Carlos Mencia is the ignorant man’s Dave Chapelle.

I accidentally started watching his show, “Mind of Mencia,” the other night, knowing only that a) he is a successful stand-up comedian. b) he seems to be proud of his own stupidity.

To me, Mencia seems a lot like another rarely-funny comedian: Jay Leno. This is the way I see it — the reason Jay Leno isn’t funny is because his jokes all have the same punchlines. His monologues always fall back on the same tired crutches: Jennifer Lopez has a big butt. Anna Nicole Smith is on drugs. Michael Jackson is a pedophile. Bill Clinton is a womanizer. Leno has told all these jokes over and over for years and they never get any funnier.

Mencia is the same way, only his fallbacks are based on race/religion/sexual orientation, whatever. While Leno’s jokes are stupid and obvious, Mencia’s serve only to reinforce ugly stereotypes. His jokes don’t come from a good place.

When Dave Chapelle or Chris Rock or Sarah Silverman do this kind of stuff, there’s at least some intelligence behind it. Their comedy is based on insight, rather than cliches. You can tell that these three comedians are challenging their audiences with their material. Mencia just wants people to laugh at the stereotypes they already know.

I watched about half of the show before I had to change the channel, wanting to smack that “yeah, I said it” smirk off his face.