It was before my time, but what would you call That Was the Week that Was?
spoke: Good point.
Sofa King: I stopped watching SNL after the '93-94 season because they were relying on the recognizability factor and nothing else. Sketches were practically reduced to the cast saying, “Tonya Harding!” “Lorena Bobbit!” “Burt Reynolds truth serum!” “Prince Charles and his mistress!” It’s called creativity: look into it, as Spade should have said.
But I don’t watch the show now, so I’m not criticizing the current cast.
I saw Chevy Chase on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, and I thought at first that he was dumb as a stump -even by “Millionaire” standards. Then after a while it occured to me that he was putting on some sort of act…or maybe he wasn’t. I suppose that was part of his “appeal” as Jerry Ford. But I did think “Caddyshack” and the first “Fletch” movie was funny. As well as some movie he made about a big city guy moving to the country…I forget the title.
“Chevy Chase couldn’t adlib a fart after a baked bean dinner”.
Johnny Carson
Sorry, I hate to nitpick, but…Ford was president when SNL started (10/11/75). I always assumed that Chase was making fun because Ford was known as kind of a doofus and for being clumsy. I thought the pratfall began as part of the Ford skits (then again, I was 7 months old when the show began, so what do I know). In any case, I thought it was damn funny.
Here’s my take on Chevy Chase: if you feed him lines, he can be extremely funny. But as jaimest’s Johnny Carson quote attests, he couldn’t improvise to save his life. He’s got comedic timing and great ability for physical comedy. He just can’t think on his feet.