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Turns out one of yesterday's To Do listings, an evening at the Improv touting a very special guest "who was on an amazing Comedy Central show that ended way before its time bitch, led some of you to believe Dave Chappelle (who was doing a show at the Comedy Store later that night) would be showing up for a set. HAHAHA! Suckers! (All right, fine, we bought it too.)

More than a few of you showed up, binoculars and Audubon Field Guide To Rare, Spotlight Shirking Comedians in hand, and realized when Charlie Murphy took the stage that you had been duped. But things took a turn for the interesting. A reader reports:

After seeing your link for the High Times Comedy Night at the Hollywood Improv, I jumped at the chance to see Dave Chappelle as the "surprise guest." Well, the bastards tricked us; it was a comedian from a Comedy Central show like they promised - except it was Charlie Murphy. He was really funny on Chappelle's Show though, so I was still kind of excited.

Three of my friends and I were sitting at a four person table when all of a sudden in the middle of Todd Glass's routine an usher guided a woman to our table. Turns out she and her friends were kicked out of their table because Eddie Murphy was going to be showing up!


Well, Eddie did show up during the middle of Charlie's act. I watched him sit stonefaced throughout Charlie's entire routine, not cracking a smile even once - just like the rest of the audience. Seriously, Charlie Murphy is a horrible stand-up comedian. He just tells stories that drag on and on and aren't funny. His centerpiece was a long story about how he had a dog for 5 years and discovered one day that it was gay. So he put it down. Yes, that was the punch line. He killed his dog for being gay. Guess we know where all the talent in that family went. Eddie left right after Charlie finished his routine. On a lighter note, Zach Galifianakis was hilarious.

While his heart was in the right place, and the homobeastaphobic material was no doubt excruciatingly unfunny, couldn't Eddie have at least managed a fake, frozen half-smile throughout the routine? Or a smirk? How about just making an 'o' shape with his mouth? Anything would have been preferable to sitting "stonefaced," which essentially negated any brotherly brownie points his showing up may have racked up in the first place.