Chocolate News

The cable network might have found "Chappelle's" worthy replacement in Chocolate News.

Chocolate News" is funny like Chappelle, edgy like "In Living Color" and smart like "The Daily Show," but without the smugness.

This is not unfunny stuff, but in a week in which a show that's willing to turn a satirical eye on race might have drawn real laughs, Chocolate News feels a bit like a lost opportunity.

Credit Grier for trying, credit Comedy Central for adding another voice to the mix, and keep hoping that a show like this eventually hits its stride.

It pales-- satirically speaking, anyway--when compared with the "Daily Show," especially with Chocolate's tired sketch about imaginary rapper Phat Man. More promising is a bit in which Grier's Maya Angelou recites a poem penned to commemorate a McCain victory

It aspires to distill the news from an African-American perspective, and in two weeks on the air its comedy has been variously anachronistic and plodding, and timely and sharp.

David Alan Grier, star of the new Chocolate News gets points for moxie, but the series fails on too many other counts.