The Memoir Of Ms. Butterfly

That year, he also started Def Comedy Jam to give African American comedians a platform for their work. Then, in 1996, his production house had its most tremendous film success when it produced “The Nutty Professor,” starring Eddie Murphy. Although Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam premiered on HBO in 1992, Netflix will air a 25th-anniversary special later this month as a tribute to the original show. To celebrate the special and the show, the streaming giant pulled out all the stops at a star-studded event Sunday. 

Def Comedy Jam was notorious for launching the careers of many African-American comedians, including Dave Chappelle, Monique, and Mike Epps. The network taped the special at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos spoke of his passion for airing the special at the event. “We’ve been doing stand-up comedy, particularly in the last couple of years. So this felt like a natural home for [the special] to keep the legacy and the history going,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Coming off of the success of Girl’s Trip, breakout star Tiffany Haddish remembered her initial struggle in the world of comedy and how Def Jam allowed her to get where she is today.

“I feel grateful and thankful and honored that they even thought to call me out of all the people they could’ve called. They called me. It feels good,” Haddish said.

“I remember when I was trying to get on Def Jam, and I submitted a tape, and then I was showing up at all the auditions, and they wouldn’t let me get on stage, and then somebody saw that tape and said we got to get her on, and when they gave me the opportunity, I lit that ass up. I will always light it up if they give me a chance to.

Simmons wants the new generation of viewers watching this special to see where the original stars got their start but also wants people to see that “there is a wealth of other talents that are still underserved and is still not getting a break.”

Simmons added: “We’re doing six more episodes on HBO. I want to be able to expose [these comedians], and then maybe Hollywood will see them for what they are worth.

Deon Cole, star of Black-ish and its upcoming spinoff Grown-ish, shared his appreciation. 

“This celebration is important because so many people are losing their lives, dying, and so much going on. We need this time to show everybody how much we love and appreciate them.” 

Between segment tapings, comedians D.L. Hughley and Dave Chappelle joked about their public school education onstage and led a sing-a-long with the audiences. In addition to the countless unscripted jokes, the show also showed a tribute reel to celebrate original Def Jam performers who have passed away.

Martin Lawrence was the original host of Def Comedy Jam, which premiered in 1992.

Chris Tucker was a frequent performer on Def Comedy Jam when he was only 20 years old!

Katt Williams was already an established comedian when he first appeared on Def Comedy Jam in 2006. Still, his appearance helped set the stage for two comedy specials he released later that year.

A decade before Chappelle Show, Dave Chappelle was honing his stand-up technique on stages all over New York City. His appearance on Def Comedy Jam in 1993 was an essential step on his rise to stardom.

Before starring in the Queens Of Comedy tour, Sommone was busting guts onstage in the early years of Def Comedy Jam.

Years before embarking on his own epic solo tours, Kevin Hart used the Def Comedy Jam stage to craft his stand-up persona and make a name for himself.

Sheryl’s performances in the early days of Def Comedy Jam helped establish her as one of the leading black female comedians in the industry, laying the groundwork for her illustrious writing, TV, and radio career.

Eddie Griffin already appeared in minor film roles in the early ’90s, but his appearance on Def Comedy Jam was a huge step toward making Eddie a household name.

Bill Bellamy was a frequent performer on Def Comedy Jam. His appearance in 2006 set the stage for his hosting gig on Last Comic Standing two years later.

The SNL writer and cast member have been performing stand-up since the late ’80s, but her Def Comedy Jam appearance in 2006 helped solidify her position as one of the top female comedians in the industry.

Tracy Morgan was featured on Def Comedy Jam in 1995, just one year before being hired by Saturday Night Live.

Before “Veep,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Sex and the City,” there was “Def Comedy Jam,” one of the first hit comedies on HBO, often beating its network competition in ratings on Friday nights throughout much of the 1990s.

This trailblazing showcase for black comedy is routinely overlooked in discussions of the most influential television shows partly because of timing (after the comedy boom went bust and before television’s new golden age) and genre. Shows filled with stand-up sets get less respect than even soap operas. “Def Comedy Jam,” which is returning for the second time with a new title, “All Def Comedy,” for one episode on Saturday, also faced the same issues that black comics of the era did: being pigeonholed by critics who single-mindedly focused on the profanity and applied moral standards never used for their white counterparts.

In a sanctimonious 1994 essay in The New York Times, a critic wrote that the language and attitude of “Def Comedy Jam” were “reprehensible,” barely mentioning the quality of the performers. The show, he argued, “creates the impression that black comics are somehow incapable of performing without using smutty language.” Needless to say, no critic ever drew similar conclusions about Andrew Dice Clay.

