About

Cocaine Is A Hell Of A Drug is a popular online catchphrase referencing a 2004 skit from Chappelle's Show in which Dave Chappelle plays Rick James and uses the phrase as an excuse for slapping Charlie Murphy across the face. The phrase gained considerable attention online over the course of the 2000s in a variety of meme formats, mostly including image macros.

Origin

On February 11th, 2004, season 2, episode 4 of Chappelle's Show aired in North America featuring a Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories skit in which Murphy tells a story about an encounter with Rick James.^[1] In the story, James (played by Chappelle) slaps Murphy across the face. The real James explains the behavior in an intercut interview by saying, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug" (shown below).

Spread

The sketch became one of the most popular in Chapelle's Show history, inspiring Internet users to quote it in online discourse. For example, on May 20th, 2005, YTMND^[3] user samiscool created a page titled "cocaine is a hell of a drug" consisting of an audio loop of the phrase over a repeated image of James from the skit, garnering over 1,900 views in 17 years.

One of the earliest memes to use the phrase is a Demotivational Poster posted to eBaum's World^[2] on December 6th, 2007, featuring an image of Amy Winehouse intoxicated (shown below). The phrase is often used alongside images of intoxicated people to comedically highlight the fact of their intoxication.

The skit has remained a popular reference for over a decade online, often used as a snowclone caption with users replacing the words "cocaine" and "drug" to fit other contexts, and continuing to attach it to images featuring "drugged-out" looking people or characters (examples shown below).^[4][5][6]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References