

thinking of football.

Bill Cosby speaks to the idea
of there’s more than one style

of black comedy.

You know,
Bill Cosby always said,

"I don’t want just black people
to get my jokes.

I want everybody
to get my jokes."

When he started,
he did talk about race issues

and he saw how it
divided the crowd,

and he didn’t want
to divide the crowd,

so he decided to make a choice.

I play a lot of football.

I played when I was
in the service.

We played different teams.
We played a prison team.

And ‐‐ no, really,
prison team’s a gas.

They got the greatest football
players in the world.

Mostly because they have
nothing to lose, you know?

Like, their starting 11 came off
of death row, you know?

They didn’t care about nothing.
Just kill ‐‐

Tackle you in the huddle,
everywhere, you know.

Bill Cosby felt that it would
work for him to come onstage

and be the exact opposite
of the stereotype

of what an African‐American
comedian was about.

He forced white audiences

to accept him as a human being.

Ever calm, suave,

and sophisticated,
Mr. Richard Pryor.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪

Earlier, Dad didn’t
curse really yet.

It was just very clean

and he was physical in the way
that he did it,

Charlie Chaplin‐esque.

There was a guy in my school.

His name was Terry Austin,
and he was a real killer,

you know, ’cause he used
to say things to you in school.

He’d say, like, "After school,
I gonna bite off your foot."

[ Laughter ]

And you believed him
’cause he always walked around

with a shoe in his mouth.

Dr. Boyd: In the early ’60s,
Richard Pryor was very much

trying to imitate the success
of Bill Cosby,

but Richard Pryor,
of course, is not Bill Cosby.

And so by the late ’60s,

he’s actually quite frustrated

because he’s not been able

to fully articulate
his own voice.

There’s this famous story,
a legend perhaps,

of Richard Pryor in Las Vegas
deciding he’d had enough.

Dad had that moment.

It was, you know, being on stage
and telling these jokes.

You look around
and the audience is, like,

predominantly white,
and you’re like,

"I have something, though,
I really need to be saying."

And there was that moment of,
"Screw this."

♪

Dr. Boyd:
Richard Pryor leaves Las Vegas

and he moves to the Bay area.

He’s in the Bay area
in the late ’60s,

which of course is this time
when you have the emergence

of the Black Panther party,
you have the student left.

Richard Pryor is right
in the middle of this,

and his comedy starts to change

because he’s hanging around
with black writers,

he’s hanging around
with revolutionaries.

He’s learning to observe things

in a very different way.

My God.

When Richard Pryor
walked out on that stage,

he transformed himself
into something else.

Niggas never get burned
up in buildings.

They know how to get out
of a motherfucking situation.

♪

They do. White folks just panic,

run to the door,
fall all over each other,

choke to death and shit.

Niggas get outside,
then argue ‐‐

"I left my money
in the motherfucker."

Barris: Once he said, you know,

"Fuck Bill Cosby"
and became Richard Pryor,

it was that person finding

that they had been singing
in a falsetto their whole career

and actually finding
their voice.

White people.
This is the fun part for me

when the white people come back
after intermission

and find out niggas
done stole they seats.

[ Laughter and applause ]

[ Stuffy voice ] "Uh,
weren’t we sitting here, dear?

Weren’t we, um ‐‐
I believe we, uh,

we were sitting here,
uh, weren’t we?"

[ High‐pitched ] "Yes,
we were sitting right there."

[ Laughter ]

Well, you ain’t sitting here
now, motherfucker.

[ Laughter ]

Dr. Boyd: Even after slavery,

it was not permissible for black
people to openly make fun of,

mock, ridicule white people.

By the time you get
to Richard Pryor,

Richard Pryor decides he’s
not going to speak in code.

He’s going to talk
to mainstream audiences

the way black people
talk in private.

Police got a choke hold
they use out here, though, man.

They choke niggas to death.

That mean you be dead
when they through, right?

‐Did you know that?
‐Yeah!

