Where The Hell Is Dave Chappelle?
by Peter Rubin
by Peter Rubin
As Wayne Brady, crackheads, and the word "skeet" can all testify, 2004 was The Year of Dave Chappelle. In its second season, the edgy Chappelle's Show vaulted him from cult status to fullblown pop-culture phenom. Guys in suits were greeting each other with "I'm Rick James, bitch!"; Li'l Jon even changed his own crunkifed "yayuh!" to better match Chappelle's impersonation of him.
Meanwhile, Comedy Central was enjoying the windfall that accompanies such phenomena: record-setting ratings and a first-season DVD that outsold anyTV compilation ever, aside from Seinfeld. So it did what any smart network would do: renewed Chappelle's Show for two seasons and gave its star one of the richest deals in cable-TV history. Then the execs sat back and waited for the new season of their highest-profile series.
...They're still waiting.
Chappelle's Show, originally scheduled for an early-February debut, has been rescheduled at least once--and with it the release of the Season Two tie-in DVD. Last month, when the network finally announced a May 31 premiere date, the rumor mill kicked into high gear. Tabloids wrote of paralyzing writers' blocks, dissension and jealousy among the staff, and worse. What's really going on in Dave's world?
The delay, sources say, started not with Chappelle's case of the flu last December, as the network claims, but earlier, over uncertainty whether the show would continue at all. The problems were caused by the unexpected success of the DVD, which brought in nearly $60 million in sales, much of it going straight to Comedy Central. The network's non-advertising revenue more than doubled in 2004. "Virtually all of [the increase] is from the Chappelle DVD," says Derek Baine, a senior analyst for media-consulting firm Kagan Research, in Monterey, California.
But the DVD profits that trickled down to Chappelle and his co-creator/writing partner Neal Brennan were leaner than crackhead Tyrone Biggums. "They felt a little screwed out of that," says a Chappelle's Show staffer, "and they weren't sure that they were going to come back, at least to Comedy Central." During renewal talks last April, Chappelle was adamant about a more equitable future split. Negotiations with Comedy Central dragged on for months; other networks came calling with their own offers. When the smoke finally cleared in August, Chappelle walked away with a $50 million deal for the next two seasons, the bulk of which was a cut of DVD sales (Chappelle's actual salary is reportedly around $5 million per season, compared to the $1 million he pulled down last season; the terms of Brennan's contract are unknown).
Along with the money, though, came twenty new episodes to write--and by all accounts, the process, already hampered by a late start, has been a tough one. Chappelle and Brennan, responsible for most of the show's material, have reportedly become obsessed with surpassing their previous efforts. "They put a lot of pressure on themselves to be totally original," says the Chappelle staffer. "They felt they didn't have all the ideas they wanted....With the deal they got, they didn't want to half-ass it. But they just weren't so expired." And so, in late December, after a couple of episodes' worth of material had been taped, the show closed production and didn't resume again until mid-February.
The perfectionism of the co-creators continue to make the show arduous to produce. The staffer says, "I've never seen it run less than four hours behind [per day]--sometimes nine hours behind. They'll start shooting at 9 a.m., and they're still going at 2 or 3 a.m." (Chappelle declined a request for an interview).
For its part, Comedy Central tries to be sanguine about the delay. "The network, fortunately, is bigger than the sum of its parts," says executive VP Michele Ganeless. Still, Ganeless calls CS a "juggernaut" and admits that the network's ratings would probably have been higher had the show begun on time. A recent week in February saw no Comedy Central shows among the Top Forty in Nielsen's cable rankings. Chappelle's Show was the top-rated cable series among the coveted 18-49 age bracket last year.
Bottom line: Comedy Central lost a first-quarter powerhouse. The network is taking a hit--but not as much as it would if the show didn't come back at all.