THE NEW BEST HOUR OF TELEVISION YOU'RE NOT WATCHING, NON-NASHVILLE STAR DIVISION: Wednesday nights, 10pm-11pm eastern, Comedy Central.
At 10pm, South Park -- yes, that South Park, has come out of the gates running with two wickedly funny episodes to open the spring season, "Cancelled" and "Krazy Kripples". Yes, there's still the usual share of fart jokes and other coarse, scatological humor, but as with the best SP episodes (which, in truth, are rarely more than half of them), there's a good level of sharp satire going on in this quiet mountain town. Yes, actual ideas in a poorly-animated show about foul-mouthed eight year olds.
"Cancelled" had the kids discovering that our home planet was just the set for a reality show concocting by aliens who thought it would be amusing to see how people of different races would interact. But since life on Earth was getting boring, the aliens were set to cancel the show -- and the planet -- until the kids convinced the aliens that if they gave our world time, we would become even more outrageous and violent than ever before. It was good, smart, sustained humor, riffing off the classic "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe" episode from season one but integrating in some nice jokes on our own reality tv-drenched culture.
Now, that was good, but "Krazy Kripples" was even better. Or worse. I'll just describe the episode and state that it's a matter of taste. We learn that Christopher Reeve has gradually regained the use of his legs by sucking out the stem cells from aborted fetuses, to much public acclaim. But Jimmy and Timmy are jealous that Reeve has been getting so much attention, because they've been crippled for life while Reeve only recently became crippled. So Jimmy and Timmy start a new club, "The Crips", for only the hardcore true Crips, which is all well and good, until they meet another club in Denver, also called the Crips -- yeah, those Crips, and....
It's a wonderfully offensive episode. We were cringing and cracking up at the same time. It was not for everyone, but, man, it was good -- skating over the edge of good taste in such a way that even when it went overboard, you were glad people as bright as Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Norman Lear were the ones piloting the ship. Too much comedy these days is safe -- it's one of the criticisms levelled repeatedly against Chris Rock's new movie -- so I'm glad to support something that's willing to alienate large blocks of people.
Then, at 10:30 pm comes Chapelle's Show. Dave Chappelle, featured as Conspiracy Brother in Undercover Brother, has this laid back, nasal way of communicating indignation in this fast-paced sketch show. Almost all the skits have something to do with race, and while they don't all work, a lot of them do, from film and television parodies (Roots, The Matrix) to "Wu Tang Financial" and "Redman Potty Fresh". Chappelle's an angry, funny man, and I'm glad he's got this chance.
Watch some clips and judge for yourself.
(Did You Know: You probably first saw Chappelle in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood movie as Ahchoo. Yes, "We didn't land on Sherwood Forest! Sherwood Forest landed on us!" was a nineteen-year-old Dave Chapelle.)
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