The Roast they did for him on Comedy Central was really quite funny, except that some of the “jokes” seemed extra personal and serious. And all the while Chevy has this stupid condescending smile on his face. Ugh. Then at the end, chevy speaks, and is completely not funny, and believe it or not, is smug and arrogant. He hasn’t made a good film in years yet his public persona is still quite inflated.
I had my truck lease through them and received many nasty letters about lacking proper insurance. One said, “Park your behicle and do not drive it from the money you read this letter”.
Yeah right bitches!
You meant the bank right?
I remember that show! Chase kept attacking Bochco until Bochco turned on him and said something like “At least people watch my shows. Nobody goes to your movies. In fact, you haven’t done a good movie in over ten years.” Chevy, livid, took off his microphone and walked off the set.
I think both Chevy Chase and Steve Martin were great comedians in their time. (I love **Fletch ** and the Jerk is one of my favourite comedies of all times).
And that’s just it : in their time
That time has since past.
What was funny back then, just seems kind of old.
I’m going to have to disagree with the good Doctor and NDP here. As I recall the situation and from what I can gather off the web, Chase was takling about the sad state of television at the time, particularly the lack of socially redeeming value, and using one or more of Bochco’s shows as an example. Now I’m sure Mr. Bochco didn’t like hearing this, but it was within the bounds of the discussion (and for what it’s worth, I think Chevy’s right; Bochco’s works are pretty much entirely emotionally manipulative prime-time soap operas, but that’s what the people want). At this point, Bochco asks what socially redeemable value Chase’s work has, to which Chevy replied something about he made people laugh and that’s always valuable, to which Bochco replied something like, “Not in about ten years.” That’s when it started getting personal and Chevy comes back with a crack about Bochco’s oh-so-stupid “Cop Rock” and things devolve from there. Eventually, Bochco says Chase should leave if he hates TV so much and Chevy does, though Maher goes and eventually brings him back.
To me, at best this just seems to be a difference of opinion that got out of hand and at worse Bochco’s fault, but Chase-haters like to look back on it with their confirmation bias as it being all Chevy’s doing. I think he just sounds naive, but then who doesn’t complain about the awful dreck on television these days? Awful dreck defined as everything I don’t watch.
Not that there’s any shortage of other stories about Chevy being a real heel, I just don’t think this is a particularly good example. I’m open to correction if my memory’s faulty.
By the way, I’m charging my SDMB account to Mr. Underhill’s American Express card. Want the number?
In a fairly recent edition of Entertainment Weekly there was a long article and interview with Chevy Chase about this exact topic.
At the end of the article, I didn’t particularly like him or dislike him any more than I had before I picked up the magazine, but … I did feel that he seemed quite unhappy and pathetic and bitter … and occasionally delusional.
I don’t hate him so much as I feel sorry for him. It was a really strong article, IMHO.
S.
Cite? Every book I’ve read on the subject (and I’ve read all the major ones) says you’re wrong about almost every claim in this post.
Lorne Michaels wasn’t fired in 1980. He quit. He wanted to take a long vacation and then go make movies. So did pretty much everyone in the cast, who quit before Jean Doumanian was given the job. His big issue with the network was that he wanted to name his own successor (He wanted Al Franken for the job, IIRC), but Franken’s antics pretty much got him withdrawn from consideration. Franken, by all accounts, maintained a very cordial relationship with Doumanian.
Did they invite her to get fucked? Elliot Gould, one of the more prolific guest-hosts from the glory years, guest-hosted on 11-15-80, that cast’s first show. Bill Murray guest-hosted her final show (3/7/81). Harry Shearer, alone in the 79-80 cast, lobbied to stay on as a writer and performer, but Doumanian decided to go with a clean break. Most of the support crew (Camera men, set designers and builders, etc) stayed on.
The Doumanian cast had a lot of hacks, but no scabs. The most churlish public comments at the time came from Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who quit two seasons earlier to make movies; they wasn’t mad that this cast had taken their job, they were mad that the show name had not been allowed to die. Bit of a difference. And while Charles Rocket and Anne Risley were never heard from again, several of the performers (Piscopo, Gottfried, and some unknown by the name of Eddie Murphy) transcended the material and went on to respectable subsequent careers.