Niggas going,
"Yeah, we knew."

White folks,
"No, I had no idea."

[ Laughter ]

Yeah, two grab your legs,
one grab your head, go snap.

"Oh, shit, he broke."

What it does is
that it gives people

who have never had a way
to talk about their struggle

a way to talk about it
’cause you can quote

a Richard Pryor joke,

and then it gives people
who never thought about

the black struggle a way to
hear about it through humor.

Richard Pryor’s delivering it
to you in a way that’s funny

so you go [ Laughs ]

"Huh? Oh, yeah, by the way,
that’s true."

Key: All of a sudden,
your imagination’s cracked open

a little bit because
he’s explaining his experience.

He’s not just going,
"White people are bad,

white people are bad,
white people are bad."

He’s explaining
the experience,

and that, to me,
is the difference.

Oswalt: After you saw
"Live in Concert"

or "Sunset Strip,"
you went back and thought,

"I need to change what I do."

We do all the work
nobody else wants to do.

If an immigrant
is taking your job,

then you got a fucked‐up job.

[ Laughter ]

I think that any comedian
that has ever been influenced

by Richard Pryor, he made you do
something you didn’t want to do,

which was talk about the pain

and the darkest times
in your life.

You know, you just don’t want
to drive through Tennessee

when you look like this.

[ Laughter ]

It’s fucking not fun.
It’s not.

[ Laughter ]

I got to know the Ku Klux Klan
way too well,

and I don’t mean to judge them,
but they’re assholes.

You know, they really
are assholes.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Richard Pryor
really changed race

because he was unafraid
to be black in a white world.

I wanted to challenge
and provoke

in the same way that there
was a way to do it even though

I wasn’t black
and I wasn’t white.

Peters: One of the main
components of being a comic

is feeling like an outsider.

Whether you actually
are or you’re not,

the more of an outsider
you are in this game,

the more perspective you gain.

Fly me straight
to the kitchen,

pour me a cup of coffee,

and make it like
I like my men ‐‐

hot, black, and strong.

Dr. Boyd: Race and popular
culture come together

in really interesting ways
in the ’70s.

There’s this decade of
what I like to call first.

So, you start to see
black situation comedies

like "Sanford and Son,"

"Good Times,"
and "The Jeffersons."

Are you sure you know
what you’re doing, George?

Of course I know
what I doing.

That’s what you said
on our honeymoon.

Is he a brother?

No, but what difference
does it make?

Well, it make a whole lot
of difference to me.

Pop, haven’t you ever seen
that bumper sticker

that says "Good neighbors
come in all colors"?

And he’ll come
in all colors, too,

if I put my bud nipper
up his head.

[ To the tune
of "Won’t You Be My Neighbor" ]

♪ It’s one hell of a day
in my neighborhood ♪

♪ A hell of a day
for a neighbor ♪

Once every 10,000 years,
there’s a golden child.

[ Laughs ]

I think there’s some comedians

where it’s like an athlete ‐‐

They have all the tools,

they have all the talent,

and they have all the hard work.

I mean,
Eddie Murphy and Michael Jordan

to me are the same thing.

The problem is

is when I move in,
y’all move away.

Eddie Murphy, for me,
was everything.

He did a sketch "White Like Me,"
where he became white,

and it was, to this day,

I feel like every joke
that I say, that’s in its DNA.

[ Humming ]

[ Sighs ]

What are you doing?

[ Stuffy voice ]
I buying this newspaper.

It’s all right,
there’s nobody around.

Go ahead, take it.

Murphy:
Slowly I began to realize

that when white people
are alone,

they give things
to each other for free.

Barris: To have a dude that
became that big on television,

that big in movies and was
that hot in the stand‐up clubs,

like, I don’t know
if we’ll ever see that again.

It was as if Richard Pryor and
Bill Cosby had a baby together,

and he had a leather suit.

[ Chuckling ] You know,
that’s what it was for me.

