Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh dissect Dave Chappelle's new Netflix special, praising the poignant final story about a trans man named Dave as masterful storytelling. They debate whether subsequent jokes were necessary defenses against backlash or unnecessary padding, arguing that Chappelle prioritizes deep personal expression over joke density for new audiences. Ultimately, the hosts conclude that judging his evolved art solely by immediate laughs ignores how legendary comedians shift from accessible humor to complex narratives that resonate with long-time fans. [Automatically generated summary]
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So are we going to talk about Chappelle's special or what?
We were talking about this before, and it is a treaky one.
And I know I'm going to seem like a complete hypocrite because I guess I've been quite critical of past ones, but I, for whatever reason, maybe I'm growing.
I'm becoming a better person or something like that.
But I do feel difficulty in being critical of a stand-up's work when they're doing stand-up.
Yeah.
If you're a stand-up that is moonlighting as a late-night TV host and you're putting out corny shit, it's like, okay, that's not what it is.
But if it is your art and that is your thing, I understand the vulnerability of putting something out and having the world be able to criticize it.
That is a vulnerable thing.
Yeah.
I'm sure musicians feel this way when they put it out.
I'm not a fucking musician, so I don't really care as much about the thing, but I do care a lot about stand-up.
So it's tricky to come out here and be like, oh, let's criticize the greatest working comedian.
So I want to start out with like some praise for it.
I think he is, and I've said this on the podcast before, the greatest storyteller that I've ever seen in my entire life.
It's fucking unbelievable.
The story at the end, if you're watching the special and then maybe you don't like it or something like that, and you're halfway through, you turn off, you're missing out on the greatest part of the special, in my opinion, which is the final story that he tells.
Unbelievable.
It's probably 10 minutes, maybe even more.
And it is masterful.
Like playing with energy, like using comedy as a tool to drive the story.
It's really genius.
It's almost like stand-up is just this tool he has in the shed.
And he's choosing to use it during the storytelling right when he needs to to keep pushing the story on.
You know, I always think about like, remember those like crews in USA, the race car game?
Yeah.
You got to pass the checkpoint to get a little more time?
Right.
Like using the jokes as that past the checkpoints you can drive the story that we're really curious to hear like what happens.
It's a fucking beautiful story.
And not only is it beautiful, it's like strategic and like pointed and really executes the exact thing that he's trying to say throughout the special.
It was masterful.
I mean, I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
What did you guys think about at least that section?
That was incredible.
I do wish he ended it right like 90 seconds earlier, the special.
He ended it 90 seconds earlier.
I thought it would have been fucking perfect.
On the line that says...
Yes.
Yeah, I mean, we're going to give it up.
We're going to assume everybody's seen it by now.
And if you haven't seen it, it's okay.
You'll still enjoy.
But on the line that's like, and I want to have that conversation with him, I knew your father, and he was a great woman.
I mean, that is.
That's the mic, baby.
That shit is fire, dog.
I mean, it would have been the fucking, like, his Emmett Till ending in equanimity when he told the Emmett Till story was incredible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This would have been even better.
Yeah.
I wish he ended it right there.
It's still so good.
But I wish he ended it right there.
Yeah, and I guess maybe he had another point that he wants to drive home.
Yeah.
I'm doing this for my people or something like that.
But like as a pure storytelling finale, that is the final point.
Fucking perfect.
Maybe he felt he had to round out the whole piece to add more.
But like for me, that's the metaphor for the whole piece.
Yes.
I can love you, even though maybe you and I disagree on some shit and I'm still going to say some jokes and they're still going to be funny.
Yes.
Even though I really fucks with you.
That'd be hilarious if he did not set up that fun for the kid.
That was making more.
I respected more.
This kid is just tweeting like, where's this phone?
I'm 21, Dave.
Where you at?
This is good.
Okay.
Your guys' thoughts on the final story.
Just off that point, I agree with you.
I wish he did mind drop right there, but I understand why he included that last thing.
What do you think?
I just kind of feel in his head, he is really taking some shots of this.
Like, he feels like he's taking some, I think, I'm assuming I think he's taking like, oh, I'm taking some career ending possible shots.
Like, I'm really going at the trans.
I'm really going at Jews.
He's like, hey, I need to let you people know.
Like, I got to explain it to you.
The reason why it is.
