The Chris Rock Show: Seasons 1 & 2

In just the first episode of his eponymous HBO talk/sketch show, Chris Rock is smarter and more savagely funny than he was ever allowed to be during his brief tenure at Saturday Night Live. A triumphant follow-up to Rock's Bring the Pain, a groundbreaking standup performance, The Chris Rock Show provided the comic with the ideal platform to develop his satiric views on race, current events, and pop culture. Part Late Show with David Letterman, part The Daily Show, the series debuted in 1997 and featured jokes about O.J., Marion Berry (a favorite Rock target), Ellen's coming out, and a scandalized Marv Albert, all of which are funny enough to remain fresh past their expiration date. And you don't have to be familiar with the Mario Van Peebles action film Solo to appreciate the sketch in which two black film critics give rave reviews to awful films simply because they have so-called positive portrayals of black characters. Rock views the subject of race with a fearless eye, visiting Harlem following Tiger Woods' first Masters win to see if the community now embraces golf, and venturing to Howard Beach to circulate a petition to rename a road Tupac Shakur Boulevard. While Chappelle's Show (for which The Chris Rock Show opened the door) gave the world “Rick James,” The Chris Rock Show gave us “Pootie Tang” (played by Lance Crouther), the indecipherable blaxploitation movie star who visited Rock to promote his new film, “Sign Your Pity on the Runny Kind.” Guests included Puff Daddy, Whoopi Goldberg, and George Carlin, and Rock turned out to be a disarming interviewer who managed to elicit from lawyer Johnnie Cochran and then-lone black Republican J.C. Watts more than the usual prepackaged sound bites and talking points. As with all sketch shows, this one is hit (“Soundtrack: The Movie”) and miss (the reality series, “No One Called 911”), but all in all, it's Rock solid. Presenting all 21 of the episodes from the first and second seasons, with a handful of episode commentary tracks by Rock, this is highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)