There are certain movies and TV shows you witness as a kid that stick around like a sort of hallucination or fever dream, with hazy memories of some strange experience that may or may not have actually existed. For me, the 1990s Chris Elliott sitcom “Get a Life” is one of those experiences, a half-remembered glimpse into a bizarre world of surreal comedy that was like nothing my 11-year-old self had ever seen before.
I probably started watching “Get a Life” because it was on the same channel as “The Simpsons,” which debuted on Fox less than a year earlier, but even as a young “Simpsons” fan, I had no idea of the weirdness that was in store for me on “Get a Life.” Part of the reason that “Get a Life” became such a mythical presence in the minds of so many viewers like me is that for decades following its 1992 cancellation, it was difficult if not impossible to watch.
The complete 35-episode series was finally released on DVD in 2012, but it’s never been available to stream until this week, when Shout! TV premiered the entire series, newly remastered and with all of the original music intact. It’s fitting for such an obscure show to make its streaming debut on an equally obscure service, but since Shout! TV is free to watch, any curious viewer can check out one of the oddest sitcoms ever to air on network TV.
‘Get a Life’ is a twisted take on the traditional sitcom
The basic set-up of “Get a Life” sounds like a typical domestic sitcom: Elliott plays Chris Peterson, a 30-year-old man who still works as a paperboy and lives at home with his parents, Fred (Elliott’s actual father Bob Elliott) and Gladys (Elinor Donahue), in a room over the garage. Created by Elliott, fellow former “Late Night With David Letterman” writer Adam Resnick, and veteran producer David Mirkin, “Get a Life” starts out as slightly off-kilter and quickly becomes totally unhinged, taking Chris on a series of twisted, often inexplicable adventures.
The first episode opens with Chris waking from a nightmare about the game show “Password,” the kind of random reference that pervades the series. Right away, there’s something not quite right about Chris, beyond his inability to grow up. He hassles his childhood best friend Larry Potter (Sam Robards), who’s become an actual adult with a stable accounting job, a wife and two kids. Larry calls him “an aging Dennis the Menace,” and Larry’s impatient wife Sharon (Robin Riker) calls him a “brat,” and there’s a certain childlike innocence about Chris’ obliviousness.
There’s also a darker undercurrent as Chris barrels through life with seemingly no understanding of human behavior or social norms. In the first episode, he merely pesters Larry into ditching work to spend the day at an amusement park to ride a new roller coaster. Four episodes later, he’s attempting to break a world record by having thousands of pounds of junk stacked on top of him, in one of the earliest instances of Chris’ multiple apparent deaths.
Elliott, Resnick and Mirkin consistently push the boundaries of what could be shown on network TV, using the format of a three-camera sitcom with a laugh track for deranged, experimental anti-comedy. The contrast between the chipper tone and the disturbing, often violent events makes it even funnier.
‘Get a Life’ is an alt-comedy trailblazer
In the second season, Chris moves out of his parents’ house and into an actual garage, which he rents from belligerent ex-cop Gus Borden (Brian Doyle-Murray), and things get even weirder. If “Get a Life” reruns had been more accessible, they would have been perfectly at home on Adult Swim, where Elliott later starred in the comedy series “Eagleheart.” Chris’s adventures over the course of two seasons include traveling back in time, fighting a robot, switching lives with Larry, and, in the show’s most infamous episode, befriending a disgusting space alien he nicknames “Spewy.”
The Spewy episode features Nickelodeon levels of slime that Spewy, er, spews from every orifice, almost daring the audience to turn away. Not every episode is so confrontational, though, and Elliott makes Chris surprisingly likable despite his dim-witted stubbornness.
The supporting cast matches him by fully committing to their roles, including sitcom lifer Donahue (“Father Knows Best,” “The Andy Griffith Show”) sunnily delivering savage putdowns, and Riker turning Sharon from a nagging wife into a gleeful nemesis who regularly plots Chris’ demise. Doyle-Murray is a welcome addition in the second season, giving Gus a rough, angry edge.
Although it lasted only two seasons and disappeared for years afterward, “Get a Life” has been hugely influential, not only on Adult Swim and other avant-garde comedy but also on “The Simpsons” itself (where Mirkin spent time as showrunner), as well as on the future work of “Get a Life” writers Bob Odenkirk and Charlie Kaufman.
Watching it now on Shout! TV brought back some of those hazy childhood memories for me, but also showed me how hilariously daring the show still is. It’s a fever dream that persists, ready to baffle and delight a whole new audience.
“Get a Life” is now streaming free on Shout! TV
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