I think he needed that just so it's like, yo, if you guys attack me, this is the reason.
Protection.
Yes.
If you didn't get it throughout the special, it's like, this is it.
I think if you couldn't see the humanity of Dave in that story in and of itself, you're the problem.
Yes, people are dumb.
Sure, there's some.
I also gave you two endings.
He gave you the smart, artistic ending, and then he gave you the Twitter ending.
Yeah, Like, if you didn't get that, I'm going to make this very easy for you to get.
The fun thing about art is you leave it open to interpretation.
And that's issue everything.
The issue with cancellation is that it's open to interpretation.
What do you really mean by it?
Yeah.
Do we let him live or do we fucking kill him?
Okay, what were your thoughts on this?
Just the story.
I didn't see the whole thing, but I saw that.
I saw the story live when we were in Austin.
Yes.
So you can't speak on that.
And it was cool.
I really enjoyed it.
And I actually was misdirected by the ending.
I didn't actually see how it was going to go.
And it seems sort of like a return to form for him based off of his previous specials.
And I guess his set in general that night.
And it was a lot more polished than the night that we had seen it.
Is what I was saying.
So I was like, I'm happy to see that he's taking that turn.
And I'm pretty sure this is his last special with Netflix, right?
For a while.
Or like his last of like the deal.
Yeah.
I thought he only had to do like three for the deal.
I'm sure he got more.
And then he re-upped again, maybe.
I'm sure he got.
But yeah, I think he can keep re-upping whenever he wants.
It's not like the way he phrased it in just my last special period.
No, he said for a while.
He said that a few times.
And then he also said, I'm not talking about you guys anymore.
Yeah.
The trans community.
He's never talking about the community.
And that was after, which I wish he also just leave it.
Like, you just left it so beautifully.
But my one pushback on the kind of covering his own ass.
You can't cancel Dave Chappelle.
He doesn't want to be in your movies.
His stand-up will always be worth $40 million a pop.
He's worth nine figures.
He has Chappelle show that he owns now, and he can get the fucking whatever residuals or whatever it's called forever.
So you can't cancel Dave Chappelle.
He doesn't need your new opportunities.
But he wants to drink in bars in Michigan without being bothered.
So he has a problem drinking in bars in general, I think.
So I think one of his friends needs to talk to him.
I'm just saying, every person can be canceled depending on how you look at cancellation.
Like, say if he actually does want to put out a special event and say if he gets so much pushback from the Jewish community and the trans community.
Trans community.
LGBT, whatever.
Yeah, I think it's.
Okay, so Akash is speaking more towards cancellation in terms of opportunity industry.
And you and him probably have different perspectives.
You, that's enough money, but you can't decide how much is enough money to someone else.
He may believe that he wants to make $500 million and donate 200 fucking million to the Dead Poets Society for whatever it is.
But just to just to finish the point.
So, and he's allowed to have that feeling as well, even though that's enough money for you.
And maybe when you get there, you'll decide, I'd like some more money too, and I want to continue this.
I think it's not about, I think it's not about money.
I think it's about lifestyle.
And I think he is a comedian.
He cares about what people think of him.
It's very important.
We all do.
As we all do, right?
Like, if we knew who we were and we felt validated every single day, we wouldn't go up in front of strangers and try to tell them to validate us through laughter, right?
Like, so.
I think it is painful, I'd imagine it is painful for someone who cares about what people think of him to think of him as something that he does not identify as.
So if he's walking around all day going, these people think I hate gays.
They think I'm homophobic.
They think I'm transphobic.
That's probably way more painful than not being able to be in the next Paramount movie.
Right.
So that, I think, is the thing.
That's the impetus for the other.
But you're 100% right in terms of like the industry can't withhold anything from him.
Him specifically.
And I didn't even just mean financially.
I meant opportunity-wise.
Like, he's not 100 millionaire off of movies or TV shows that you wrote for him.
He wrote one himself and then he puts out his own stand-up.
And like, opportunity-wise, he's, I think, but that makes a lot of sense.
The emotional cost.
And he's a sensitive, and I don't mean that in a negative way.
He's a dude that's like empathetic and like a human.
Thoughtful.
He's thoughtful.
He's a very thoughtful guy.
Stretching Stories With Jokes00:15:08
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But yo, this is actually, I think this is good.
