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I'm Chevy Chase, And You're Not (documentary)

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Did anyone catch this? It sounds like the director did a lot of work on this, and at 82 Chevy's still as arrogant and prickly as he ever was. The guy had a helluva run from the late '70s to late '80s. It's telling that for a guy who made as many bombs as he did, his hits made so much money & left such an imprint on pop culture (Ty, Clark, Dusty) that it feels like he had a lot more success. Still, it sounds like you'd be hard pressed to find a dozen people that actually like him & consider him a friend.

Edit. Looks like the next airing will be this Sunday at 7PM. Recording set.

8 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

Did anyone catch this? It sounds like the director did a lot of work on this, and at 82 Chevy's still as arrogant and prickly as he ever was. The guy had a helluva run from the late '70s to late '80s. It's telling that for a guy who made as many bombs as he did, his hits made so much money & left such an imprint on pop culture (Ty, Clark, Dusty) that it feels like he had a lot more success. Still, it sounds like you'd be hard pressed to find a dozen people that actually like him & consider him a friend.

Edit. Looks like the next airing will be this Sunday at 7PM. Recording set.

Apparently they tried to get some folks from Community to be in the movie and talk about him. Not a single one said yes.

I know he's a prick, but holy shit he's got to be just a colossal asshat.

One of the all-time unapologetic assholes.

Although in recent years he's adopted a kind of "What, people thought I was an asshole? Why, I've never" thing that I don't think I buy. Unless he has dementia, which I guess is a real possibility.

I’m really good friends with an actor who’s about his age, and has been in the industry since the mid 1970s.

He talks about dickheads like Rob Schneider and Richard Dreyfass - and really fantastic people like Ben Stiller and Bryan Cranston.

While Hollywood is filled with assholes, which makes sense given a whole lot of insecure actor egos, he also said that Chevy Chase remains in his own league, and is sort of the GOAT in consistent assholeness.

1 hour ago, Chewbacca said:

Apparently they tried to get some folks from Community to be in the movie and talk about him. Not a single one said yes.

I know he's a prick, but holy shit he's got to be just a colossal asshat.

Most of the cast has remained quiet for various reasons. Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers) who directed a lot of Community episodes, has publicly stated he was there when Chase quit/was fired and has talked about Chase’s meltdowns. I’m not sure if Jay was the one who fired him, more likely the show runners/producers, but he was pissed. He witnessed some of the bullshit directly, while some of it happened while he was elsewhere but then he was told immediately about it.

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I never saw it--and it only aired once on Comedy Central--but the Friar's Club Roast of him in 2002 was apparently so brutal with the roasters going at him so viciously and personally they changed the format later. They tried to get friends and former co-stars to attend, but almost none of them did. Steve Martin and Martin Short sent video tributes (where they joked they couldn't be there because they were filming a sequel to the Three Amigos...without him). Al Franken and Laraine Newman did attend and went heavy on his drug addiction and anti-semitism.

Franken:

“I think a serious contribution that Chevy has made to our society is to show people how to deal with a chemical dependency problem. I’m talking, of course, about Chevy’s heroic struggle against his addiction to ‘back pills.’ When Chevy Chase announced that he was going to the Betty Ford Clinic for his dependency on ‘back pills,’ it sent a message to America that addiction isn’t confined to illegal drugs like, say, cocaine. I remember at SNL, the guy who used to deliver Chevy’s ‘back pills.’ I think his name was Ronnie Sunshine.”

Newman:

Reading excerpts from her “diary”: “September 30, 1975. Dear diary, Wow, I don’t know if this show is going to work, but you couldn’t ask for a better group of people. Already Jane, Gilda and I feel like sisters. Danny is hilarious and has invited everyone up to his bar in Canada. Belushi’s a little gruff, but it’s obvious he’s a sweetheart. Chevy said to me and I quote, ‘You know, the Holocaust never really happened. It’s a lie perpetrated by the Jews, who own 80 percent of the wealth in this country.’ Then he tried to sell me coke. I didn’t buy any, partly because I didn’t have any money but mostly because he wanted me to use his dick as a straw.

