Quote of the Day (Chevy Chase, on ‘SNL’ Producer Lorne Michaels)

“Frankly, I always felt back then that I was smarter than him, that I was really the guy who got the show going, not Lorne."—Chevy Chase, writer and original “Not Ready for Prime Time” cast member, on Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels (pictured, in 1985), quoted by Susan Morrison, “Profiles: Make Him Laugh,” The New Yorker, Jan. 20, 2025

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to watching the docucomedy Saturday Night, about the frantic 90 minutes leading up to the premiere of SNL 50 years ago this October. The film took Hollywood’s usual liberties with the facts, but it rang true in depicting the outsized personalities associated with the show in its incarnation, particularly Chevy Chase.

Now, after Susan Morrison’s profile of the variety show’s producer for most of its history, Lorne Michaels, we know for certain that Chase was not only a jerk back then, but still is one.

I’m not going to get into here how obnoxious the actor-comedian has been over the years. (For that, see how I unloaded on him in my blog post from 11 years ago, on his 70^th birthday.)

But I will say that it hasn’t occurred to Chase that, 49 years after he left the show, early in its second season, it has done just fine without him.

The lion’s share for the credit belongs rightly to Michaels, who—his numerous idiosyncrasies and unique management style notwithstanding—launched the SNL ship and, five years after it almost foundered without him, returned to the helm and put it on its current steady course (as I discussed in this post from four years ago).

For anyone who hasn’t done so yet, I highly recommend reading Ms. Morrison’s retrospective on Michaels before watching the SNL 50^th anniversary special tomorrow night.

Oh, yes—and when Chase makes his scheduled appearance among its galaxy of stars, past and present, try not to give him the raspberry for still being such a whiny, egotistical, idiot, okay?

Movie Quote of the Day (‘National Lampoon's Vacation,’ on a Frustrating Experience on the Road)

Clark Griswald [played by Chevy Chase]: “Roy... can I call you Roy? Have you even driven cross-country?”

Roy Walley [played by Eddie Bracken]: “Oh, hell yes. Drove the whole family to Florida. Worst two weeks I ever spent in my life. The smell from the back seat was terrible.”

Clark: “Ooooh. Ooooh, I know that smell. Roy, could you imagine if you had driven all the way to Florida and it was closed?”

Roy: “Closed? Uh, they don't close Florida.”— National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), screenplay by John Hughes, directed by Harold Ramis

Quote of the Day (Chevy Chase, on First Appearing on ‘SNL’)

"I remember the first ‘Update’ I did on Saturday Night Live. They had big cameras back then, and you were looking into a huge lens. I wasn't nervous at all because I looked right through that lens and imagined the faces of the seven funniest people I knew. It never occurred to me that millions of people were watching. What I did was just for the eight of us."—Chevy Chase, quoted in Brian McKinley, “Chevy Chase Quotes: Real Life Clark Griswold Talks National Lampoons,” Yahoo! Voices, Feb 3, 2011

He’s Chevy Chase and you’re not—unless you wouldn’t mind being an irredeemable jerk who had managed to tee off an amazing number of people in an entertainment community more than used to dealing with egos that can’t fit through the door.

Few things bother me as much as people who waste their considerable talent, and by that measure few people get under my skin as much as Cornelius Crane Chase, born on this date 70 years ago.

Remembering his glorious first season on Saturday Night Live, it’s hard for me to think of him being this age—but it’s even harder to think of what he could have become.

For a guy who was valedictorian of his high school class, Chase has managed to behave in remarkably stupid ways over the years. Only some of his behavior can be attributed to prolonged substance abuse (in fact, in many ways, he’s as big a jerk now as he was before rehab).

What can you say about an actor who, after his success with the comic suspense film Foul Play (1978), was hailed as the new Cary Grant—only to tick off the first Cary Grant with ill-advised jokes about the matinee idol’s sexual orientation? That he ended up considerably poorer after an out-of-court settlement—and that he never became “the new Cary Grant.”