Brothers act like they
couldn’t have been slaves

back 200 years ago.

It ain’t like them motherfuckers
liked that shit.

"I wish I was a slave.
I would fuck somebody up."

The first dude that got off
the boat said that shit.

"Bale that cotton."
"Fuck you, motherfucker."

Wa‐pssht!

Other motherfuckers said,
"We’ll bale the shit.

Just keep that ‐‐ just keep that
fucking shit away from me."

Richard Pryor was very
self‐deprecative at times.

He was very vulnerable
and talked about his own lacks.

Eddie Murphy was never,
ever deprecative.

What he brought to it
that was different

was a more macho presence,

a more macho persona on stage,

and it was something
that African Americans

longed for at that time.

Peters: Nobody brought it in
the way Eddie brought it in.

It was like,
"Look, these are my idols, too,

and they’re phenomenal.

But watch what I doing
with what they did."

[ Cheers and applause ]

Certain rooms will let you have
a little bit more of a pass.

A white room is a lot of times
more quirky.

The jokes have to have
sort of a wittiness to them.

I feel like a lot of times
when I playing a black room,

you got to go for it.
You got to go hard,

you got to make sure
you are not backing down,

and you got to be
right there in your face

or they will eat you up.

But when you can take your set

and you can go from room
to room to room

and not really adjust it,
you know that you’ve done it.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪

What’s the big thing this year?

Election. Colin Powell.

He should run. He could win.

Colin could win. He should run.

He can’t win.

Colin Powell can’t win.

Colin Powell got
a better chance

of winning the bronze
in female gymnastics.

Key: Chris Rock, to me,
is an intellectual power,

and he’s an amazing satirist,

but his talent and his gift lies
in how he makes observations.

The white man thinks
he’s losing the country.

You watch the news, like,
"We’re losing everything.

We’re fucking losing!

Affirmative Action
and illegal aliens,

and we’re fucking
losing the country."

Losing?
Shut the fuck up.

White people ain’t losing shit!

If y’all losing, who’s winning?!

It ain’t us.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Lopez: Chris was able to connect
with black audiences

and white audiences
with the same words.

Shit, there ain’t
a white man in this room

that would change
places with me.

None of you!

None of you would
change places with me,

and I rich!

[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]

Chris is not even differential
to white or black people,

and so the less fear
you have in a comic,

the more powerful they are.

I not talking about rich.
I talking about wealth.

A white man gets wealthy,

he builds Walmarts
and makes other white people

have some motherfucking money.

A brother gets rich,

he buys some motherfucking
jewelry, okay?

Watkins: Chris Rock is unveiling
the idiocy of our society,

and the courage is amazing
because, again,

he criticizes blacks

and he, in fact,
fell out of favor with blacks

with some of the stuff
that he was saying.

Bell: Chris doesn’t want
to be predictable.

He thinks the worst thing that a
comedian can be is predictable,

so if the audience knows
your political perspective

all the time or knows
your viewpoint all the time,

then they’re gonna stop laughing

’cause they’re gonna
see the joke coming.

Rush: Dave Chappelle!

[ Cheers and applause ]

Dave is a definite genius.

The guy is jazz.

He is our Miles Davis.

Welcome to "Chappelle’s Show."

I still haven’t
been cancelled yet.

But I working on it,

and I think this next piece
might be the one to do it.

Excuse me. Not sure
we’re in the right place.

We’re looking
for Clayton Bigsby.

Well, look no further, fella.
You found me.

Uh, Clayton Bigsby,
uh, the author?

What, you don’t think
I can write them books?

Just ’cause I blind
don’t mean I dumb!

Wallace:
How could this have happened?

A black white supremacist.

Key:
One of the greatest sketches,

top‐five sketches of all time ‐‐

of all time,
is that Klansman sketch.

The blind Klansman sketch
is fantastic.

There’s just juxtaposition
after juxtaposition

after juxtaposition
in that sketch.

We don’t like
your kind around here.

