It’s not just them, Chevy. NOBODY likes you. Sorry.
3 Likes
Whether Chevy Chase deserved it or not I still don’t understand how that kind of roast was supposed to be funny. Whether you’re roasting a nice person or a total asshole there’s still supposed to be some kind of joke in there, no?
10 Likes
Here’s the thing about those roasts: The honoree (?) gets approval over the other guests.
Generally, they start with his friends and coworkers, then move on to the biggest name comics, then B-listers, then basically anyone who will show up. When you see a cast of “who’s that?”, it’s because EVERYONE ELSE SAID NO.
It’s happened a few times, and those can be the worst roasts.
7 Likes
Six seasons and a movie.
7 Likes
He’s still alive? Huh, who knew
3 Likes
Has he tried not being a dick?
9 Likes
8 Likes
Agreed. Pure genius
3 Likes
Chevy Chase is notoriously thin-skinned and self-destructively reactive, to the point where I wonder if he might have psychological issues. Greater than usual for a comedian even.
That said, I have never really gotten the concept of roasts. They aren’t fun for me to watch, even if the subject is someone I don’t like. Maybe especially if the subject is someone I don’t like - it’s one thing that can give me sympathy for them.
7 Likes
Agreed. Colbert’s utter destruction of the man is a comedic, linguistic, and vicious masterpiece of a roast.
6 Likes
I must be so inured to this stuff because I watched the whole thing, waiting for where it got “vicious” or seemed like the roasters “really didn’t like” him, and it really never hit. Not in context, at least, since almost everyone also mentioned how much they loved him, and it was, after all, a roast.
Chase struck me, yet again, as an old white guy of privilege who never had to learn how to deal with people questioning or poking fun at him. Must’ve been nice while it lasted! Which was his entire career! Lucky bugger.
10 Likes
Perhaps he operated from a feeling of unique privilege, bestowed on him from family notables and a history going back to the Mayflower.
1 Like
Roasting must include the target’s history. Given that, it must have been difficult to generate humor when Chase’s life is the reference. Marc Maron’s comment would have been funny (via absurd humorous over-exaggeration) if the target being roasted was actually loved by all, and not genuinely despised as Chase was… is. Maron’s and others’ comments could – if properly tuned – worked on, say, someone like Mother Teresa. Or maybe not…
1 Like
I think Chevy Chase is a tool, but I watched a bunch of these roasts on Comedy Central in that time period and I feel this one crossed a line into mean-spirited.
2 Likes
Chevy Chase- too expensive, dick-head neighbors, no parking… wait what are we talking about?
4 Likes
I dunno about the rest of it, but I watch Christmas Vacation every Thanksgiving, and give thanks for his performance.
1 Like
When I die I want to be roasted*.
*Not cremated–I’d prefer something more ecologically friendly.
1 Like
He was satirizing a certain kind of clueless upper middle class suburban worker type, in those Vacation films at least. Maybe there, his slipping into becoming caustic and slightly unhinged was a funny contrast to the character.
And maybe also he was able to keep a distance from the character and not get his ego entangled. “I’m playing a clueless dummy. Of course I’m never like that.”
He can be funny too. He was funny in 3 Amigos, and in Community. He just seems to have always had his negative personality traits tanking the likelihood of him working with the same people again. With him then not working on those traits, just blaming everyone else instead.
He could still be working with Dan Harmon, or Steve Martin and Martin Short, or any of the people in Hot Tub Time Machine which was stupid fun. But, in the parlance of our times, he played himself. I hold out hope, as I do for all people, he can still learn.
1 Like
I imagine the roast are not as fun as they were in the “heyday” due to the decrease in stimulants and iced highballs used to loosen-up the roasters and roastee.
I have a certain “affection” for Chevy that has faded over the years. I was the right age when he had a run of successful movies which were mainstays on TV and at the video store and, to some extent, I identify with his being thin-skinned when it comes to being pushed at by other people.
But I also strive to be a professional in every aspect of my career. If I worked with someone I didn’t care for, I would just be as professional and as friendly as possible. I would not try to brute force insult my way through insults, mf-ing my coworkers into caving to my demands, or just generically being unpleasant.
I can’t imagine exiting the back end of so many movies and TV projects where people think I am the scum of the earth and think, “I’m not the problem, it is those a-holes for not being able to get the joke.”
5 Likes
