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The Conspiracy to Bring Down Dave Chappelle
Thanks to an anonymous tipster this morning, I got turned on to a really fascinating story about why the Chappelle Show ended so bizarrely. Check out this website called “The Chappelle Theory“. It purports to be a written by “a retired public relations executive who wishes to remain anonymous.”
A quick WHOIS search reveals that the domain name is owned through an LLC in Philadelphia (WebLinc, LLC 340 North 12th Street Suite 200 Philadelphia, PA 19107). No surprises there. Pretty common procedure to purchase a domain name through a company to keep your involvement out of a site. So that tells us nothing.
The story about this site seems to have been broken by Defamer at the end of last week. They call it, “either the single most paranoid screed or the best straight-faced satire we’ve ever read.” In either case, it is an engrossing read - mainly because of how suddenly and strangely the Chappelle Show ended right at the height of it’s possibility.
To summarize, this site basically suggests that a cabal of powerful black celebrities found Chappelle’s content repulsive and denigrating to the black community. Supposedly people like Bill Cosyby, Oprah Winfrey, Al Sharpton, Whoopi Goldberg, Louise Farrakhan and others conspired to turn the screws on Chappelle’s personal life, heading him straight towards the paranoid break-down which lost him his show.
As commenters at Defamer and elsewhere point out, there are some bits which seem difficult to believe, but in any case, it’s absolutely worth reading. Oh, and unlike 99.999% of conspiracy websites, it’s actually put together in a nice way, well-written and is easy to get through.
Could it be true? Who knows. I also just spotted this link on LaughMachine about a new Chappelle stand-up special airing last night. Could simply have been a very fun and very cheap to produce viral marketing technique to promote that show, and also fill in the narrative holes left by people wondering what the hell happened to Chappelle between now and then.
Whatever it is, it’s an expertly crafted piece of infotainment and is an excellent example of how easy it can be to make yourself “want” to believe weird things. But hell, maybe it’s true too. And maybe it doesn’t even matter. Maybe the real issue that’s brought up by this piece is: was the Chappelle show truly damaging to the image of African-Americans in culture? Did it, as Bill Cosby is alleged to have said, set race relations back fifty years? Or did it help to dissolve boundaries and blast apart taboos?
December 19th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
This is brilliant. This is what CT means to me– this is CT at its finest, in my opinion.
Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. Personally, I feel that Chappelle was tired and exhausted from working his ass off for Comedy Central. And a preview of some of the sketches for the aborted Third Season (excerpts of which were seen during a recent CC special) confirms that Dave was getting sick of the hype machine going into overdrive.
I think the biggest gap between people like Cosby and someone like Dave Chappelle is generational, not racial. All these old black performers want to be seen as elder statesmen to the youth, but the youth knows bullshit when they see and hear it. That’s why someone like Dave Chappelle cites Richard Pryor & Eddie Murphy– NOT Bill Cosby –as his comic influence. Pryor nor Murphy would’ve never tried to tell Chappelle to change his content.
Speakin of the late great Pryor: Go rent Richard Pryor’s short-lived TV series, now on DVD for the first time. Like Chappelle, Pryor pulled the plug early on his NBC sketch series rather than watch it grow out of his control. It’s funny to see how the things that got the network so upset back then are tame by today’s standards.
December 19th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
holy crap, thats interesting. i swear, though, i’ve seen recently commercials on Comedy Central advertising season 3…
December 19th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
Absolutely. I mean, what young black person looks up to Bill Cosby anymore. In my eyes, what Chappelle did was showed that it’s okay to talk about these issues. Race is not this horrible untouchable thing to never talk about. Cause if that’s the case, nobody ever gets anywhere. Nothing ever changes. This actually brought it out into the public eye, and showed how much was really there, and how it was okay to realize that a lot of this shit was really pretty ridiculous and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
December 19th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
i totally smell viral marketing. but that’s just me.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
In any case, it’s damned good viral marketing, I think. Maybe as John said, this was an effort by Comedy Central to get people excited again since Season 3 is about to get back in gear, after a lull. Maybe they just needed a way to “explain” the lull that would also generate a big groundswell of organic interest and make him look like a hero, rather than a fuck-off
December 19th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
I smelled a potential CT the day that Rick James died. My scenario was that RJ had made himself look foolish in the eyes of his puppet masters, the men who made him famous. RJ made himself look bad by gamely participating in the now-famous “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories” sketch. He was silenced for allowing himself to be made into an object of ridicule.
But never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined THIS theory that was put forth! And what’s awesome about it is: it makes sense. I read a lot of strange things in the press shortly after Chappelle’s “breakdown”, and some were diparaging, such as actor Mike Epps’ comments about Chappelle (at the time, Epps and Charlie Murphy were working on a movie together)…
Just think: if this CT has any validity, it can explain Eddie Murphy’s run-in with the tranny hooker that suddenly changed his career arc towards Disney movies. Disney is in bed with ABC, which is in bed with… Oprah Winfrey!
God, I love this stuff, viral marketing or not!
December 19th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
my opinion is that that show was trash. good riddence.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:48 pm
it reminds me of this part in miles davis’ autobiography when he talks about why he has such problems with louis armstrong and dizzy gilespi and cats like that. he thought they were just basically charicatures of themselves. entertainers first, artist second.
