Sketch comedy goes in and out of vogue all the time. Saturday Night Live has been one of the stalwarts to stick around through the years. Chappelle’s Show is the other sketch show that has seemingly transcended time.
One of the most popular sketch formats that came from the show was “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories,” which involved Dave Chappelle playing a celebrity that was popular in the 80’s and the results were hilarious. His portrayal of Rick James on the show led to one of the most repeated quotes of the early 2000s: “I’m Rick James, bitch.”
It turns out we may have gotten more of Rick James, but the election had something to say about it. Neal Brennan, the co-creator of Chappelle’s Show who helped write during the week Chappelle was on SNL, let slip in an interview with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show that a Rick James sketch was in the works.
Brennan and Michael Che, a cast member and writer on SNL, had written a sketch that involved Rick James reacting to a Hillary Clinton win.
He noted that at 9 pm on November 8th, he and Che were pretty happy about America at the time, but went on to explain what happened to the sketch.
“It was gonna be a Rick James Weekend Update piece, about how he was glad that Bill Clinton — I’m sorry, Donald Trump, lost. Then me and Che had to rewrite that sketch. We ended up not doing it.”
Brennan then went onto explain that instead of the Rick James sketch, he teamed up with other Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost to write the first sketch for the show that week. That “Election Night” sketch ended up being a series of reactions to the election result from white liberals against the reactions Chappelle and Chris Rock.
While that sketch was good, we now have to play the “what if” game. Chappelle has a deal in place with Netflix – should we start actively wondering if we will ever see those Chappelle’s Show characters ever again, or are they forever consigned to history?
[Vulture]
