Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 9, 1993 TAG: 9309090064
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN ENGSTROM SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And that's the news update. Good night.
And - Good night! Chevy Chase - what did you have in mind?
Apparently not a talk show for the '90s, which is what Fox spent several million dollars hoping to get from him.
Airing locally at 11 p.m., Chase is supposed to steal viewers by getting a 35-minute jump on the Leno-Letterman talk wars.
Here's a helpful suggestion: Tape Chevy, fast-forward through the show, stopping for the ads ('cause they're better) and wrap up the whole hour in just 15 minutes.
That leaves time for the weather and sports on local news before settling in with David Letterman, a real talk-show host who produces actual laughs.
It will also leave you firmly anchored in real time, not the 1950s, where Chase seems sadly lost, which is amazing, since he first became a TV star in 1975-76, his lone season on "Saturday Night Live."
He's lived off that year for the better of two decades, with an all-too-rare inspirational moment in feature films. Last night he was caught with his talent down around his ankles in a show too juvenile to be called sophomoric.
You can catch more polished speakers on cable access.
"Beavis & Butthead" on MTV delivers classier humor.
The show began with the announcer urging you to "pull your pants back up." Then Chase went for a boffo vomit joke. There was a nose-picking sight gag. Guest Whoopi Goldberg offered that "I've been balled . . . in more ways than one." Chase and Goldberg bantered about some star who floated an "air biscuit" and stunk up a studio.
Well, there are the high points.
You want low? Chase reached deep into the dumper when he unveiled his patented "News Update" segment, patterned after the "Weekend Update" he made famous on "Saturday Night Live."
Did you like the one about Michael Jackson saying, "I may have just turned 35, but I still feel like a 13-year-old?"
Or maybe the reference to LA riot survivor Reginald "Pinata" Denny?
Chase flipped up a picture of the "Earring Magic Ken" doll and joked about him being gay, apparently unaware of the bigger joke on Mattel - that the big ring hanging on Ken's necklace looks exactly like a sexual device used by gays and worn in the same way, as an erotic decoration.
But that was "The Chevy Chase Show" the whole hour - so shockingly behind the times that its demographics will set a record for oldest television audience, mostly people unable to get up to change the channel and still baffled by a remote control.
Chase's first musical segment was a tipoff, when he donned white-face and pulled off a sight gag stolen from the Ernie Kovacs era of the '50s, done to a jazz piece from Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, who were big in 1958-63.
Most of his jokes were lame. He spoke haltingly, unbelievably slowly, and stumbled over his words repeatedly, especially during the embarrassing "News Update," when it seemed he'd just been introduced to the script.
His old friend Goldie Hawn was a fawning twit and made a major mistake by trotting out her breathy, barely-on-key, little-girl singing voice in a ballad delivered just a foot from the Chase face. She might have done better singing it facing his foot and going for a laugh instead of a treacly tribute.
Chase and Hawn kissed, hugged and chatted themselves into an unintended parody of dog-sniffing mutual admiration, until she asked, "Is this boring, that we're talking about old times?"
It was the evening's lone moment of insight.
Without Goldberg there wouldn't have been a highlight, but even her quality talent had difficulty shining through the depressing shadow of Chase's ever-looming presence.
Chase began his "News Update" with the observation that "some things never change."
Too bad, because this one needs changing - badly.
It stinks.
by CNB