A Complete History Of Dave Chappelle's Terrible <i>Chappelle's Show</i> Monologue Outfits

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Show me someone who genuinely doesn't like Chappelle's Show, and I'll show you someone who has either never seen it or is a certifiable lunatic. When the show debuted on January 22, 2003 (yes, over 10 years ago), it instantly established itself as something special. Chappelle's trademark racial commentary and off-color humor was not hindered by the sketch format, but rather given a platform to come to life via hysterical original characters (Tryone Biggums) and A+ celebrity parodies (Lil Jon), all the while illuminating America's ever-present social issues. Part of the show's legacy stems from its controversial and highly-publicized ending, but in its short 25 episode run it earned a definitive spot on Television's comedy Mount Rushmore. Meanwhile, 9 years later, Comedy Central continues to struggle to find a sketch show even remotely as funny or intelligent (Kroll Show? Key & Peele? Nope).

And yet, like seemingly every comedian ever (minus maybe Aziz Ansari), when it came to style, Dave Chappelle's opening monologue fits were less than stellar. From giant pants to jackets that I honestly would otherwise have no idea existed, his looks were heavily influenced by oversized, men-should-not-care-about-clothes attitudes of the time. In essence, Dave looked straight out of a JCPenney catalog, and not the current, Nick Wooster-inspired kind. What this means for style as a concept is that in rare instances, a person's brilliance can overcome their horrible taste in clothing. Once in a while, a person is so good at something that it's accounts for all the swag they would ever need. Dave Chappelle is without a doubt one of the greatest comedians of all time, thus, we will remember him for his jokes, not his jeans—his once-in-a-generation decision to give up superstardom, not his regrettable collection of newsboy caps. So, in very un-Four Pins like manner, we aren't going to waste our time making jokes about Chappelle's outfits. Instead, for your viewing pleasure, we've simply cataloged each of his opening monologue outfits using kind-of-shitty-res images because Netflix is fucking up and no longer streams arguably the funniest show of the past 10 years.

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