Kanye West No Longer Has The Ability To Surprise Me

With any outlandish celebrity, there seems to be a point where the ridiculousness of the news surrounding them no longer has the ability to shock the average consumer. Today’s announcement that Kanye West is helping develop a “hip-hop puppet show” for Comedy Central has forced me to decree that the rapper/producer/design maven/blogger has reached that zenith of absurdity.

First, today’s news.

Comedy Central has teamed with Kanye West for a project described as hip-hop meets the Muppets. A half-hour pilot has been shot for the project, tentatively titled “Alligator Boots.”

It’s from Jackhole Prods., the production company founded by Jimmy Kimmel, Daniel Kellison and Adam Carolla that also was behind Comedy Central’s puppet-centric “Crank Yankers.”

The project, which is under consideration for 2009, would feature music produced and performed by West and fellow rapper Rhymefest, both of whom are serving as executive producers on the pilot alongside Kellison.

West also hosts the pilot; the idea is to have a different celebrity guest host for every episode, similar to the setup on the original “Muppet Show.”

As someone who is adamantly pro-puppet based television programming, it makes me happy that Kanye is bringing back the proud tradition of popular musicians interacting with felt, a tradition that was once held aloft by artists such as Leo Sayer.

The most immediate predecessor for Kanye’s show is clearly Q-Tip and Snoop Dogg on Chappelle’s Show.

Still, is there any potential Kanye news item that wouldn’t be plausibly believable at this point? I fully expect a link to an article on Google News tomorrow announcing that Kanye’s purchased the Russian space program for cash.

Kanye West Has Hand In Puppet Pilot [Billboard]