Like if we go make fun of everybody, if we're really going to do that thing where we sit here and we go, we make fun of everybody, we can't just make fun of the people that can't do something for us.
And then the people that can do something for us, we're like, oh, we got to be polite.
Everybody got to get these jokes, bro.
Yeah, I hate saying you can't punch down, but I also hate not punching up.
Yeah.
Like, if you say, we're like, yo, fuck that punching down.
You can't punch down shit.
But then if you're scared to punch up, you ain't shit either.
You know, it's funny that the last joke about the punch it down, I think I was talking to Mark about this.
This was like maybe last week.
I think I was talking to you about this, but I was like, with the punching down thing, and I was like, was it you or maybe it was somebody else?
But like, I had thought about the same thing.
Like, I don't like the concept of punching down because you make me, you're basically like, I think less of everyone.
Yeah.
Like, you can't remember when we were dealing with like some notes processing.
They're like, I think we've had this exact conversation.
Yeah, okay.
We have to set it here.
Okay.
Yeah.
I always hate that because it's like, no, you're placing them beneath you.
I don't see it that way.
I see me punching somebody that's equal to me.
You decide they're beneath you.
That reflects your own bias.
And it also creates a social hierarchy of social oppression.
Yeah.
Who's below what?
But look, they're going to take it on the chin.
I'm going to fucking take it.
Everybody's going to take it on the chin.
I think once you start to realize that and feel that, there's like a safety and security built out there.
And maybe that's the shitty thing about like being able to yank a joke out of a special is like you're just like, oh, you see this joke he made about Asians?
It's like, were you listening to the joke he made about the Puerto Ricans five minutes before and the joke he made about the Jews seven minutes after?
Like once you understand the context, not of the joke itself, the joke itself could be hateful, but the context of the whole piece.
Yeah.
You're like, oh, okay, I get what we're doing here.
And that's why roasts nobody cares about.
Right.
Because you walk into the roast going, we're going to be hurtful for fun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The comedy special, you walk in going, this is just going to be a great old time.
We're going to laugh.
Yeah.
So maybe we should like start the disclaimer or like call the special roast for fun or like this fucking, when you walk in, this is the deal.
Everybody gets these.
You can do that at the top of every show.
I try to.
Like, I'll say, like, we all laugh at fucked up jokes.
Like, we need this.
Like, we're all going to laugh at fucked up things.
It's the best.
I think that's part of the reason why Chappelle had the caveat into a special.
He was like, hey, I'm just trying to make you guys laugh.
I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings.
I am trying to make a point in terms of like a political statement.
Yeah.
I'm not trying to do it at the expense of other people.
So if you feel that I am, you've misinterpreted me.
And he probably feels that he could have done a better job at telling everyone.
I think he needed to add that caveat more for himself.
Right.
So people don't know him.
He had another caveat that I typically think is bullshit, but I believed this one where he was like, if you listen to everything I've said on every special about trans people, I do not, I'm not complaining about trans people or something.
He said, I'm complaining about white people.
And if you think about all this shitty saying, it's like, oh, I see what he means with like the entitlement, the white entitlement that comes from the white trans people who tend to be complaining, who tend to get heard the most, etc.
It's like, oh, I actually believe that when he says this is about white people and not trans people.
And I think that he's using trans people as an example or gay people as an example of what black people can't do.
Yes.
Right?
So he's just juxtaposing the black experience and this other oppressed group's experience and going, yo, why can't we get motherfuckers out of here like this?
And he said that, I'm not transphobic.
I'm jealous of how effective your movement has been and how we're stuck here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How'd you guys already get ahead of us?
Now, do you believe that that is the sentiment or do you think that that is convenient logic to probably a little bit of both?
Maybe.
It probably starts off a certain way.
And then as you get hatred, as a human being would, as people start telling you you're a piece of shit, you're like, you know what?
Fuck them.
And then you also start using their rules against them.
Yeah.
It's like, it's like, they're like, that's the gene.
Like, he's a master.
And I mean this in the best possible way, like manipulator.
And as a comedian, you do have to manipulate the emotions of an audience, right?
Even to induce laughter.
But like, that was masterful.
It's like, oh, you set the rules as don't punch down.
I'm going to convince you we're below y'all.
You better not bully me.
Yeah.
You see what you did to your own?
