Dave Chappelle: Unforgiven | Exposing Comedy Central

all right here's the story i started doing stand-up comedy when i was 14. i'll never forget the first time i was on stage the guy that introduced me was a guy named jt newton i'm 47. i can close my eyes and remember the introduction like it was yesterday it went like this ladies and gentlemen this next young man coming to the stage is starting his comedy career tonight who knows we may be witnessing the birth of a star please welcome david chapel from the first time that i ever held a microphone i was sure this was it i knew i was home i knew i had found my thing and my god man my god man i was a child i got good matter of fact i was good from the moment i started and i'm not saying this to be a bracket i'm telling you the truth these old [ __ ] was in awe of me how was this little boy so poised they used to say that was i mean you know i got better but it started out good about a year into it when i was 15 years old i had written a joke during the aids epidemic about having a good year condom something i don't even remember the joke something about an industrial strength condom by goodyear i just remember all the comedians really liked that joke and there was an older comedian and he came to me one night after the show after he saw the joke and he said listen i got an audition at another comedy club and i was wondering do you mind if i do that joke i just i just want to borrow it now i'm a kid i don't know any better i'm like borrow it well i guess sure if it'll help your career i let him do the joke and then weeks later i was waiting to go on in a comedy club and he went on before me and he did the joke and after the show i pulled him aside and i said hey man i don't mind you borrowing my jokes but you got to give him back he said oh i forgot to ask you he goes let me buy that joke from you for fifty dollars and i said man i'd do it but i'm just starting out i need all the material i can get the idea being that the more material i can accumulate the faster i'll be able to make money for my work i said i can't do it i want my joke back i'll never forget this remember i was a 15 year old child this guy was a grown ass man he stood up over me so i could see how big he was and he said to me really i can just take it and he did i got scared because i was a child but i never forgot that i never forgot that i was 15 years old i'm 47 now i think about this guy all the time when i look at my own kids and i see how young and innocent they are i can't believe someone did that to me and i don't think about it every day because that was the worst thing that happened to me i think about it every day because that was the first time someone ever did that to me but in my career it has happened many many times since when someone would intimidate me or scare me and take something that i believe was mine tell you another story now i'm 18 years old i'm living in new york city and i just finished my first road tour which was a very difficult tour i'll spare you the details now i'm back in new york but my rent is paid thank god and i have 60 dollars to my name and a woman that i met in pittsburgh a bad dominican [ __ ] was coming to new york she was going to spend the weekend with me i couldn't wait for her to get there she was coming that evening remember i only had 60 hours for a whole weekend to entertain a bad [ __ ] now i'm walking through greenwich village and i see something i've never seen before three card monthly you know what that is yeah the guy had the whole thing the table was set up and he had the three cards and the crowd was hooting and hollering and he was like find the red card find the red card and people were playing sometimes they win sometimes they lose but it was really exciting and i'm standing there watching it and i noticed while i'm watching them play this game that the red card the one you're trying to find had just a little bend on the corner and i'm watching and i'm like yo this guy doesn't seem to know that red card is bit i'm gonna beat this [ __ ] and i walked up to the table and i said let me play a hand and i put my last 60 dollars on that table and he starts to shuffle and find the red card find the red card and i kept watching that bent car go around the table make sure i kept my eyes on that bent card and when he stopped shuffling and he said find the red card i pointed to it with confidence here it is right here and he flipped it over and it was black and he took my money i couldn't [ __ ] believe that how did this [ __ ] do that was that magic or sorcery i was confused so you know what i did i sat there and i watched them for a real long time play the game and i realized that all those people who was doing all that hooting and hollering and betting my god they were his friends they were in on the whole thing i felt so wronged i felt so stupid and then the next sucker came up to the table and was about to put his money down and i said [ __ ] that man don't put your money there all these [ __ ] is in on it it's a trick and when i said that the guy that was dealing and this [ __ ] was huge snatched me up by my column i feel how strong he was when he grabbed me i was a skinny little guy and he was going to maul me the only reason he didn't i'm sure is because he saw the fear in my face and that fear he looked at me i saw his eyes go from hard to soft he softened then he looked at me like the way a father would look at a child and he said to me young man don't ever come between a man and his meal i never forgot that either most [ __ ] would have to run the streets for years to learn a lesson that profound it took me two seconds never get between somebody and their paper taking a man's livelihood away from him is akin to killing him do you know why prince the famous rock star that was a friend of mine do you know why he called himself the artist when he came back he calls himself the artist because that's what they call us in our contracts all these contracts are crazy you should hear the terminology they say in these contracts to use your name and likeness and perpetuity throughout the universe who the [ __ ] could possibly know what that means nobody does it's so complicated in fact that when you're a