The Couchpotatoes
Dave Chappelle has the talent for being a good stand-up comedian. His humor is perfect to entertain you for an hour of laughter. Not only his mimics but also his different voices make this show pleasant to watch. Of course most of the humor, when performed by a black artist, has some racial focus points but that makes it funny and understandable. Anybody from any race knows about the difference of approach by the police to a specific race, it's not a secret, there are differences. Differences that shouldn't been but the police, certainly in America, is just biased and unfair, full of prejudices. Making humor out of it is the best way to deal with it, to mock them. Killin' Them Softly by Dave Chappelle is funny, the kind of humor that I like.
grantss
A Dave Chappelle stand-up comedy performance from Washington, DC. Incredibly clever, subversive and irreverent and delivered with Dave Chappelle's incredible sense of timing and range of voices, this is stand-up comedy at its finest. Might well be the funniest comedy performance I've seen - only Robin Williams comes close.Three years later Dave Chappelle turned his clever, racially-focused wit into a series, with Chappelle's Show. There he had even more room to demonstrate his talents, as he mixed stand up with set-orientated skits. Chappelle's Show turned out to be one of the funniest TV series of all time.
MassDistraction
After multiple appearances with Comic Relief and a half hour special on HBO, Dave Chappelle returns to his hometown of Washington, D.C., to tape his first hour-long special. He spends the bulk of the time exploring racial differences and making cultural observations, with a smattering of political humour. Chappelle manages to navigate some sensitive material with a disarming charisma. He's not breaking any new ground for black comedians here, but he manages to make it seem fresh with his effortless charm. Some jokes (like the ones featuring the out-of-place baby) illustrate Chappelle's ability to paint a picture with words and gives a few clues into what it was that made his show so popular. The political bits and the casual sexism will make this feel a little dated, but there is enough here to appeal to a newer audience.
MovieAddict2016
I believe Richard Pryor to be the best stand-up comic of all-time (closely followed in the social-critic realm by Bill Hicks and George Carlin), but Dave Chappelle is promising to be a worthy successor. This HBO special from 2000 has achieved something of a cult status on peer-to-peer networks since its airing, especially in audio form, and as such has gained even more popularity since Chappelle's venture into Comedy Central's "Chappelle's Show" (which is finishing its third and apparently final season right now).Looking back, I find this to be even funnier than his comedy show. Whereas his (hilarious) sketch show can become a bit repetitive at times and is almost always dealing with racial stereotypes and such, "Killin' Them Softly" touches on everything - beginning with blacks and whites ("DC has changed!"), moving on to crime, then television shows, and of course marijuana.My personal favorite bit has got to be Chappelle's observations on children's entertainment. He remarks how Pepé Le Pew is practically a rapist and encourages children to "take the pussy(cat)" and how racist "Sesame Street" was. ("Yeah, Oscar! You're a grouch." - "I live in a trash can! What do you expect!") Don't forget The Count: "I know a pimp when I see one!" To be honest I've found Chappelle's television show to become a bit stale sometimes (even though I'm a huge fan of it) but I was blown away - his stand-up comedy is even better. It's rare that I find myself laughing out loud at comedy acts, but even without watching him on stage, his vocal performance is gut-busting. The 911 phone call bit is classic.I don't want to discredit Richard Pryor and say this is funnier, but if you listen to some of Pryor's older stuff, Chappelle is touching on the same issues as he did in the 1960s and '70s and is, at times, actually doing it even funnier. Of course, Chappelle has some way to go before matching Pryor's iconic status or even his later fusion of outrageous comedy and social satire in the mid-'70s through the early '80s (which surpasses the stuff here), but those comparing him to Pryor have a reason to do so.