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Another day in Hollywood A decade in two days Movin' on down Chasing TV Married... with hit men TV 1998 Fu fighter |
____get an afterlife
BY JOYCE MILLMAN | Fish-eyed, doughy, weak-chinned and smirky, Chris Elliott has a face even a father can't love -- literally. There's a scene in an episode of "Get a Life," Elliott's cult-classic Fox sitcom from the early '90s, where Elliott asks his TV dad, played by his real dad, comedian Bob Elliott, for an evaluation of his looks. "Pale, pasty -- psychotic," Bob shudders. Throughout his career, from Letterman regular to his unfairly maligned feature film "Cabin Boy" (jeez, nobody appreciates a good Freddie Bartholomew impersonation anymore) to his role as the guy with the hives in "There's Something About Mary," Elliott has combined his unlovable mug with a ludicrously delusional persona designed to get under people's skins. And he has rarely been more impressively insufferable than on the short-lived (1990-92) and never rerun "Get a Life," four episodes of which have just been released on Rhino home video. (And I had finally managed to convince myself that I hallucinated the whole show.) On "Get a Life," Elliott plays Chris Peterson, a 30-year-old simpleton who still lives with his parents (Bob Elliott and Elinor Donahue), against their will, and delivers newspapers on his bicycle. Chris Peterson was the archetypal Chris Elliott character. Fey and full of himself, snotty and naive, obnoxiously superior and very, very dense, he's always trying to reach some Horatio Alger dream (become a male model, marry a famous actress, be his favorite TV star's best friend) because this is America and his mommy and daddy told him he could be anything he wanted. (They lied.) Chris refuses to believe that anybody could resist his charms or wish him ill. People try to scam him, hurt him, kill him, even, but Chris wears them down with the scary optimism and resiliency of a stalker. He will make you love him, or at least make you not want to pump him full of buckshot. Like his obvious influence Andy Kaufman, Elliott plays with the weird science of fame and the accepted notions of "performance," testing how much he can get away with before an audience will snap. But where Kaufman had "Taxi" to endear him to the masses, Elliott had "Get a Life" -- not so much a sitcom as an exercise in viewer endurance. The 15 of us who tuned in each week couldn't get enough; the rest of America stayed away in droves. But the videos (two volumes, two episodes each) give you a second chance to sample one of TV's great lost oddities of the '90s. Rent Volume 1 and watch "The Prettiest Week of My Life," where Chris enrolls in the Handsome Boy Modeling School, takes the runway name "Sparkles" and learns about the seamy side of the fashion biz, just like Diana Ross in "Mahogany." I'm sure you'll agree that they don't make 'em like this anymore -- unless they're animated. Created by Elliott with David Mirkin (who presided over the surreal final seasons of "Newhart" and served a stint on "The Simpsons") and Adam Resnick (who directed "Cabin Boy"), "Get a Life" was an often hilarious goof on sitcomic conventions. The incongruously bearded Chris went through all the stages of TV boyhood, from learning to drive to standing up to bullies to staying alone in the house for the first time. "Get a Life" felt like an instant vintage rerun, although its TV signals were scrambled. The weekly, ironic Chris-havin'-fun montages spoofed '70s camp-fests like "The Brady Bunch" and "The Partridge Family," but the retired parents (always dressed in bathrobes no matter what time of day) who just want their son to go away stood '50s fantasies like "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver" on their heads. "Get a Life" was also a sadistic satire of the yuppie/boomer work/play ethos of the era. Chris Peterson didn't work and had no money, but he stayed a bratty, self-indulgent kid, envied by Larry (Sam Robards), the married and miserable boy-man next door. Peter Pan hadn't been this unattractive since Michael Jackson. "Get a Life" was an original, as silly and belligerent as a Chris
Elliott sitcom ought to be. The man is a freak and a genius. Here's hoping his current audience-friendly voice gig as Dogbert on the "Dilbert" TV show will bring him the clout he needs to resume his important mission -- annoying the hell out of America.
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