I didn't see a single moment of Chevy Chase's short-lived talk show when it aired, probably because my attention was diverted to the shake ups at more established late night fare such as The Tonight Show and Late Night. Chase's show came along the same time Conan O'Brien was slipping into Letterman's slot on NBC, and as we all know, The Chevy Chase Show never quite gained an audience. I think after you watch a clip (after the jump) of Chase interviewing actress Goldie Hawn, you'll begin to understand why. This four minutes of "interview," awkward dancing, and a gag involving a birthday cake that falls flat in more ways than one culminate into one glaring fact: it takes a special kind of person to helm a late night talk show, and Chevy Chase wasn't it. A shame really, because in the right circumstances the man can be quite funny. Watch if you dare.
Thanks to Josh for hepping us to the clip.
Seven greatest hand cannons in TV history
TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
TV 101: How ESPN controls the world and what the other networks can learn from it
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-21-2006 @ 3:23PM
Karen said...
"Never quite gained an audience"? There's an understatement. Chase was ridiculed in almost every venue you can imagine, and his show was held up as one of the emblematic TV disasters of all time.
To be fair, he was debuting at a time when the talk show circuit was much more sparsely populated than it is today, and the failure of talk shows was therefore more spectacular. It was less clear, at the time, that you needed to be more than simply funny to be able to interview people effectively.
That's what happens when you're on the cutting edge of programming...
Reply
7-21-2006 @ 5:02PM
Rick said...
This was on Family Guy, the final part of the movie (The edited FOX version)
Reply
7-21-2006 @ 5:26PM
Malcontent said...
Even that relatively brief clip was so bad that I had to close out of it. You know what it reminded me of? That one time I actually tried to watch the Chevy Chase Show when it was on the air!
Reply
7-21-2006 @ 6:01PM
Akbar Fazil said...
you do have to give props for Chevy being able to do the Doritos commercial where he got fired there too in mid commercial.
Reply
7-23-2006 @ 12:19PM
MWillyB said...
Was that a segment from during a "commercial break"? Because if it wasn't, that is the most horribly produced piece of dreck that I have ever seen. Chevy funny, whatever, but what producer allows stretches of time on screen where literally nothing is happening?
Reply