But it wasn’t only the press that made such arguments. Dave Chappelle, who appeared on the show more than once and will be the host of “Saturday Night Live” the same night “All Def Comedy” airs, said the popularity of “Def Comedy” proved to limit for artists because it made audiences expect black comics to be dirty. Chris Rock ridiculed it on his HBO talk show, and Bill Cosby offered perhaps the harshest take, speculating that if D. W. Griffith, whose silent film “The Birth of a Nation” celebrated the Ku Klux Klan, saw “Def Comedy Jam,” he would say, “See, I told you — I was right.”

While critics zeroed in on the show’s vulgarity, which seems tame today, they underplayed the staggering amount of talent, young artists poised for major careers like Chris Tucker, Bernie Mac, Jamie Foxx, Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, Tracy Morgan, Kevin Hart, and J. B. Smoove. Watch these shows now (DVDs are available, but many sets are on YouTube), and you’ll find the density of funny people exceeds anything on television now.

With the significant network, talk shows then rarely booking young black comics, particularly those who relied on cursing, the producer Russell Simmons saw an opportunity. Far more successfully than rivals like “Comic View,” his “Def Comedy Jam” translated the atmosphere of the black comedy club for a national audience. At a time when the most storied clubs mainly booked white comics, pioneering institutions like the Uptown Comedy Club in Harlem and the Comedy Act Theater in Los Angeles provided an alternative. In these rooms, black comedians built bits with different references and assumptions. White people were the outsiders or entirely irrelevant. And when Mr. Simmons put this on HBO, white and black audiences watched in huge numbers, turning “Def Comedy Jam” into a platform that made overnight stars.

“Def Comedy Jam” is a rare, if not only stand-up series with a signature aesthetic, a house style. Of course, there was no such thing as a “Caroline’s Comedy Hour” type, but “Def Comedy Jam” became shorthand for a sinful act that swaggered with the bravado of gangsta rap, in which the jokes were acted out as much as told, and the subject matter kept a tight focus on sex. The comic Colin Quinn once described the content as “almost gynecological.”

What also stood out about the “Def Comedy” style was its relative absence of anxiety or self-deprecation, the meat, and potatoes of much comedy. As a result, the show didn’t just shine a light on brilliant black comics; it also left behind the brick-wall observational comedy that dominated the previous decade. Instead, Mr. Simmons made stand-up seem flamboyant, confident, and relaxed.

Much credit also goes to his charismatic original host, Martin Lawrence, a cruise missile of a performer who roasted audience members savagely. He was most brutal on celebrities in the crowd, softening them up with a few jabs before throwing a haymaker. Watching him skewer the linebacker Lawrence Taylor and the rapper Ice-T to their faces in one joke was an illustration of how a quick wit could make even a scrawny comic the most fearsome person in the room.

The raucous atmosphere and performers’ machismo could result in hackneyed and misogynist jokes.

And far too many acts consisted simply of elaborate descriptions of sex. But if the quality of the material varied, the performances did not. What mattered on “Def Comedy Jam” was putting on a dynamic show, and comics regularly did.

Many, like Bernie Mac, who did a famously commanding set in which he repeatedly told the crowd he wasn’t afraid of it, exploited sound cues to juice up a joke.

Others, like the electric Mr. Tucker — who was at his absurd, aggrieved best in a story about his cars being stolen while he was robbing a store — had a delivery with such momentum and snap that he made jokes sound like music.

One benefit of a recognizable style, with its own clichés, is that it also serves as a comic foil. “Whassssup,” Cedric the Entertainer said after grabbing the microphone, echoing the introduction of many other comics, before the deadpan punch line, “I wrote that.

” But there was a far more incredible array of styles than people may remember, ranging from the vulnerable comedy of Donnell Rawlings to the storytelling of Angela Means (“Man came up to me and said would I be free after the show?” she said, pausing. “I’m not free, but I’d be reasonable”) or the political jokes of Paul Mooney.

The new “Def Comedy” has some funny young comics like Kevin Tate and Zainab Johnson and a likable host in Tony Rock (Chris’s brother), but the show arrives in a very different comedy climate.

In 1992, popular culture had few black superstars working in stand-up (Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor had stopped performing; Chris Rock was doing sketch), and the best up-and-comers were not getting significant exposure.

There are more platforms today, and the scene, partly because of the success of “Def Comedy Jam,” is less segregated. Many of today’s best young black comics, like Hannibal Buress, Ron Funches, and Jerrod Carmichael, have a more laid-back, reflective approach.

Black comedy may be more stylistically diverse, but it’s unlikely that a new show could match the impact of “Def Comedy Jam,” which, more than any series in history, reminds you that laughter is a physical act.

Def Comedy Jam is an HBO television series produced by Russell Simmons. The series was initially run from March 7, 1992, to May 2, 1997. 

Ms. Butterfly Genesis