TVSquad

Chase is stretching things with "The Colbert Report". But when it comes to making fun of current events in the form of a fake TV news show, I don't think he's "delusional" in saying that he was doing it on Weekend Update a few decades before Stewart & friends were on "The Daily Show". He may not have created it, but he was certainly doing the same stuff.

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He might have a case, were it not for "That Was The Week That Was," which debuted in 1962 and is described by the BBC Guide to Comedy as "A biting, live, late-night satire show that broke new ground in television's relationship with politics, redefined the BBC's perceived neutrality and opened up TV comedy to embrace attacks on hitherto sacred cows: politicians, religions and even royalty among them." An American version also aired for a year starting in 1964, and I have no doubt that Chase was familiar with both of them.

Chevy Chase's "Weekend Updates" were fantastic, but he's just one in a line of practitioners of this sort of thing.

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Re: This is the week that was:

I remember hearing about this, but I definitely can say I didn't remember anything about the show. (busily reads Wikipedia article on it) Oh! Yes, that sure sounds like an early version of Stewart's The Daily Show. Nevertheless, I will still agree with anyone who says that it wasn't "That Was The Week That Was" that Comedy Central relied upon for a go-by for Stewart's show, but more of the Weekend Update.

Making fun of the news the way that Chevy Chase and SNL did probably wasn't unique in America at the time- hell, Johnny Carson was certainly in prime form mocking the news events in the 60s - so mocking the news wasn't completely new. Johnny wasn't the only one, probably, but certainly the one most watched.

However, the two TV shows that mocked a few news bits from the liberal side were The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and later Laugh-In. Those two shows, along with the magazine called National Lampoon were pretty much the primary sources of news mockery at the time in the US. Chevy Chase was part of National Lampoon's radio hour (pre-SNL) as I recall, and most likely came up with the "idea" before the TV show was ever aired (well, HIS "idea" for it, anyway)

I don't want to take anything away from those wacky Brits because I've laughed at way too many British bits and because they might get mad and make me eat their food.

So, Chevy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. You didn't invent the comedy news program. You did, however, helped to make the American version of it what it is. You made me laugh. And then you stopped doing that.

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Walt,

I didn't mean to suggest that "The Daily Show" used "That Was The Week That Was" as it's template, but only that it is an example of other shows using the newscast format as a way of offering satire. I think that you're right that memories of "Weekend Update" probably loomed larger in the minds of the writers of "The Daily Show" than a 30-plus-year-old British show.

And your points about "Laugh In," "The Smothers Brothers," and "National Lampoon" are all spot on. It all just goes to show that Chase didn't "invent" anything quite so much as he offered a brilliant comedic interpretation of it.

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Another example of a fake news show that I used to like a lot was "Not Necessarily The News" which aired on Showtime during the 80's. I don't know why, but I thought I'd toss it in for the hell of it.

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I think you're overquoting Chevy Chase here.

"My ego tends to think that, you know, I started it with my Weekend Update."

He isn't going all delusional in thinking that he kind of started it all. When the majority of people think of "fake news" today, they think of TDS and TCR. When the majority of people think of "fake news" of yesterday, they think of "Weekend Update". And he started that.

The man's a comedy genius, and I don't think a short answer to a viewer question should be held against him as being this ego-crazed has-been. Especially when you look at his entire response.

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It's not the first time Chevy's said something like that...in an interview at Harvard University from, like, forever ago, he said something along the lines of "Jon Stewart: now there's a guy who copies my work". I'm not quite sure what the context was but it was brought up when Jon was the next guest in a series of interviews about political humor.

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"Not Necessarily the News" was on HBO, not Showtime.

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Thanks for the correction, Jim. I should've known that since I watched so much of it. :o)

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I think Chevy is correct....... I think Fletch was his best movie too ;)

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