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
Genre	Stand-up comedy
Written by	Dave Chappelle
Directed by	Stan Lathan
Starring	Dave Chappelle
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Executive producers	Dave Chappelle Howard Klein Stan Lathan Michael Rotenberg
Producer	Kimber Rickabaugh
Editor	Jeff U'ren
Running time	57 minutes
Distributor	HBO
Release
Original network	HBO
Original release	July 26, 2000 (2000-07-26)

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]

References

Further reading

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

External links

• Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly at IMDb
• Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly at Rotten Tomatoes