“November 12, 1975. Dear diary, Something terrible happened to Chevy while doing a Gerald Ford sketch. He took a pratfall over a podium and injured his scrotum. I can imagine how painful hurting your scrotum is when you’re as big a dick as Chevy. 

“December 2, 1975. Dear diary, The show is being plagued with bad luck. Danny had a psychotic break, Belushi’s gone missing and Lorne had a polyp removed from his colon. The biopsy showed that the polyp was actually Chevy up Lorne’s ass.

“October 7, 1976. Dear diary, Chevy quit the show. He announced to us that he's leaving to pursue a dream he’s had since he was a little boy: To make movies and host the worst talk show in history. We wished him well. We knew he could do it.”

Stephen Colbert went off the top rope with this summary during the proceedings:

The only thing I think of when I look at this man is there but for the grace of God go I. Why would I tempt the comedy gods to strike me down like this?

A comedy lamprey, just sucking the joy out of everything I touch.

But for some of these people, [fame] went to their head ... but this man never forgot what got him wherever he thinks he is.

Before you attack him, think: There may come a day in your darkest hour when you are a shadow of your, albeit paper-thin self. And when that day comes, I hope that you are cheered up by something that Mr. Chase so famously said, "He's Chevy Chase and you're not." If that doesn't cheer you up, then I don't know what will.

Chevy was visibly upset & uncomfortable throughout the event, and reportedly broke down into a sobbing mess in the bar afterwards w/ Paul Shaffer.

Edited by GhostOfTomJoad

In a 2007 biography, Chase stated that he was physically and psychologically abused as a child by his mother and stepfather, Dr. John Cederquist, a psychoanalyst.[12] In that biography, he said, "I lived in fear all the time, deathly fear." Abuse he was subjected to as a child included being awakened in the middle of the night by his mother to be slapped repeatedly across the face, lashes to the backs of his legs, punches to the head by his stepfather, and being locked in a bedroom closet for hours. As a punishment for being suspended from school at the age of 14, Chase was locked in a basement for several days.[13] Both of his parents died in 2005.[14]

Not an excuse, but I have some sympathy.

Edited by MagicSoccerSpray

2 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

Apparently they tried to get some folks from Community to be in the movie and talk about him. Not a single one said yes.

I know he's a prick, but holy shit he's got to be just a colossal asshat.

He’s really Britta’d the hell out of this thing

It was an excellent look at him and his life. I’m old and I remember Chevy on Weekend Update. He was an incredible talent and watching him on SNL that first year was electric. He was the star of the show that year. All the untalented unfunny hacks on Community can screw themselves( but for Donald Glover who is talented). Chevy’s humor has always been acerbic and he admits he left SNL too soon. He’s left an indelible mark on comedy and if he’s a prickly asshole, so what.

52 minutes ago, msbesq said:

It was an excellent look at him and his life. I’m old and I remember Chevy on Weekend Update. He was an incredible talent and watching him on SNL that first year was electric. He was the star of the show that year. All the untalented unfunny hacks on Community can screw themselves( but for Donald Glover who is talented). Chevy’s humor has always been acerbic and he admits he left SNL too soon. He’s left an indelible mark on comedy and if he’s a prickly asshole, so what.

There's a lot going on here. Everyone on Community should go screw themselves because Chevy is a hall of fame asshole who virtually everyone hated?

Murray was never the star Chevy was. He became a very good player but it clearly became the Belushi, Akroyd, Radner show

1 minute ago, Red Five said:

There's a lot going on here. Everyone on Community should go screw themselves because Chevy is a hall of fame asshole who virtually everyone hated?

He’s a hall of fame comedic talent which no one on Community was or is. Carlin was an asshole, Pryor was an asshole, Carson and Berle were assholes.

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Murray was never the star Chevy was. He became a very good player but it clearly became the Belushi, Akroyd, Radner show
Bill Murray's career has eclipsed Chevy's by a wide margin. But if you're limiting their impact while at SNL then sure, Chevy as a key face during the birth of a cultural phenomenon certainly had a super nova effect during his brief stint.

