“Chocolate News: Your only source for uncut realness from an afrocentric perspective. Be it Sports, Politics or Human Interest as long as there is a brother involved, we will kick it to you raw. I am talking the skinny off of the street, direct and unfiltered. From Nada to Prada, from hoochie to Gucci, from jail cell to Chanel, if it’s Chocolate we’re gonna bring it to you.

I won’t tell you to ‘not touch that dial.’ Because I know you won’t. You know you want to watch this.”

How I Got the Idea

I wanted to do one last great show before I totally whore myself out. I’ve done a lot of shows that were kind of bad, which led to lots of explanations to the family and friends: “Hey, guess how much they paid me?! I only work four hours a day and I just bought a new motorcycle!”

All of my career, I have wanted to get to this place but I’ve never known how. It was always painful. I’ve done a bunch of shows, but my point of view was derailed, torpedoed. I never felt like I was getting there. “In Living Color” was total freedom; we were encouraged to push ourselves. If nothing else I was lazy and not prepared to go gung ho like other people and really take advantage.

You do what you do when you are ready to do it. The idea for “Chocolate News” came when I was watching TV and wondering, “What is a show I don’t see, as a fan?” Now, I don’t just watch hours of TV, I watch TONS of hours of TV, and I wasn’t finding a show that had an African-American point of view. Not since the Chappelle show went off, and that was like in ’04. So I started thinking about how much I love sketch comedy, and got the idea to do it as if “In Living Color” had a graduate degree.

Also, I am a big fan of “SCTV.” I always loved that show because it was high-concept. When you turned it on, it was this whole make-believe network world, including a network head and commercials. So I wanted to make something with the “SCTV” or The Onion’s satirical sensibility, but from a black perspective. I hadn’t seen that on TV, and I thought, “I want to see that show.”

The Sketches and Characters

Co-executive producers Adam Small and Fax Bahr (“Mad TV,” “In Living Color”) came on to work with the writers every day. We talk to each other about new ideas for sketches and remind each other about great ideas we had but then forgot.

There is a character I do on the show named “Licorice Stick” Mayfield, who broke the porn color barrier in the 60’s. Adam and Fax kept reminding me that I wanted to do that character on “In Living Color” but Keenan wouldn’t let me do it. At the time, Keenan said, “First of all, no one wants to see or think about old people fucking. No.”

Also, there’s a black transgendered guy going from man to woman; how does the black community deal with this? I was watching this Showtime documentary called “Transtasia,” about a transsexual beauty pageant in Vegas. And these were the ugliest trannies I had ever seen. In this one black family, this dude was dressed like a woman and he was the best looking woman in his family. I was like, “This needs to be done.”

Once we got picked it up, it was a long development period. When Adam and Fax came in, we’ve had pretty much free reign to do what we want. I’ve never had this much cooperation, and it shows because the product has sketches that are funny, the reactions are funny, and with that kind of response we are gaining more support.

So the one good idea I have had, I’ve had my entire life. And now I get to do it.