Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for Deep in the Heart of Texas
Cover image credit:

Source

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Dave Chappelle

Netflix · 2017 · 66 min

A relaxed, story-driven stand-up hour filmed in Austin.

Watch on Netflix(opens in a new tab)

or watch it free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Instead of trying to preach to his audience or deliver a pristine, heavily rehearsed lecture, Dave Chappelle sits on a stool, lights up a cigarette, and works through his thoughts like a guy holding court at a late-night diner. This is a loose, conversational hour where the humor comes from the absurdity of his everyday interactions, from a stranger throwing a banana peel at him during a show in New Mexico to a snowball throw in Ohio that felt targeted. Filmed at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, in April 2015, the performance sat in Chappelle’s archives for two years before Netflix packaged it alongside another set, The Age of Spin, in 2017. The release marked his major return to the screen after a decade-long hiatus following his sudden departure from his Comedy Central sketch show. Because of the delay between the taping and its release, some of the pop culture references, such as the Ebola scare and the Ray Rice elevator tape, felt a bit dated by the time the public saw them. Yet, the material holds up because Chappelle filters national news through his personal perspective. The set also sees him stepping into domestic territory, discussing his marriage and his son Ibrahim’s financial requests, and balancing these anecdotes with a long, ridiculous bit imagining rapper Lil Wayne as a detective on CSI. Critics noted that the hour is less structured and more rambling than its companion special, while fans welcomed the return of his casual, conversational delivery.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Banana peel incident in Santa Fe

    Riffing on a white man throwing a banana peel at him during a performance, mocking how it became national news, and imagining the heckler recounting it decades later to his children.

  2. Snowball attack in Ohio

    Recalling being pelted with snowballs by white youths in his home state of Ohio and finding himself at the police station with the power to decide the fate of white children.

  3. Ebola outbreak

    Using the 2014-2015 Dallas Ebola outbreak to branch into digressions about diseases, doctors, and vaccinations.

  4. Lil Wayne on CSI

    Imagining Lil Wayne working as a gravel-voiced crime scene investigator on 'CSI'.

  5. Vagina in a boxing match

    Smoking a cigarette while telling a winding, surreal story involving a vagina in a boxing match.

How it plays

Tone
Raw, no-holds-barred, playful, and candid.
On stage
Casual, relaxed, Friday-casual in denim, smoking cigarettes on a stool, leaning into the audience, and laughing at his own jokes.
Pace
Loose, stripped-down, patient, and unforced.
About
Race and racial bias, Power dynamics, Sex and fetishes, Celebrity scandals, Fatherhood

What the critics said

Considered the looser, rawer, and slightly more dated of his two 2017 Netflix debut specials, yet praised for Chappelle's effortless stage presence, brilliant comedic timing, and sharp observational instincts.

In the room: Greeted with a prolonged standing ovation, engaged and responsive in a well-lit room, with Chappelle swiftly shutting down an audible drunk heckler.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: themoviedb.org, eponymousreview.com, imdb.com, yori.to, vulture.com, variety.com, ew.com, en.wikipedia.org, decider.com.

Backstory

Filmed in April 2015 and kept in Chappelle's personal archives until released alongside 'The Age of Spin' as part of a reported $60 million three-special deal with Netflix.

Details

Released
Taped
2015, Moody Theater, Austin
Runtime
66 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Stan Lathan
Topics
Before
For What It's Worth (2004)
After
The Age of Spin (2017)

More from Dave Chappelle

If you liked this