Chappelle speculation a cottage industry?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on December 17th, 2005

All right. What’s going on here?

A reader hipped us to the URL for a website called The Chappelle Theory which purports to tell the real story behind the abrupt shutdown of Comedy Central’s Chappelle’s Show.

He knew that at the same time he was signing his record-setting deal, there was a secret cabal of powerful African-American leaders from the business, political, and entertainment industries working together to ensure that the third season of Chappelle’s Show would never happen.

What follows is a wild tale that has secret dinner meetings between Oprah and The Cos, Al Sharpton weilding a pistol, Louis Farrakhan planting Nation of Islam members as cameramen on the set of the show and voodoo dolls.

The site is registered to a Philadelphia firm by the name of Weblinc. (Whose website says they “challenge (their) clients to justify the investment that (they) are asking them to make and establish success metrics by which the investment will be measured.” To put it otherwise, they build websites… for Calvin Klein Underwear, Crayola and Speedo.) Either somebody spent a lot of jack to create a website that spins a bizarre (and ultimately unbelievable– as in not believable) story about Chappelle’s recent troubles.

Or… the boys at Weblinc have a lot of downtime and they figured they’d try their hand at comedy writing. (Crank out the copy during your idle hours, cough up $75 to register a couple of domain names, get the boys in the design department to kick in some groovy code– Boom, a buzz website, with viral potential, is born!)

For a few pages, their chronology of Chappelle’s rise and fall makes for some entertaining reading. And it’s kinda plausible. (And, if presented as fiction, it might have even passed for a decent sketch on Chappelle’s now-defunct show.) But then it descends into outlandish parody. Kinda like a first draft of a Charlie Kaufman script. It’s Dave Chappelle meets Charlie Kaufman meets The Hamster Dance. What it might also be is an elaborate (and rather ingenious) campaign to pump up anticipation of the future release of a Chappelle’s Show DVD Boxed Set! Enjoy.

from → News • 0 Comments - Let's discuss! • Print-Friendly • Back To Top