You got your own off of themselves from bullying.
Right.
The feminist smoke.
He's like, he's like, hey, this is a feminist is, hey, you just want women to be equal, but then you wouldn't allow the black feminists to speak at whatever movement or whatever.
So it's like, he's like, even for a movement that's about women, you're still putting black women below.
And I think he added that point so he can make his fun point at the end.
Right, right.
It was cool, man.
Like, look, you know that there's always going to be a reaction to a Chappelle special, which is, well, I didn't laugh as much as I thought I would laugh or something like that.
Like, that seems to be like a lot of the reaction.
I think, Al, you brought up a really good point before, which is basically you're just comparing it to other Chappelle specials.
Yeah.
And you brought up the Drake analogy.
Say that.
I thought this was really poignant.
So, let's certify Love a Boy.
People are saying this is not one of Drake's best albums.
Yeah.
Because they're comparing it to Drake's other album.
And it's like, your best work is going to come in the beginning because it's like those lifetime of thoughts that you want to get up.
And now you're having like two years to put together a special.
But at the same time, it's the quality of work is still so beyond everyone else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's still good.
It's not a bad album.
And like, would it be.
Would Drake's album be the best debate album ever?
Yes.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
Like, if you were if the baby put out Drake's shit right here, you'd be like, oh my god, this is the most amazing one.
So he is competing with himself in that regard.
So even more so with comedy.
Yeah.
Who has it for 20 years?
Chris Rock's last special.
What's his worst special tambourine?
Had some beautiful moments.
Slow as fuck the first half hour.
Who is still funny?
Bill Burr is the one guy I can think of.
He's been doing it 20 years and he's still so strong.
But even then, I think it's a fame thing where you're so famous, you're just performing for your fucking like sycophants or whatever, your fanatics, and they're going to laugh at everything.
So you don't necessarily get to Cone and Kraft and whatever.
And it's this superstar level where it's like, that's not sustainable for most comics.
Yeah.
You always hit a plateau.
And he doesn't seem like I'm just made I can't tell, but it doesn't seem like he's performing for his fans.
Like he seems like he's, hey, I'm going up there for myself.
Like this is the shit I want to get off.
Like this, this is shit that's bothering me, so I'm going to talk about it.
Even if you dislike the fact that I'm talking about trends in the last three specials, it's like this shit still bothers me, so I'm talking about it.
Yeah.
So I respect that.
That's more artistic to me than like, oh, let me just focus on the big political things that are going on at the moment.
Yeah, like talk about the shit you care about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the weird thing with Chappelle as far as like performing for his fans.
I feel like if you're a comedy fan, you're probably a Chappelle fan.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like it's not really like music where you're like, oh, I don't listen to that.
I only like this.
I only like that.
Like, most people that are fans are like comedy nerds, they're like, oh, yeah, I'll go watch Chappelle.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, he's legendary, though.
And it was good to see him doing comedy again.
Yeah, yeah.
Unforgiving and all that other shit.
I was like, yeah.
Yep.
First half, first half of his jokes.
I do think it's probably harder, though, for him to get the same type of like laughs per minute into jokes that he might have had previously in his career simply because he's getting a much bigger reaction off of less funny jokes by proxy of his fame.
Like that, that's just like, so it's not even his fault.
It's like where maybe he was younger, he would be like, tag, tag, tag, another misdirect, another misdirect, keep building, keep building.
And like now he's getting huge explosion off of premise.
Yeah.
You know, punchline.
And I think that that is the nature of fame.
And maybe that's why he's gone and like put time into developing these stories, right?
Because that's something that doesn't change no matter who's watching.
Right.
Right?
It's like, I'm going to build out this other thing.
I'm already getting this huge pop off of this one idea that maybe 10 years ago, I'd have to drive a bunch more punchlines in and really do it.
But I can execute the exact point I want and get the intended reaction way quicker.
Let me develop these stories and make these stories have these crazy arcs and like beautiful things.
That's something I can actually do despite how much the fans love me, appreciate me.
Right.
Etc.
And in my opinion, I feel like that's a big efflex because I see it with you guys.
It's like you're able to stretch out a story and fit in jokes whenever you feel.
Like you fit in little pops when you feel, and you can go like a cheat pop or it's like, oh no, I give you a poignant pop.