I'm looking forward to the doc. Chevy had talent, but his addictions & demons certainly sidetracked what should have been a longer lasting, more impacting career.
1 hour ago, msbesq said:

He’s left an indelible mark on comedy and if he’s a prickly asshole, so what.

People don’t hate him because he’s a prickly asshole. Hollywood is filled with prickly assholes, and it doesn’t even move the needle. Which should give you a greater idea why people hate Chevy Chase.

57 minutes ago, msbesq said:

He’s a hall of fame comedic talent which no one on Community was or is.

Cool, he also hadn’t had a hit movie in decades and he was relegated to network tv for a reason. If he thought he was too good to be on an NBC sitcom, he shouldn’t have signed the contract.

Anytime Chevy Chase is discussed the conversation will always veer towards his incredibly unstable personality. For those not aware his grandfather was Miles Browning. Browning was someone who was looked at as being exceptionally intelligent and someone that Naval Historian Samuel Eliot Morison said had a “slide-rule brain.”

Browning also was a violent drunkard on the Kelly Turner level, serial cheater and had a personality that only a badger would find to be warm. He was Admiral Halsey’s chief of staff and was at Midway as the chief of staff for Admiral Spruance due to Halsey being sidelined due to health issues. In an episode that will forever be remembered as who he quintessentially was, when the pilots returned from their first flight, Wade McClusky had made it back with just two gallons of fuel. Browning had his own plan for the next flight out against the IJN and McClusky rightfully called him out and said he was wrong. Admiral Spruance, the most level-headed and intelligent man in the entire US Navy according to Admiral King, sat and listened and being a Big Guns Club admiral or a black shoes admiral if you will, asked the pilots what they thought was the best course of action. Admiral Spruance knew he did not have any experience flying so when the pilots stated their case he sided with McClusky and co. Browning threw a tantrum and went to his cabin to rage about this. Mind you the US Navy is in a battle where they are wiping out four Japanese carriers and this selfish clown is mad that his plan was denied. Turns out McClusky was right on what they did next. Browning was so hated that they gave him a carrier to command and the people on that one all wanted off because they hated him even more.

I say that to say that a good bit of those genetics were passed onto Chevy. He was every bit the equal of Miles Browning on the people hate him scale, but only Browning was looked at as the most hated man in US Naval history.

U.S. Naval Institute
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Out of the Jaws of Victory

When Thomas Heggen penned h

Edited by UpperWestside

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Good interview w/ the director Marina Zenovich.

She's no lightweight, having done docs on Pryor, Robin Williams, Roman Polanski and mega-asshole Lance Armstrong. Here's a telling exchange from early on in the doc that really has my interest piqued:

Zenovich gets a taste of Chase's snarl mere minutes into her film when she says she's trying to figure the actor out. "It's not going to be easy for you," he warns her. "You’re not bright enough. How’s that?" he says with a smile.

Zenovich is stunned at his bluntness. "Well, you asked," Chase says. "I know you’re not going to put that on the air, and I hope not. But my answer is I'm complex, and I'm deep, and I can be hurt easily, and I react spontaneously to people who want to figure me out, as it were. As somebody who will hold up my guard, I’m not going to let anybody figure me out, per se."

"The minute he asked me that, I was like, 'Oh my God, I have an in,'" Zenovich says. "You know, 'People think you're an a--hole.' And he was like, 'What?'… He was not aware."

Now THAT'S the kind of intro that pulls you into a documentary. And I'm quite intrigued by how Chevy's mind must work. At 82, he knows he's sitting down to be interviewed about his life and the ups and downs of his career. The director is going to ask him about the events that shaped him & made his success possible. And his immediate response is to go into self-protection, lash out, insult, and not let anyone inside. He describes himself as an 'angry child' in an old man's body. The dude's carrying some heavy baggage.

This is going to be quite the contrast to the recent doc "John Candy: I Like Me."

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