Where’s the Punchline?

Comic gold: Dave Chappelle's best-loved caricature, late funk musician Rick James. Courtesy Comedy Central.

During 2003 and last year, the question “What is the funniest series on cable TV?” had an obvious answer — Comedy Central’s Chappelle’s Show. For two seasons, the sketch comedy, built on the boundless wit of stand-up comic Dave Chappelle, split guts by skewering racial stereotypes and pop-culture touchstones. Consider: A Star Wars spoof depicting Yoda as a coke-snorting Jedi molester (“Get down do you?”). A blind white supremacist’s shocking discovery of his lifelong secret: he’s black. The inaugural instalment of Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories, wherein Eddie Murphy’s older brother recounts the antics of super-freak Rick James, prompting scores of teenagers and like-minded adults to spend months shouting “I'm Rick James, b----!” in place of hello, goodbye, please and excuse me. Chappelle’s Show earned its legions of dedicated fans by identifying — and then gleefully goring — American culture’s sacred cows. No topic, no matter its sensitivity, was left unscathed.

Viacom, Comedy Central’s corporate parent, rewarded Chappelle with a $50-million US contract for his series’ third and fourth seasons and other projects. Chappelle’s Show was supposed to return to the airwaves this spring, but fell off schedule when its star suffered a creative meltdown in April — related, he told a Time magazine reporter who tracked him to South Africa, to attempts by his close advisors to siphon his newfound fortune. In May, Comedy Central announced that the show has been placed on indefinite hiatus.

Chappelle’s Show is not Comedy Central’s flagship property; that honour goes to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. Chappelle’s Show is, however, an unparalleled retail force: season one, released on DVD two Februarys ago, sold three million units before last Christmas, breaking The Simpsons’ record for TV-to-DVD sales; season two, available on DVD since this May, sold a staggering 1.2 million copies during its first week on store shelves. Subbing in for the series is a thankless task, like trying to fill a pair of shoes sized for Shaquille O'Neal.

Less than stellar: Michael Ian Black, David Wain, Michael Showalter make up the comedy troupe Stella. Photo Scott Pasfield. Courtesy Comedy Central.

First into the breach steps Stella, an absurdist sitcom about three unemployed, 30-something male friends who wear designer suits for every occasion. Thematically, the show has nothing in common with Chappelle’s, and might have avoided comparison if not for taking its former timeslot. On paper, Stella looks like a winner. Its stars — Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter and David Wain — are graduates of The State, a New York-based, 11-member comedy troupe whose self-titled MTV series was a cult favourite in the early ’90s. When The State disbanded in 1997, Black, Showalter and Wain began regular, well-praised live performances as Stella, a name chosen to honour the daughter of the Manhattan club owner who hosted their act.

Comedy Central is tagging Stella the series (which airs after Reno 911, a comedy stacked with more State alumni) as “dumb comedy dressed up in a suit.” It could have quit after dumb. The debut episode veers from Seinfeld-ian to Looney Tunes-ish in seconds, weaving through a jumble of non sequiturs and unlikely events: Wain, a man whose sex appeal is roughly on par with George Constanza’s, tongue-wrestles a comely real estate agent seconds after meeting her — then later races to her apartment in hopes of stealing her away from her husband, who is Edward Norton, playing himself. The trio wear cartoonish skunk tails under their suits during a derivative, Flashdance-inspired dance sequence. When their short-tempered landlord has a heart attack, they perform unsuccessful open-heart surgery with a butter knife and a straw; all is forgiven when he is revealed as Nazi scientist Josef Mengele.

If any of that sounds humorous, my bad. Despite fleeting moments of amusement in Stella’s second and third episodes, so far the show is painfully laughless. Black, Showalter and Wain’s funny bones vibrate at strange frequencies; every element of Stella feels meticulously planned to fit their rhythms. Long-time State fans will appreciate the show’s insider feel, but most channel surfers will find little reason to lower their remotes.

A series like Chappelle’s is worth watching even if the humour doesn’t match your mood — there’s always the shock and/or thrill of seeing how it treats third rails like underaged sex and slavery reparations. Stella, by offering nothing close to commentary on the culture that surrounds it (not that every show on television should), renders itself eminently disposable. It’s possible that the show’s myriad quirks will add up to something appealing over time, but the question begs: Why would anyone hang in long enough to find out?

The new Chappelle?: Carlos Mencia in Mind of Mencia. Photo Ian White. Courtesy Comedy Central.

Mind of Mencia is Comedy Central’s other contender for Chappelle’s crown. This time, the parallels are obvious, sometimes even deliberate: Mencia begins by spoofing Chappelle’s opening, which features black buskers playing a blues ditty. Here, a mariachi band plays a Mexicanized version of Chappelle’s theme song while a chihuahua looks on. Host Carlos Mencia, a stand-up comic known for performing edgy, race-based material similar to Chappelle’s, charges onscreen: “What is this? Stop, stop, stop, stop! What am I, the resident beaner now? I’m supposed to sit around and tell jokes about burritos and tacos?” “Don’t forget about piñatas,” the chihuahua answers, a satirical tip of the sombrero to Taco Bell.

Much of Mind of Mencia involves its host, dressed not unlike Chappelle, doing stand-up on a set not unlike the one in Chappelle’s, weighing in on racial prejudices in a manner not unlike Chappelle. In the first episode, Mencia skewers Muslims for seven minutes, then stares down the camera: “A lot of you people are going to be offended by something I say tonight. If we didn’t get to you yet, don’t worry, there’s a lot more show left.” After a commercial break, Mencia — the 17th of 18 children — unloads his first piñata joke, about swinging from his mother’s umbilical cord while his brothers threw punches and asked, “How come the candies don’t come out?” A moment later, Everybody Loves Raymond star Peter Boyle walks onstage to read from Mencia’s fan mail: “Carlos Mencia, you’re a racist spic. Go f--- yourself!” It’s a deliberate break from Boyle’s carefully crafted Raymond persona — the angry but neutered Frank Barone — and a pointed reminder how a sharp mind can use dull humour to undercut racism.

Chappelle would surely approve. His fans should, too. Mind of Mencia is smart to avoid Xeroxing the Chappelle’s Show model — there are no conventionally scripted sketches, although the lead episode features a Daily Show-ish road report about an only-in-America highway sign — but shares enough common DNA to dull the ache of losing Chappelle’s lustre from Comedy Central’s lineup. Or, say, suffering through an episode of Stella.

Stella airs Tuesdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. Mind of Mencia airs Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.

Matthew McKinnon writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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