What can you say about a comic talent so huge, so much in a zone (as indicated by today’s “Quote of the Day”), that for a 1975 New York magazine cover story, NBC executives crowed that not only did they have in their stable “the first real potential successor to Johnny Carson," but thought he would guest-host The Tonight Show within six months? That he probably blew his chance the second he said, “I'd never be tied down for five years interviewing TV personalities." Or that, when his film career went south in the early 1990s and he was willing to be so “tied down,” he promptly proved Carson’s tart assessment that the younger man "couldn't ad-lib a fart after a baked-bean dinner," in perhaps the most ill-advised, embarrassing part of his career—getting canceled five weeks after his debut?

What can you say about a guy who, before hitting it big, worked as a cab driver, truck driver, motorcycle messenger, waiter, busboy, construction worker, audio engineer, produce manager in a supermarket, salesman in a wine store and theater usher? That as soon as the acclaim and money came his way, he became notorious for lording it over interns, as well as insulting and abusing screenwriters, other backstage personnel, and even fellow cast members.

What can you say about a star who enjoyed one brilliant late-night TV season and a few profitable, mildly amusing films (Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation)? That he made one lame movie after another following that, and that he blamed agents, co-stars, almost anyone but himself for these failures.

What can you say about a tall, good-looking, funny guy on top of the world at age 32? That in his late 60s, with another chance—perhaps his last—to make a major impact on TV, in the cast of Community, he blew up even this gig with potshots at the show’s creator, scriptwriters—virtually anything that moved.

And that the one thing more pathetic than someone who didn’t live up to his potential years ago is someone who, continually given chances to get it right, keeps repeating his disastrous behavior.

Quote of the Day (Chevy Chase, on “Caddyshack” Co-Creator Doug Kenney)

“Someone suggested that maybe I could help clean Doug up. I was the last guy to ask! We went to Hawaii. The point was to dry out. But why would that happen? Look at us at that age and the time. I had to go back to California, and within a couple of days Doug's body was found at the bottom of a ravine.”—Caddyshack star Chevy Chase, on the death of that film’s co-screenwriter, Doug Kenney, quoted in Chris Nashawaty, “Caddyshack,” Sports Illustrated, August 2, 2010

Thirty years ago today, one month after the opening of his hit Caddyshack, Doug Kenney—who had brought his irreverent, authority-defying brand of comedy from National Lampoon (where he was a founding editor) to Animal House—plunged to his death from a cliff in Hawaii. When his body was discovered a few days later, the news shook Young Hollywood—though, in a way, it shouldn’t have.

The Sports Illustrated oral history on the making of his last hit—from which Chase’s rueful quote comes--gives some hints on what brought Kenney to his sad end. Nearly everyone involved in that film (with Ted Knight being a notable exception) sampled the drugs being passed around like candy cars on the set.

Kenney’s influence can be seen through the types of entertainment that came in the wake of National Lampoon—not merely his own films, but also Saturday Night Live, SCTV, good friend Harold Ramis' filmography, Christopher Guest’s parodies, and P.J. O’Rourke’s work.

Robert Sam Anson’s Esquire October 1981 cover story on the life and death of the hugely talented and troubled Kenney nettled the screenwriter's many close friends. They preferred to focus on the good Doug, the warm, generous guy who made sure actress Cindy Morgan received two complimentary tickets to the premiere of Caddyshack when she’d been left off for no good reason—not the quarrelsome man who got into shoving matches with colleagues in post-production on the film.

His death—and the drug use that led to it (it’s still uncertain if he jumped or stumbled from the cliff)—hit far too close to home. After that, for far too long a time, his friends didn’t want to cooperate with other reporters or biographers.

Too bad—within two years of Kenney’s demise, they were doomed to repeat the cycle, as another one of their own, John Belushi, also fell victim, far too young, to drugs at the height of his fame.

The 33-year-old Kenney was especially mourned by fiancée Kathryn Walker, an accomplished actress who would later find happiness (for a time) as the second wife of musician James Taylor.