kid like me you have to hire somebody to tell you what that means and you sit down at a table and you do the contract game that's how i got with comedy central i signed the contract but i signed the contract the way the 28 year old expectant father that was broke signs a contract i was desperate i needed a way out and it wasn't good money and it wasn't good circumstances but what else am i gonna do i said and all these white people sitting at that table told me trust us dave it's a good contract and i looked around the table and they all seemed to agree it was a good contract but what if what if it was like that game of three card monty what if they were all friends and i didn't know it and the bag of money was icebergs money in the first place what was i talking about what was i trying to tell you last week two weeks ago whenever it was i called on michaels and i tell him okay i'll do it i'll do saturday night live on election night and and the day i made that phone call the day i committed to it it gets announced that netflix is streaming chappelle's show not just netflix hbo max is streaming it too tell you another story about hbo no hear me out did you know before chappelle's show was at comedy central i pitched that show to hbo i i told them what i wanted to do now these are executives all they have to do is say yeah we'll take it or no thank you we won't but they didn't say either those things they went too far they said literally what do we need you for that's what they told me as they kicked me out of the office what do we need you for and here we are all these years later and they're streaming the very show that i was pitching to them so i'm asking them what do you need me for [Applause] people think i made a lot of money for chappelle show when i left that show i never got paid they didn't have to pay me because i signed the contract but is that right i found out that these people were streaming my work and they never had to ask me or they never had to tell me perfectly legal because i signed the contract but is that right i didn't think so either that's why i like working for netflix i like working for netflix because when all those bad things happen to me that company didn't even exist and when i found out they were streaming chappelle's show i was furious how could they not how could they not know so you know what i did i called them and i told them that this makes me feel bad and you want to know what they did they agreed that they would take it off their platform just so i could feel better that's why i [ __ ] with netflix because they paid me my money they do what they say they're gonna do and they went above and beyond what you could expect from a businessman they did something just because they thought that i might think that they were wrong and i i do i think if if you are [ __ ] streaming that show you're fencing stolen goods they stole that from me they just took it and i'm not up here trying to tell you guys that i believe that comedy central gave me a raw deal just because i'm black i believe that they gave me a raw deal because this [ __ ] industry is a monster it's the same monster that these me too [ __ ] was trying to tell you about but they hate the monster for how it [ __ ] and i hate that monster for how it eats but my god man it's the same monster when i quit the show all my friends would say well [ __ ] them dave why don't you just do chappelle's show at another network yeah yeah yeah and why doesn't a slave run from one plantation to another plantation because the master over there might be nicer my god man i was trapped you know what tell you the truth tell you the truth i've even thought about coming back and doing another chappelle show well but if i do i can't call it chappelle show because my name and likeness is being used by them in perpetuity throughout the universe it's in the contract [Applause] you're not supposed to do this in my business i'm up here doing something that nobody else in this business has the balls to do i'm telling you something that you need to know i'm trying to explain to you what you're seeing you don't understand what you're seeing i am publicly flogging a network and i know that this network [ __ ] they they watching me and they saying why why why are you doing this so so publicly then feel good to be flogged publicly oh believe me i know i know exactly how that feels when i quit my show they said i was crazy what was crazy about it i just didn't want to do it anymore they said i smoked crack that's impossible i was a devout muslim i didn't smoke or drink but i do now [ __ ] cause you ruined my [ __ ] life [Applause] now it's their turn this is their first [ __ ] lesson and i'm honored to give it to them they're gonna pay me for this show i called my agent i said is there anything i can do about this show and he said no well [ __ ] you two then you want something done right i guess you gotta do it yourself so i'm not going to the agents i'm coming to my real boss i'm coming to you i'm begging you if you ever liked me if you ever think there was anything worthwhile about me i'm begging you please don't watch that show i'm not asking to boycott any network boycott me boycott chappelle show do not watch it unless they pay me if you're a shareholder at viacom then i'm talking to you because all that [ __ ] that they do to us well they do everything for their shareholders that's what they told me so if you're a shareholder in that company tell them it's wrong and if you don't believe that it's wrong then [ __ ] you too [Applause] should know what's in the hot dogs you eat now there's probably a bunch of people at comedy central and viacom and all these places that have no idea what i'm talking about they've all either quit or been fired

Channel: Daily Dose Comedy

Views: 11,594,732

Keywords:

Id: EJJ-Pu8WsZU

Length: 17min 28sec (1048 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Poneke365]

He is so succinct in what he says. I stopped watching Netflix more than two years ago. Matter of fact the last thing I watched on it was one of Dave’s specials

[u/TheIncredibleDjango]

I signed a deal I regret so now I’m gonna cry about it.

I remember when his social commentary bits weren’t purely self interest.