You better get out of here
’for something bad happens.

[ Laughs ]

That’s right! That’s right!

Tell that nigger!
Beat it, you dirty nigger!

Come on, Clayton.
We got to ‐‐ we got to go.

Oh, Jasper,
there’s a nigger around here.

That dirty monkey
was beatin’ my hood!

♪

White Power!

Dave grew up
around white people,

as did I
in my large white family.

So, we could observe
black people

and white people
with the same amount of acuity.

♪

Good evening,
and welcome to the first

and maybe only racial draft
here in New York City.

Folks, this is
for all the marbles.

What happens here
will state

the racial standing of these
Americans once and for all.

Announcer #1: Seated behind me
on the stage there

are the various representatives,
and believe it or not,

the blacks have actually
won the first pick.

We, the black delegation...

...choose Tiger Woods.

[ Cheers and applause ]
Yeah! I good!

Announcer #2:
No surprises there, fellas.

Many of those jokes are just
frontal attacks on racism,

and what he’s really saying is
that we know this is going on.

Stop kidding yourself.

It’s happening,
you know it’s there.

You’re pretending
it’s not there.

[ Laughter and applause ]

Well, it seems
as though Tiger Woods

is happy to be black,
and that’s a good thing,

because I just received word

that he lost
all his endorsements.

Announcer #2:
Ooh, that’s a tough one.

All of them ‐‐ Amex,
TAG Heuer, Wheaties,

the whole shebang‐a‐bang.

Tough break, nigga.
There’s always FUBU.

[ Laughter ]

Man: Entertainment Weekly
is reporting

comedian Dave Chappelle
checked himself

into a mental‐health facility
in South Africa in April.

Comedian Dave Chappelle
is speaking out

in an exclusive interview
with Time Magazine.

The comedian
who’s in South Africa

tells Time that
he’s not in drug rehab

or a mental hospital,
as some have reported.

One of the stories he tells is
about a skit that he had done,

and he says as the skit’s
being performed,

he notices
an older white guy laughing,

and he realizes the guy
is laughing at him

as opposed to laughing with him.

When Chappelle
came to terms with this,

he recognized the power
of his comedy,

but also the fact that no matter
how funny he was,

some of the racial issues
in American society don’t change

simply because he tells a good
joke or performs in a good skit.

I out.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Peace!

Big bitch in the house!

[ Laughter ]

That’s right!

And I got some big‐ass feet.

That’s right.
I got some big‐ass feet.

I wear a size 12.

When I walk in a Payless,

it get quiet
than a motherfucker in there.

Dr. Boyd: Laughter is a way of
dealing with some of the stress

you might otherwise encounter,

and I think black comedians,
over time,

have always been individuals
who have been able to say,

you know, "This situation
is really fucked up."

♪

Key: The criteria was always
what is funny,

and then we can massage it
later.

Has to be funny first,
then it can be racial.

If you start from
a racial place,

you’re painting yourself
in a corner.

[ Panting ]

Ugh!

[ Sirens wailing ]

[ Groans ]

Are you getting this?
Yeah, what is up?

All right. Just go.
Let’s go.

[ Zombies groaning ]

Ain’t that some shit.

These are some racist
motherfucking zombies!

There should always be
an element of problem solving

in racial comedy.

♪

[ Door opens ]

Come on, kids.

In "White Person Hoodie,"
it’s the problem solving

that’s the wonderful surprise.

Let’s use people’s racism
against them

to make the comedy work.

Once again, the comic
has become the truth teller.

The comedian has been the person
who pulls back the curtain.

All right,
Johnson clan.

Everybody fitting into
their ski gear from last year

so we can tear it up
on Saturday?

Zach’s gonna
teach me to snowboard!

Thanks again, Mr. J,
for inviting me on your trip.
Mm‐hmm.

My family usually
teaches literacy

at the local prison
for MLK day.

How come we never
do anything like that

for Martin Luther King day?

