Just one week into his 13-city tour as co-headliner of Funny or Die's "The Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival" with Flight of the Conchords Dave Chappelle is already having trouble returning to standup comedy. He stopped a show in Hartford Conn. just ten minutes after he began.
According to reports, Chappelle took the stage and spent the first ten minutes trying to get the rowdy crowd to be quiet and stop demanding quotes from his popular Comedy Central hit television show "Chapelle's Show" like "I'm Rick James!" and things of that nature. When the comic asked people to stop shouting, the crowd refused to calm down according to comedy blog Splitsider, that's when he sat down on a stool and proceeded to start smoking a cigarette and chatting with the crowd for fifteen more minutes.
Chappelle was contractually obligated to spend 25 minutes on stage, with ten minutes of new material out and another fifteen that he refused to do for an unruly crowd, the comic started to vamp until his set was over. At one point he even started reading a book a crowd member gave him.
Eventually the crowd got bored and demanded Chappelle do something but the actor refused until his fifteen minutes were up.
"You're booing yourself. I want you to go home and look in the mirror and say 'Boo.' Remember, that's how I feel about you." He said. "I'm the one that has to get the review in the paper tomorrow. I'll have to read about this shit for months. And the next time I go on television and they interview me and they say 'Why'd you go back to Africa, I'm not going to say Hartford did it."
He concluded his set by saying: "All right, you guys. I like some of you. I hate some of you. I forgive some of you, but I don't forget all of you. You guys are totally ruining my chances for running for Congress or something. Thank you. Good night."
Chappelle then walked off stage leaving behind an angry crowd, many of whom felt they were entitled to a refund after the show since Chappelle didn't deliver a performance, just his presence on stage.
Below are two poor-quality videos taken from the Comcast Theater in Hartford Conn. In them Chappelle wastes some time by telling a few stories including why he regrets leaving "Chappelle's Show."
