Kanye West’s Puppet Show: What Might Have Been
In 2008 Comedy Central shot a pilot for Alligator Boots, a puppet comedy from Kanye West, but never picked up the show. Yesterday, a ten-minute behind-the-scenes featurette from the program was released, and what had long been an interesting curio for Kanye obsessives got some context. It turns out, Alligator Boots was a raunchy Crank Yankers-style series set behind the scenes at a variety show, and it was more the brainchild of ‘Ye’s pal Rhymefest, the Chicago rapper who shares songwriting credit on “Jesus Walks.” Kanye was the co-executive producer, though. He also was the guest host on the pilot episode, and that’s from where this footage is taken. There are a few jokes (the signed Kanye photo reading “To Kanye — Love, Kanye” made us laugh, but we mostly see the puppeteers and writers being all chummy backstage. Even if it’s hard to tell if Alligator Boots would have been good, though, it’s still a drag it never aired. Kanye still seems like he has a sense of humor and everything, but post-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he’s dead focused on the whole “defining artist of a generation” thing, and jokes about sexy bears named “Beary White” don’t quite fit into that scheme. Bummer.
Filed Under: Kanye, Kanye West, Music
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