Uh, because we’re black
all year long.

They’re white.
They have to do extra credit.

Solid comeback.
Thank you.

Barris: For this time period

with Obama being in office,

where things are going
on in our country,

I wanted to do a family
that was just a family,

but it was specifically
a black family

and their relationship
to being in a world

that wasn’t specifically black.

This is serious stuff,
son.

Kids are dying
in the street!

Hold up.
Kids are dying?

We’re kids.

[ Sighs ]

Crowd: Hey, hey! Ho, ho!

Barris: My son, Beau,
who at the time was 6,

we were watching
the Ferguson indictment,

and he turned around
and he said,

"Why are all those people
so mad?"

For our show, we don’t try to
rip things from the headlines,

but at the same time,
we do try to do what this family

would actually be talking about.

Some of those stories sometime
are a little scary to do

because some of them
are not within the realm

of what a comedy
would talk about,

and that’s why doing
a family show helps

because families will find
comedy in anything.

[ Cheers and applause ]

I think you can make anything
sound racist or hateful.

With the right tone in your
voice, the right inflection,

you can make anything
sound hateful.

Let me see if I can create
a racial slur right now.

Like, uh, sir,
you sitting right there,

uh, what is your ethnicity?
Where are you from?

Shut up, KIT KAT!

[ Laughter ]

Quit laughing, KIT KAT!

Bell: Everybody wants to tell
their own story,

and I think one of the reasons
that comedians of color

focus on race is because
most of our stories

were told through
the lens of white people.

So, like, Russell Peters
or Ali Wong

or Aziz or Margaret Cho,

they just want to tell
their own story,

and so part of that means
I’ve got to take the things

that you’ve said
and turn them on their ear

so you know
that those things are wrong.

The power is when people
can’t find a way to express

how they’re feeling
about something,

and a joke of a comic’s,

which is so well crafted
and insightful,

will speak for however
they’re feeling.

I never saw Asian people
on television or in movies,

so my dreams
were somewhat limited.

I would dream,

"Maybe someday...

I could be an extra on MASH."

[ Laughter ]

It’s hard, man,
’cause security at the airport,

customs, immigration,

they really need
to learn the difference

between a terrorist
and an Indian.

We’re not the same!

[ Laughter, cheers, applause ]

We’re not!

America is very focused
when they say racial comedy.

They just picture
black and white.

That’s the problem,
and I check the box of other.

And you got to understand,
after black and white,

there’s far more many others.

I speaking to the unspoken to.

Silverman: Most racism comes
from the fear of the unknown.

When things are out in the open,

that’s when they become
not scary anymore.

For all you white people
that just got pissed at me

and went, "Fuck you,"

I just wanted you to feel
what it’s like to be told

that you’re not an American
when people like me

have spent an entire lifetime
becoming one,

jumping a fence,
crossing a border,

swimming here like
Elián González’s mother.

We sacrificed.

Not only that, we betrayed
a country to be Americans.

Key: Some people can be moved by
a wonderful piece of rhetoric.

Some people can be moved
by a stirring speech.

But everybody can be moved by
something that makes them laugh.

Everybody.

And it’s a great, great force

that can be used to mold a mind.

Bell: It’s a funny thing.

I never thought about,
how do I find humor here?

It’s like, how could
I not find humor here?

I feel like humor is a way
to diffuse things.

Humor’s a way to take
the air out of something.

It doesn’t have to be Tuesday
for me to eat tacos.

I don’t need somebody to tell me
that today I can have tacos.

White people will ask me,

"How are you friends with
so many black people?"

And I said,
"I don’t know, it’s weird.

I just treat them
like human beings."

I’ve had people go,
"Do the Indian accent."

You can’t just do
the Indian accent.

You have to physically
become the Indian accent.

So, like, I talking
to you like this,

but if I had
to change,

suddenly my body
has changed.

My hands, eyes,

everything is different.

We have to morph,

and that’s really what
it’s about, you know?