In 2005 Dave Chappelle infamously walked away from Chappelle's Show and a Comedy Central deal that could have been worth more than $100 million dollars. He left for Africa, got some therapy on Oprah's couch, and returned to fatherhood in Ohio. But he couldn't stay away, entirely. Slowly, Chappelle began to re-emerge, with surprise sets in standup clubs from coast to coast, and last night, Chappelle made what he called "the shittiest comeback in the history of show business" official with the first of nine nearly sold-out gigs at Radio City Music Hall.

Though he joked his road back to the stage was "ill-conceived" and "tedious at times," he promised there was a "method to my madness" and, indeed, the set was tight, polished, confident verging on cocky. Occasionally, Chappelle seemed like a kind of Encino Comic: thawed out to give his opinion on all the crazy shit that's happened since he put his career on ice, from Lil Wayne to Rob Ford. His first words? "Holy shit..." It couldn't help but make you wonder about how comedy might have been different if, nine years ago, Chappelle hadn't dropped the mic.

Just look what we've been missing:

Barack Obama. Think of what Chappelle's Show could have done with the first black president. Except Chappelle joked that the reason that he disappeared was because Barack personally called him, as an Ohio voter, and asked him to lay low. He also mentioned that he had terrible timing — finally getting rich in time for America to elect the first black president, who decided to tax the rich.

Paula Deen. Chappelle said he called the "N-word"-spouting Food Network celebrity after she was fired and hired her as his own personal chef. "We have the most exciting dinner table in America," he said. "She comes out, says belligerent shit to my children," and fries them chicken. "We dress her up like Aunt Jemima."

Donald Sterling. Sterling "went HAM on the tape," Chappelle said, imagining the locker-room pep talk Sterling could have given about the revelations. Chappelle marveled at how Sterling's mistress "took one for the team" by going down on the NBA team owner: "It must have been like tasting history! Five wars, the Depression, old mold..." Though Chappelle did say he was shocked to find "that an 80-year-old white man has racist tendencies. Didn't see that coming."

Gay marriage and transgender issues. Chappelle did a long portion of his routine about sending his kids to a liberal school with children of same-sex parents and watching a four-part documentary series on the LGBT community — which, in some sense, seemed like a reminder of how much gay politics have changed since 2005. Though some of the jokes initially felt stereotypically stale (Chaz Bono went from "a woman to a fat dude"), they all led to a dark riff about a transgender person playing hate-messages on her voicemail: "What's sad is that he had an answering machine... Like, how could your body be so far in the future and your phone so far in the past?"

Gentrified Brooklyn. "I went to Brooklyn last night. I wasn't scared once."

Family. Apparently, Chappelle has spent most of the last decade being a father to his sons in Ohio — and spent much of the set riffing on the difficulties of raising sons and finding time to masturbate on his own (perhaps the best bit). He riffed about sex tapes supposedly sent to his family's home, and, though he has rarely spoken about his Muslim faith, he did an extended bit about stopping some white Ohio kids who threw snowballs out of their car and hit his hijab-wearing sister.

Kevin Hart. In 2005, Chappelle was at the top and Kevin Hart was a near-nobody, playing "Smart Tech Customer" in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now, Chappelle says, his son told him, "They like him more." It's clear there's some friendly rivalry, and possible that Hart's success was some motivation for Chappelle's comeback.

Lil Wayne and 50 Cent. Chappelle imagined a Lil Wayne cooking show Cooking with Weezy, took the lyric "all she eats is dick," and described what that diet would really look like, and took the line "beat that pussy up" and play-acted a post-boxing match interview with the rapper and the defeated vagina. It was impossible not to imagine each as a Chappelle's Show sketch. He swore he had 50 foolproof jokes that all end with Lil Wayne saying "pussy juice."

All throughout the theater, Chappelle had posted ominous warnings that "Violators will be ejected" for "texting, heckling, yelling out anything, talking, cameras, recording devics of any kind." Yet, when a fan yelled out "I love you!" Dave graciously replied, "I know, and I'm grateful." In a nostalgic mood, he even struck up conversations with fans, including a 15-year-old kid, saying he'd started doing standup around the same age. "It's funny to think my whole life is based on a decision a kid your age made." When a fan pleaded for a fourth season of the show, he said, "I'll bring Chappelle's Show back right after Half Baked 2. And when you see Half Baked 2 you will know I have run completely out of money."

Thankfully, Chappelle didn't dwell on his disappearance and controversy. It is, after all, old news. "When I quit that show," he said, "I don't know if I did the right thing or not." But when he hit back, he hit back hard: Describing the infamous Hartford performance in which he was booed offstage by 15,000 people, he wished a nuclear bomb on all of them and said going onstage the next night was like trying to have sex with a woman who had "a mousetrap for a pussy." After that first night, he said, "It's hard to get that second boner."

The end of the show may have petered out instead of climaxing, but Chappelle got such a rapturous response anyway that it's hard to imagine he will have any trouble getting it up for the next eight gigs at Radio City. Toward the end, it was like he was sighing with relief before he walked off the stage, instead of after, which made it hard to believe him when he joked, "I am just back out here to make enough money to disappear again."

Logan Hill Logan Hill, a veteran of New York, Vulture, and GQ, has spent twenty years covering the arts for outlets including Elle, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, This American Life, TimesTalks, Wired, and others.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io