- chris started dealing with social commentary and dealt with real issues in what was going on today, and dealt with 'em honestly. - i think all bullets should cost $5,000. $5,000 for a bullet. you know why? 'cause if a bullet cost $5,000, there'll be no more innocent bystanders. (audience laughing) - if you can take that stuff and make that funny, that separates the men from the boys. - every time somebody gets shot they'd be like, "damn, he must have did something. shit, they put $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass." (audience laughing) - so at the time, networks wanted to find another late night talk show that could be just as good as arsenio to sort of fill that void. - you know, they wanted chris to do network. chris wouldn't do it. he knew he couldn't do it five days a week and keep the high level of quality that he wanted to do. - and here we go, hbo to the rescue. - chris rock was able to like, wild out on hbo. he had that one sketch where he's just slapping people.