- you know what? that looks like fire! - comedy without black people would be like the nba without black players. (kevin screaming) - your biggest, biggest superstars in comedy have been black. (eddie yelling) - just genius and hilarious. - yeah, i said it. (audience cheering) - the chappelle show redefined sketch comedy. - i m rick james, bitch. (audience laughing) - in living color set up a platform for black comedians blowing up. - i don t think so. homie don t play that. (audience laughing) - arsenio hall was, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. it was groundbreaking. - [audience] woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. - you had a black man willing to fight the power. - nice being out of jail. (audience laughing) - laughter is healing, laughter purifies the air. actually i don t like to talk about the races, because i m white. - and we, as black people, have been doing it forever. - i am, this is a freckle. (audience laughing) - all black comedians discuss race. - it s harder being gay than i
was not something that we d seen before. so it turns into some specials, it turns into some movies, you know, it turns into all sorts of wonderful offshoots. - you know the black pack were very significant because they had agency over their careers and ownership, laying this foundation to what we see now, laying the foundation for shondaland, laying the foundation for own, laying the foundation for tyler perry. all this stuff kind of has its roots in the black pack and what they were able to do. - so it was a really fertile crew. robert townsend made his first movie on credit cards and it was a great movie. - i was auditioning for slaves, and you know all the stereotypes, then that s when i was saying to keenan, we should make our own movies. - [both] winky dinky dog. winky dinky dog. - yeah. - my dad and keenan came up very closely together. keenan and him would stand in line at the unemployment office to see what they could figure out. they were both young, broke, extremely talente
you know, it turns into all sorts of wonderful offshoots. - you know the black pack were very significant because they had agency over their careers and ownership, laying this foundation to what we see now, laying the foundation for shondaland, laying the foundation for own, laying the foundation for tyler perry. all this stuff kind of has its roots in the black pack and what they were able to do. - so it was a really fertile crew. robert townsend made his first movie on credit cards and it was a great movie. - i was auditioning for slaves, and you know all the stereotypes, then that s when i was saying to keenan, we should make our own movies. - [both] winky dinky dog. winky dinky dog. - yeah. - my dad and keenan came up very closely together. keenan and him would stand in line at the unemployment office to see what they could figure out. they were both young, broke, extremely talented, just trying to get in the game and they did it. you can do what you wanna do in living color
laying the foundation for shondaland, laying the foundation for own, laying the foundation for tyler perry. all this stuff kind of has its roots in the black pack and what they were able to do. - so it was a really fertile crew. robert townsend made his first movie on credit cards and it was a great movie. - i was auditioning for slaves, and you know all the stereotypes, then that s when i was saying to keenan, we should make our own movies. - [both] winky dinky dog. winky dinky dog. - yeah. - my dad and keenan came up very closely together. keenan and him would stand in line at the unemployment office to see what they could figure out. they were both young, broke, extremely talented, just trying to get in the game and they did it. you can do what you wanna do in living color - in the case of in living color. i did pitch it to robert townsend. he didn t wanna do it. so we brought keenan into fox, and we pitched a very bare bones idea, just a black sketch comedy show. we gave hi