The Chris Elliot Interview

NY Mag has a pretty in depth interview with Chris Elliot, spanning his career from when he started on Letterman all the way to his most recent project, Eagleheart.

On his spectacular, often misunderstood Fox television show Get a Life:

What kind of notes were you getting from the network on Get a Life? Or did they just ignore you?
No, they gave us notes — an incredible amount of notes. On everything. Like I said, it wasn’t the show they wanted. Believe it or not, I remember them saying when I was first in talks with them that they were looking for a Cosby kind of show. Even though Married With Children was on, and they had In Living Color on — these really cool, edgy shows. I think they were kind of hoping that I would somehow be the classiness that they didn’t feel like they had or something. And then we gave them this 30-year-old guy living in a garage in his parents’ house. But their notes always reflected the fact that they still wanted the show to be grounded in reality. There were notes wanting a real moment between me and my dad that the audience believed. Which, if you know Get a Life, that’s so not that show. And they were persistent with notes like that. The only way we could respond to them was to go, “Okay, there’s a moment here.” And we would put a moment in — and then take it away with the next line. Like, we’d put a hug between me and my dad in, and then the next line he’d call me an idiot or something. So that you’d realize we were making fun of that kind of moment, because there was no other way to do it. But, yeah, there were, like, constant notes.

I've been an Elliot fan since those early Letterman days; heck I braved a snow storm to make it to opening night of Cabin Boy. But I also know his style is not for everyone. So, while I enjoyed the first episode of Eagleheart, I can understand if some people might not. It's absurd humor, and not grounded in reality whatsoever. If you can get past that, you'll like it.