Arsenio Hall rapping in a fat suit

The year was 1991. Arsenio Hall was a pop culture phenomenon with his own talk show.

And what a show it was.

I must admit I never really liked his show. I only watched it a few times and I found him annoying. Here is everything I remember:

-Arsenio wearing a bright orange shirt with ripped jeans
-Arsenio pointing at one section of the crowd and calling them "people that use Grey Poupon"
-Rowdy Roddy Piper calling Arsenio ‘Arse’ which is British for ‘butt’
-Arsenio's bandleader reading a poem about Sadaam Hussien where he rhymed the word "Iraqi" with "must be on crack-y"

So, I probably wasn’t the target audience for his rap album, but I bought it anyway.

‘What rap album’ you ask?

LARGE AND IN CHARGE

See, Arsenio’s show had been a springboard for successful rappers like De La Soul and Mc Hammer, so Arsenio decided to cut a record of his own.

The album Large and In Charge was released by MCA records with Arsenio rapping under a new persona.

He called himself Chunky A. See, kinda like Heavy D. Isn’t that funny? I should try this and release an album under the name Zagnut. That would be a play on Eminem because they both sound like candies. Or I could call myself Burbo the Clown. That would be a play on P. Diddy because they both sound stupid.

Chunky A lived up to his name by being fat. Arsenio wore a giant fat suit, but not a very good one. This was more like those silly sumo wrestler suits you see people fighting in on MTV.

The album contained a mix of parody tracks and original comedy songs.

The first track was called Owwww! and was a parody of the Cameo hit Word Up. Owwww! talks about his romance with a fat woman who causes him great physical pain in the bedroom. The lyrics include a section where he compares her to some famous women of 1991:

Whitney Houston
Madonna
And even Brooke Shields
Don't come close to you
the real deal

There are two things I like about this passage.
1. He rhymes ‘Shields’ with ‘deal’
2. Brooke Shields is the ultimate test of beauty in his mind.

The second track is the title track Large and in Charge followed by Stank Breath. Never before has such comedy been minded from halitosis. Example:

Girlfriend's got stank breath, I aint lyin'
Girlfriend's got stank breath, I almost started cryin'

BRILLIANT

The breath made him sad! That is some stanky breath.

After that, a parody of Fine Young Cannibal’s She Drives Me Crazy called Ho is Lazy. Rather than give you the lyrics, let me sum up the song:

It’s about a lazy ho.

Sorry is the next track, a spoken word apology. Unfortunately it was not Arsenio apologizing to the record buying public for this fiasco. Instead Chunkton (oh yeah, Chunky was short for Chunkton) is apologizing to an angry girl for a bunch of reasons. Among them is that he put he poodle in the microwave.

After that is I Command You to Dance. I didn’t follow commands.
Very High Key is an amusing track where he tries to sing really high like Prince. I was hoping it was about a car key that huffs paint fumes.
The album ends with a romantic ode called Dipstick and the anti-drug rant Dope: the Big Lie.
An anti-drug song is probably a good way to end things. After all, listening to Chunky A made me wish I was on crack-y.