Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly

Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly is a 2000 American stand-up comedy television film directed by Stan Lathan and written by and starring comedian Dave Chappelle. Filmed at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C., it was Chappelle's first hour-long HBO special,[1] premiering on HBO on July 26, 2000. In the special, Chappelle talks about a variety of topics, including racism, police brutality, and drug use.[2]

Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly
DVD cover
Directed byStan Lathan
Produced byKimber Rickabaugh
Written byDave Chappelle
StarringDave Chappelle
Distributed byHBO
Release date
  • July 26, 2000 (2000-07-26)
Running time
60 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Reception

Shortly after the special's release, Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune gave it a positive review, writing that it "[covers] the predictable black people versus white people and men versus women territory, but doing it with fresh observations and, more important, a sophisticated structure", and noting: "somebody give this guy a TV series".[3]

In 2015, Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly was ranked #6 on a Rolling Stone list of the 25 best stand-up specials and films, with writer Matthew Love stating that the special "delivers everything we know now as the comedian's trademarks: shaggy-dog tales with increasingly absurd details and quick reversals; loose-limbed and playful bits that even inspired the comedian to giggle fits; blistering commentary on race couched in seemingly offhanded storytelling. Weed-dealing three-year-olds and Sesame Street pimps aside, the comic's routines about police brutality are even more painfully prescient today than they were in 2000."[4]

Home media

Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly was released on DVD in 2003.[5]

gollark: That's unconditional. You MIGHT get some correct guesses.
gollark: It tends towards about 0.368.
gollark: Interestingly, the chance of that doesn't vary very much with the number of possibilities.
gollark: I used facts and logic to calculate that.
gollark: The chance of that with UTTERLY random guesses is in fact 35% or so.

References
  1. Haggins 2007, p. 191.
  2. Williams 2007, p. 124–125.
  3. Johnson, Steve (August 4, 2000). ""Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly": Chappelle's is..." Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  4. Ciabattoni, Steve; Fear, David; Grierson, Tim; Love, Matthew; Murray, Noel; Tobias, Scott (July 29, 2015). "Divine Comedy: 25 Best Stand-Up Specials and Movies". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  5. Brevard 2013, p. 238.

Further reading
  • Brevard, Lisa Pertillar (2013). Whoopi Goldberg on Stage and Screen. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786468874.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Haggins, Bambi (2007). Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-Soul America. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813539850.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Williams, Dana A. (2007). African American Humor, Irony and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1847182142.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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