And so when you get when you're operating on that level, I think it's harder for him.
It's like, hey, how long can I get this story and still keep you engaged?
Like that's the flex for him because if he wants to make you laugh, he can make you laugh.
Yeah.
If you wanted to just make people laugh on cheap shit, just make them rolling laughing.
You can do cheat jokes throughout the whole set.
But you pride yourself and be like, no, no, no, I want to send a message between these jokes.
And that, to me, is like it's harder.
Yeah.
So when you're operating that level, it's like, I'm not going to knock what he's doing because I think he's doing it for himself.
So what do you say to the person that's not familiar with Chappelle's early work, but sees Chappelle and assumes that this is the greatest comic alive because that's what they're hearing all the time.
But they just enter this stage of his career.
Is it similar to what I probably went through with Carlin, where like I was told he's the greatest and then I watched the later work and I'm like, man, this guy's really smart and he's saying like really thoughtful fucking things, but like.
I'm not laughing.
Dying laughing, but I recognize he's a really smart guy and I recognize everything.
Great writer.
The writing's great.
The observations are really brilliant.
But like I'm not dying and laughing the same way I'm dying from watching David Tell or watching Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, whoever.
You know what I'm saying?
So what do you say to somebody?
Because it's hard for me because I'm as a comic, like it's hard for me to remove it.
But what do you say to that person?
Like if my girl watches or something like that.
Yeah, I feel like with most art, like music or even food, it's like you have to, you get in on the easy stuff.
And then once you realize that that stuff is easy, you appreciate the hard stuff more.
So it's like for somebody who just gets into Chicago now, I'm going to tell them, no, no, basketball.
No, that's hard from the beginning, but you can't appreciate now unless you go back early.
The other tricky thing about everything, art, sports, whatever, it always moves forward.
Very few things age well.
If you go watch Wilt Chamberlain highlights right now, you'd be like, this is the fucking guy?
This is the guy we're talking about.
Shaq would body this motherfucker anywhere.
That's just the nature of how these guys push everything forward.
Jay-Z said it to Lil Wayne and the Carter.
He said, go farther, go further, go harder.
Is that not what we came?
If not, then why bother?
That's it.
Chappelle pushed the envelope so the next great guy can push it further.
And Chappelle got there because Rock and Pryor and whoever else, they all pushed it further.
You watch Pryor now, it's funny.
It's not changing the world, but you don't realize comedy wasn't like that until him.
But what are you saying to the fan that's catching the end of the journey, not the beginning?
And their reaction to the end is based on a wealth of knowledge or lack thereof of Chappelle, right?
Like, you've only seen maybe two specials and you're like, everybody keep telling me this is the funniest guy that's alive, but I'm not laughing as much as...
I would just tell them to start from the beginning and know that they might not get it because it just always evolves.
In the same way, your dad tells you Bill Russell is the greatest basketball player of all time because he changed the way defense was played.
And if you watch Bill Russell, you'd be like, all right, that's the way the world moves.
Some people aren't writing for it.
Like, I'm not, my eyes aren't as developed watching comedy as your guys' eyes.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's like, maybe cheaper jokes might be funnier to me than they are to you.
And you're like, ah, that was so easy.
I don't think that me.
Chappelle's early stuff was cheap.
No, I'm sorry.
That's right.
The way he did comedy was like, oh, I know the best way to get him to laugh.
And it's like, even though I'm still making smart observations, it's like the laughs are quicker.
So it's like, you don't, he didn't take a long story to make you laugh.
What he does with the trans story, level of difficulty, even though I fucking love Killing Them Softly, maybe my favorite special, the level of difficulty in the trans story is higher than anything in Killing Them Softly.
Yeah, but to me, the trans story wasn't great because it was funny.
It was just a beautiful story.
Yeah.
Imagine if you didn't laugh at all.
You would have been like, he's such an amazing storyteller.
I mean this sincerely.
And I knew going into it.
I've said this my, as long as you've known me, I've said he is the greatest public speaker alive.
Okay, but the last time he put out a public announcement, you're like, this is a comedy.
Shitty story.
Shitty story.
Nah, story was good.
Three card Monty was a good story.
No, he's talking about George Floyd.
Yeah, but should he just throw out on YouTube or whatever?
Yeah, he did the three-card money thing after, but yeah, I see that.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you were talking about the short, the George Floyd thing.
