Chocolate News Could Fill Chappelle Void

Grier counters Comedy Central's 'vanilla' news satires
By Ambreen Ali,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 15, 2008 3:42 PM CDT

Comedy Central may have found a Dave Chappelle-worthy replacement in David Alan Grier, Paul Farhi writes in the Washington Post. His Chocolate News is a “wholly inappropriate—and riotiously funny” 60 Minutes-style program in which Grier offers the news in “Lou Dobbsean rant” and mocks such figures as rappers and Maya Angelou, he observes. The “wittily produced” sketches echo Chappelle's “shockingly honest commentary on racial mores.”

But while tonight’s pilot for the Daily Show’s “melanin-enriched” partner has potential, it's “not a great debut,” James Poniewozik opines in Time. The sketches about rap aren't of the moment, and others could have used some editing. But if Barack Obama wins, Grier “could be riding a zeitgeist tsunami.”
(More David Allen Grier stories.)

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