December 19th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
Yeah, that’s what’s so great about it - is that there ARE a lot of unanswered questions and rumors that flew around about the whole thing. This does a neat job of filling in the blanks, whether its true or not.
December 19th, 2005 at 10:45 pm
Just a few things:
1) The stand-up special wasn’t new at all. It’s actually quite old. Comedy Central replays stuff like that uncensored late at night.
2) “Season 3″ isn’t really a season like we’re used to. Before fleeing, Chappelle shot a bunch of sketches. There’s only (I think) 4 episodes worth of material. And no in-betweens he does with the audience. CC is thinking of getting people like Chris Rock, Chris Tucker and Martin Lawrence to perform sort of a wake for the show in between sketches.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:19 am
Oh, thanks for the clarification. I don’t actually have cable, so I have to just go according to online sources…
December 20th, 2005 at 12:59 am
If this were true, we would need to consider the roles and intentions of the alleged perpetrators. the “Dark Crusaders” range from politicians, media figures and moral beacons… and combinations thereof. just as much as this may have had to do with notions of whats best for black society as it does with Chappelle’s growing threat as a media mogul? could chappelle could represent a changing of the guard? does this threaten the cabal of the “Dark Crusaders”?
December 20th, 2005 at 1:30 am
Well, Andrew, more often than not it’s the trash that’s funny.
December 20th, 2005 at 11:33 am
Oh it’s definitely viral marketing. It was first posted on the web by the people who built the site, Weblinc, by the founder (twice) and the PR rep - both with annotations like “Crazy” or “believe or not” - like they didn’t know they built the damn thing. I lay the whole thing out on my comedy blog, Dead-Frog. Here’s the link:
http://www.dead-frog.com/archives/2005...12/chappelle_theory_conspiracy_as.php
Sorry, if that last bit was too promotional.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
No, that’s cool Todd. I appreciate the link.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Dude, you need to get cable. For every crap TV show, there’s an entire day of programming devoted to the kind of investigating you do online. History Channel, Discovery Channel (and Discovery Times as well)… there’s some good shit on the documentary channels!
I have cable AND TiVo at work. It has changed the way I process information from television. Those who say TV rots your brain don’t realize that (thanks to the power of imagination) TV watching can be transformed into an interactive activity, if you’re willing to not just sit there and passively absorb what you’re being spoonfed.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
Oh I know and agree. It’s a simple matter of not being able to afford any of that shit right now. I don’t have anything fundamentally against it.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
That website was paid for, it’s too nicely done. The crap about ppl in his bathroom and all the “someone overheard” just puts it over the top, my bs detector was screaming. I’d sooner think this was a promo stunt for the 2nd half of Season 3 than believe it as is. As an aside, the show itself was groundbreaking and the most important show on race in America since All In The Family and the Jeffersons(noted, both were also comedies). Instead, we’re left with Carlos Mencia to cash in, with much less tact or substance, what Chapelle(and his writers) started.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
Well, speaking as somebody who does web design just for the shit of it, just because you have a nice website doesn’t mean its bought and paid for. But I know what you’re saying.
The best refutation of it that I saw anywhere was on the Laugh Machine site I linked to somewhere above, where somebody pointed out how the article claims that the black klan member sketch was based on his grandfather. That really is more unbelievable than all the stuff about Oprah trying to crush him in his sleep or whatever - though that is really hilarious.
December 20th, 2005 at 11:56 pm
a “retired public relations executive” wouldnt know crap about html, image editting or, mercy be upon them, publishing to an IIS server(yes, IIS, lol). Even if that site wasnt a sham and said person composed the print, someone else had to slap it together. Im no conspiracy freak, but having a friend who is made me look at stuff a bit more closely. That pic of Bill Cosby and The O looked like funny shadows to me a la Oswalt’s head on someone else’s body holding a sniper rifle. Is the Tri-Lateral Commission in on this? Does this mean no Rick James movie too?
December 21st, 2005 at 2:45 am
The sketch about the black klan member isn’t directly based on his grandfather. His grandfather looked white and had experiences where he was intimidated by other blacks who mistook him for a white man. See the side bar on this USA Today article:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/televisio.../2004-03-15-chappelles-show-dvd_x.htm
December 21st, 2005 at 4:03 am
kOrtez… A retired public relations executive could conceivably know about whatever he wants to know about it. He could be an accomplished astrologist if he wanted, and just as conceivably a web page designer.
As to what I think.. Ive learned enough in my days to know that anything is possible and the story isnt really that far-fetched. It does put into context alot of confusion about the cancellation and what-not. But I do not know whether to believe it or not.
However, I do think that if this story continues to circulate the internet as much as it is, eventually its gonna be brought up in an interview with somebody like Chapelle or Charley Murphy. Though I doubt they would confirm it if it was true, if there was no truth to the story I’d expect a humourous, care-free reaction. If they act nervous while trying to discredit the story, it would only give the story more credit in my eyes.
January 18th, 2006 at 2:55 am
[…] the same design “feel” as that Chappelle Theory website (see my notes on that here). So I guess this type of thing is some “hot […]