The writing was uniformly awful and Doumanian made some bad decisions that ultimately harmed the show (like preventing the writers and the performers from talking to each other). The show had some bad things against it, but not the things you claim.
Unlike Robin Williams, Steve Martin and unlike his fellow SNL alums Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Jane Curtin (a very underrated actress imo), Robert Downey Jr., Martin Short, Mike Myers and to-a-much-lesser-degree Eddie Murphy and others, Chase has one character (unless you subdivide by age into the smug-young-klutz mentioned above and the smug-aging-klutz he is now). He never seemed to even try to stretch, he never did anything particularly brilliant (that’s not to say I didn’t laugh my ass off at the odd numbered VACATION movies, but they succeeded in spite of rather than because of Chase), and the fact he gives every impression of being a smug horse’s ass off-screen as he is on (his talk show, the SNL book [his homophobic comments to Terry Sweeney were appalling]), his drug problems, etc… I don’t hate him (actually worse for an actor: I rarely think of him at all) but I also don’t consider him talented or deserving of a comeback (which is good because it doesn’t look like he’s getting one).
I also agree that Funny Farm was an underrated movie, but more for the gag with the dog than for Chevy.
It’s all ball bearings nowadays…
Eh-knee-weigh,
Chevy had a semi-cameo in a crudely shot but poignant satire called “Ellie Parker” at Sundance this year and came on-stage after the movie for some Q&A. He was very well received (admittedly, by a somewhat sycophantic audience), got a louder ovation than Naomi Watts, who played lead in the movie.
Chevy was a bit sarcastic but in a jovial way, appeared to appreciate the adulation. Perhaps it, umm, seemed like old times.
“Fletch” is one of my favorite comedies and I’ve always thought Chevy was a crack-up on screen.
I read (in Wired, IIRC) that Chase was under the impression that SNL was going to be sort of “The Chevy Chase Show”, and got bent out of shape when it became much more than that.
IMHO, I’ve liked him from time to time. Three Amigos has long been one of my (not so) guilty pleasures, BUT I could never shake the impression that he as just a smug preppy. In fact, I always figured that in RL he was just like his Caddyshack character… maybe slighly more bitter.
Let me point out, though, the Kingdom of Gorch skits (starring Scred) were not your usual Muppets. They were blasphemous, irreverent, crude, and borderline pornographic. All the things we hold near and dear. 
It was a bit of a weird affair. I remember one of the comedians saying something like “You’ve been in show business for 30 years, and they get [one of the evening’s many young, less famous comedians who didn’t know Chase] to roast you? Didn’t you make any friends?” It got a laugh, but it seemed very pointed.
Joe Piscopo and Gilbert Gottfried had respectable subsequent careers???
Gilbert Gottfriend actually has voice over work as the parrot in Aladdin, the cartoon series. I think I have heard him elsewhere, too.
That did seem to cut deep.
On a related note, doesn’t Bill Murray have a similar reputation for similar reasons?
He does the Aflec duck.
Bill Murray has a reputation for being “difficult” offscreen. He also has a reputation for being friggin’ hilarious onscreen, has his choice of first rate scripts and directors, and turns down roles that most actors would trade a testicle for. It is in this regard that he differs from Chevy Chase.
Good point.
I would love to put them in a room together and watch them cut each other down.
Lazy, no question about it! For an allegedly brilliant comic, he sure does go for the dick joke AWFULLY fast. If you fit him with a shock collar that activates every time he talks about “Mr. Happy,” he would kill himself within minutes.
Chase and Murray hated each other. For all I know they still do, although I imagine nowadays they rarely run into each other.
The cruelest example I ever saw of Chase getting cut down by a peer was when he did a guest appearance on SNL. One of the things he did was “co-anchor” the Weekend Update with then regular Dennis Miller. Chase was at his worst - mugging, doing voices, playing the klutz, and generally over-acting desperately to try to get all the attention. And while he was giving it his all, Miller just quietly stared at him in disbelief. When Chase finally realized he was bombing and wound down, Miller just shook his head once, gave a dismissive little laugh, and read his lines.
I remember seeing Tommy Chong getting roasted and the first line Marsha Warfield used was, “We’re all thinking the same thing. Where the fuck is Cheech?”