Video Gallery: Chris Rock

From Saturday Night Live to Stand-Up and The Chris Rock Show

Rolling Stone

Posted Apr 03, 2008 4:00 PM

Click here for an excerpt of the Chris Rock cover story.

Though Chris Rock had minor success on Saturday Night Live and with the HBO special Big Ass Jokes, his true breakout came in 1996 with the premiere of Bring the Pain. The stand-up special (and subsequent album Roll With the New) introduced the world to a number of instant-classic Rock bits, including "Niggas vs. Black People." The controversial routine is everything that's great about Rock: it's honest, insightful, vulgar and above all hilarious.

Many of Rock's best bits have taken a skewed look at sexual politics (further explored in films like I Think I Love My Wife), including this excellent clip from Bring the Pain called "Platonic Friends."

Rock's next stand-up special was 1999's Bigger and Blacker, which spawned a hit album of the same name and cemented Rock as one of the funniest and most successful comedians in the world. This segment, taken from a rant about insurance, cemented the phrase "Mo' Tussin'" in the lexicon.

In another insight on relationships (this one from Bigger and Blacker), Rock skewers communication problems and sexual politics. Rock continues the trend on his current tour: "A black woman can be president. First lady? Can't do it. You know why? Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship. Just imagine telling your black wife that you're president? 'Honey, I did it! I won! I'm the president.' 'No, we the president. And I want my girlfriends in the Cabinet!'"

Rock's 2004 HBO special Never Scared produced more classic lines about race, relationships and social injustice with a sharper, more mature focus. This clip, about the guilt attached to listening to rap music as he ages, perfectly melds hip-hop nostalgia and potty-mouthed absurdity.

Chris Rock's film roles have been a mixed bag, but more often than not he takes secondary roles and ends up stealing the film, as he did in Kevin Smith's 1999 opus Dogma, where he played Rufus, "the thirteenth Apostle."

One of Rock's early great film roles was as MC Gusto, a rapper in the fictional rap group CB4 in the mockumentary of the same name. This video, a parody of N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton" called "Straight Outta Locash," gets to the heart of Rock's love-hate relationship with rap music.

In Lethal Weapon 4, Rock trades barbs with Mel Gibson, Danny Glover and Joe Pesci, including this scene (an angry rant about cell phones) that could have been lifted directly from his stand-up act.

In 2007's Bee Movie, Rock voiced a mosquito named Mooseblood and was featured in a number of fantastically funny promos for the movie (which starred friend Jerry Seinfeld). The promo even includes a joke about Rock's wife of eleven years Malaak Compton-Rock, who spends much of her time on philanthropy and is currently a celebrity judge on Oprah Winfrey's charity reality show The Big Give.

One of Rock's greatest scene-stealers (based on an early stand-up bit) is this bit from the Wayans Brothers' 1988 blaxploitation farce I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

Some of Rock's funniest bits have come from his parodies of music videos. This clip, from 1999's Bigger and Blacker album, is a take-off on the oddball 1999 graduation hit "Wear Sunscreen" called "No Sex." The advice is classic Rock, full of pop culture references and racial politics. It also introduced a sort-of catchphrase in "Cornbread — ain't nothing wrong with that!"

This video parody ("Champagne," from the Roll With the New album) borrows heavily from Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" clip (he even goes as far as calling himself "Bluff Daddy") and also uses the strange inflatable garbage bag suit from Missy Elliott's video for "The Rain." Once again, Rock indulges in his love for rap music while also skewering the mid-'90s big-money record sensability.

Rock has hosted the MTV Video Music Awards three times (in 1997, 1999 and 2003). This clip, from the intro to the 1997 awards, spoofed the then-ubiquitous clip for Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People." Later that night, Manson's controversial performance closed the show, prompting Rock to note, "Get your asses to church right now!"

Rock's experience on Saturday Night Live was mixed, though he had one breakout character in "Nat X." In this clip from 1991, Rock pounds Vanilla Ice (played by Kevin Bacon), runs down a funny "Top 5," faux-interviews Colin Powell and generally sets the tone for The Chris Rock Show, which would come at the end of the decade.

In this clip from an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman from last year, Rock's take on the steroid scandal in baseball is razor-sharp. His argument about Babe Ruth's home run record is both pointed and hilarious. "What's more effective — a pill, or racism?"

Launched in 1997, The Chris Rock Show gave Rock a platform for all his favorite topics. The show melded stand-up, on-the-street interviews, fake commercials and sketches into a free-form blend that paved the way for outlets like Chappelle's Show. In this bit from 2000, Rock takes his team to the Republican National Convention to try to find some black Republicans.

In this early clip from The Chris Rock Show, Rock offers up a helpful info-mercial style video called "How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police."

In another excellent public service announcement from The Chris Rock Show, Rock spoofs gun exchange programs by introducing his "Knives for Guns" program. "Just remember, kids," says Rock, "any punk can shoot a gun from across the room, but it takes a man to get close enough to stab."

In a brilliant "man on the street" segment from The Chris Rock Show, Rock heads into a mostly white neighborhood to try to get a street name changed to "Tupac Shakur Boulevard."

In this clip from a 2000 episode of The Chris Rock Show, Rock brings together all of his loves: race, history, music, politics, sports and sex.