No, I'm just saying, like, if there's no jokes in between, I can see you not giving that you know him as a stand-up.
He's like, hey, where are the jokes?
I could, I would be critical if it was called a stand-up piece, I guess.
But, like, in terms of actual just stories, like, I looked at that story like I was watching The Moth.
I don't know if you guys remember that, but I was watching The Moth and I was like, oh, this is the greatest piece that's ever been said on the moth.
Like, this is, I could watch that no matter what.
It was so brilliant.
I remove it from any category.
I just go, here is content to watch.
It could be a TED Talking amazing.
Like, it doesn't matter what it was.
Beyond Just Stand-Up00:03:52
It was just so great.
I guess I'm just trying to understand the new eyes.
Like, if someone doesn't really know Chappelle that much, like, and then they start watching a special and they don't laugh as much, what do I say to them?
Do I go, I don't know, what do you think, Mark?
I mean, comedy is unique because you're not only consuming the art in like its fundamental level, you're consuming the person as well.
Whereas, like, with music, you're kind of just you can just consume, like, oh, this is a song I heard.
But, like, with comedy, it's so intrinsic to the person that's saying it that it kind of requires having context of that person insofar as they require that you know them.
And Chappelle is so intimate when he speaks, it's like, especially at this stage in his career, it's like, yeah, you are kind of required to know him as a person to really truly appreciate what he's doing at this point.
His early stuff, you didn't need to know him, and he knew that because he was unknown.
So, are they wrong to say that it isn't as joke-dense or funny as other comedians that they're familiar with?
I don't think it's wrong.
Like, if my girl says that to me, I can't go, you're wrong.
Not in an objective sense, but if you judge him and say he's not as good as a comic holistically than other comics, I think it's just a hasty judgment.
That I think, I think that the knee-jerk reaction is often like it was really, it was like really interesting.
I just didn't laugh that much with this stuff.
And what I try to tell people, I'm like, I don't even.
I did this with, I think, uh, Patrice put out Mr. P, yeah, and it was an audio album.
And I was sitting in a car with a friend, and he was watching it, or he was listening to it, we're just listening together, and he like really wasn't laughing.
And then I was, and I told him before, I was like, This is the greatest ever.
Yeah, and I realize I might have not even laughed that much, but I was just so in love.
But that's not the point I'm trying to make.
I was just so in love with the guy and his viewpoints and his thought process and how he creates a joke and where he creates Mr. X. Because you know him.
Because I know him.
And this new guy is like, Yeah, he had some really good ideas, and there were some funny moments I laughed.
But it was that moment I was like, oh shit, have I been mesmerized?
Does somebody have to like have I been hypnotized?
Does somebody have to shake me out of it?
No, it's not hypnosis.
It's just a bit of a little bit of that, but at the same time, it is hard, though.
Because like Drake's early albums, we love them because he just put out bangers.
He's like, How can I put a bunch of bangers on one album?
Now he's focused on like, yo, I'm going to tell you about just a story about some girl I used to fuck and how she wanted money and shit like that.
Like, here it is.
She's doing it more for him.
Here it is.
No, no, you just hit it.
You just hit it.
It is, it is, it is this.
Remember when nobody knew you and you had to go on stage?
You had to prove yourself every time.
You had to prove yourself every time.
So, of course, in that stage of your career, the jokes are going to be crafted in a way that if someone's experiencing you for the first time, they're going to enjoy it the most.
It doesn't necessarily mean that they're the funniest, but the jokes are going to speak to things greater than just maybe your experience.
They're very complete.
Exactly, right?
So yeah, you're going to be.
I got to prove it every 10 seconds.
Otherwise, they might not realize I'm funny.
I got to every time.
Bang, It's specifically crafted to the person who doesn't know you.
Yeah.
As you develop, the specials are specifically crafted to the people that do, because oftentimes that is more interesting.
So, the people that really love you, they want to know about your experience, what the fuck you've been through.
Like when Richard Pride lit himself on fire, we're like, fam, tell us why you were on fire.
And you've also evolved as a person and you're aware of your prior body of work.
And like comedians' careers are holistic in that way.
Like Game of Thrones, like someone watches season five and they're like, oh, I didn't like it.
It's like, yeah, you joined at the middle of The show.