How about the one where a young Korean-American woman stars in a sitcom about being a young Korean-American woman? ABC executives complain that she’s too fat, then that she’s too Asian, then that she’s not Asian enough. Then they cancel the show. 

Race in America: What a joke. 

Heeding the Mark Twain dictum that if you tell the truth, make people laugh or else they’ll kill you, two very funny comedy concert films deal head-on with the subject of race: “The Original Kings of Comedy,” directed by Spike Lee and starring stand-up comedians Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac, opens Friday; and “I’m the One That I Want,” featuring the inspired performance of Margaret Cho, is now playing in New York. 

In their stand-up routines, the four “kings” dwell quite a bit on idiosyncratic differences between white people and black people. But the most compelling racial story about the two-year “Kings of Comedy” tour, which sold more than a million tickets and grossed a record $39 million, is the fact that you may never have heard of it. 

“We sold out Madison Square Garden in a week,” says Walter Latham, who produced the tour and the movie. “The media ignored us. No reviews, no coverage, no camera crews. If you’re grossing $900,000 in one night, like we did at Madison Square Garden, with four supposedly unknown black comedians, that’s newsworthy. I’d want to hear about that. I think if it would have been white comedians, we would’ve gotten a lot of coverage, but we didn’t.” 

Latham says he’s having similar problems with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films, which are releasing the movie. It was filmed in Charlotte, N.C., in front of a raucous sellout crowd. 

“Paramount considers it a small picture, thus it should be treated like a small picture,” Latham says. “Why? Because [it features] black actors who they never heard of, so it’s a ‘black film.’ Thus, it should be treated as a ‘black film.’ Every film they ever compare this film to are ‘black films.’” 

Lee, who shot the comedians with 15 digital cameras over two nights, mocks the studio executives who hearken back to the other “black film” Paramount and MTV did. 

“When we did ‘The Wood’ ...” Lee says. “When we did ‘The Wood’ ... When we did ‘The Wood’ ...” The director shakes his head. “Everything comes back to this one thing,” he continues. “White America is still in the mode of thinking that all African-Americans are the same, that we’re all one monolithic group—that we all look alike, talk alike, think alike, dress alike, whatever. If that view were not ingrained so much in their psyche, then a lot of the stuff we’re talking about now wouldn’t be an issue.” 

Lee complains that there’s an undeclared quota system in Hollywood that allows only so many African-American comic actors into the club. 

“When you get to people of color, there’s only a couple of slots available,” Lee says. “So right now, we’ve got Eddie [Murphy], Will [Smith], Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, and Martin Lawrence. Usually, there’s two, and now there’s five—and that’s about the limit. So if any of these four [’kings of comedy’] get up there, someone’s got to fall off.” 

For their part, the four comedians—Harvey, whose eponymous sitcom is the highest-rated television show among African-American households; Hughley, who also headlines his own sitcom, “The Hughleys”; Cedric the Entertainer, who appears on “The Steve Harvey Show”; and Bernie Mac, who guest-stars on “Moesha” and has filled a number of supporting roles in films, the latest being “Life”—acknowledge that there’s a problem, but maintain that they’re too busy selling out concerts, making people laugh, and cashing their paychecks to worry too much about something they can’t change. 

“The numbers speak for themselves,” says Cedric the Entertainer. “If those numbers had a white face on them, with white comics, it would’ve been huge. But we don’t want this movie to be classified as a ‘black movie.’ It’s funny, go see it, laugh. We broke the records. That’s what we want to be judged on. To say that it’s a ‘black movie’ is so unnecessary.” 

Like Lee, who studied them in preparation for filming “The Original Kings of Comedy,” Margaret Cho was inspired by the concert movies of Richard Pryor (“Live on the Sunset Strip,” in particular) and Eddie Murphy (“Raw” and “Special Delirium”). 

“I think comedy, generally, is the realm of the outsider,” says Cho. “Because we’re minorities, we’re racially put in that category, and being on the outside allows us to comment on things that a lot of people don’t see. I feel very much a kinship with Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. Seeing [their movies] as a kid really changed my life, and I always wanted to do a feature film of my stand-up act, in a sense, as a tribute to them.” 

Cho’s side-splitting show, “I’m the One That I Want,” was filmed in front of a hometown crowd in San Francisco last fall. It covers many subjects—Cho’s childhood “being raised by drag queens,” her immigrant mother’s way of leaving her hilarious phone messages, her affinity with gay men. But the meat of the film is Cho’s horrendous experiences as a 23-year-old sitcom star who became the victim of racial insensitivity. 

The character Cho played in “All-American Girl” was supposed to be herself. After Cho was told her face was “too full,” she went on a crash diet and lost 30 pounds in two weeks. After she returned from the subsequent hospital stay, she was assigned a consultant to school her on “being more Asian” because she wasn’t “testing Asian enough.” 

“The sad part was, I believed it all,” Cho says in the film. 

Don’t worry. These grisly details are leavened with often raunchy humor. After the sitcom was canceled and Cho went into a drugs-and-alcohol tailspin, she emerged with a greater understanding of herself and the business she chooses to continue working in. Though she laments the dearth of Asians who’ve been successful in the entertainment business—she can name only three: Lucy Liu (“Ally McBeal”), Lisa Ling (“The View”), and Jackie Chan—Cho nonetheless sees herself as someone who, despite hurtful misunderstandings and outright racism, was able to find a voice and use it. 

“My parents always pounded it into me that no matter how talented I was, there would always be a racial barrier that I couldn’t overcome,” Cho says. “They’re happy that I’ve transcended it. Through me they’ve seen the world change. It’s really amazing for them. They love it.”