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That time Chris Elliott took a huge crap on artsy mime troupe Mummenschanz on ‘Letterman,’ 1986
07.03.2015
10:13 am
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In his long career as a giant smartass pretending to be a know-it-all idiot, Chris Elliott has pissed off many, many people, including directors Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and Jonathan Demme. His autobio The Guy Under the Sheets relates those tales in detail, and is well worth the time, but I was bummed that the book contained only a passing (and utterly bullshitfull) mention of one of my favorites of the many stunts he pulled on Late Night with David Letterman in the ‘80s—the time he gigantically took the piss out of the justly venerated Swiss mime troupe Mummenschanz.

Mummenschanz have been around for over four decades—I drove six hours to catch a show on their 40th anniversary tour in 2012, totally worth it as it was founding member Bernie Schürch’s final tour. Their performances conceal the artists’ identities, as they revolve largely around heavy costumery and mask play, sometimes downright pugilistic mask play, actually. A old post by my DM colleague Amber Frost does them justice, and I’d encourage you to have a look at it. (And I had to chuckle when I saw a commenter on that post had mentioned and posted the video I embedded below. Who says you should never read the comments?) They came to attention in the US during the ‘70s with appearances on TV variety shows, including a career-making guest spot on The Muppet Show, and their popularity grew to the point that they could enjoy a Broadway run from 1977-1980.

But it was during a later Broadway run, at the Helen Hayes theater in 1986, that Chris Elliott had his fun with them.

Now, I’m sure there was no mean intent in this jab, but it’s pretty audacious to make such a complete buffoonery of such wonderful and broadly-appealing artists with a golden international reputation. On Sep 30, 1986, David Letterman, brandishing a copy of Mummenschanz’s then-new book, introduced the troupe. In no time flat, it was clear that something was amiss, as the spotlight illuminated only a cheap costume-shop hot dog suit. Then came a fork and a spoon, not even really dancing, just sort of jogging in place and waving their arms like idiot children. Then out came a final dancer—later revealed as Elliott—in a mask of toilet paper rolls, which was a direct shot, as Mummenschanz actually used toilet paper roll masks. The audience is silent save for a few titters as it dawned on them that they’d been had. Someone started shouting “MORE, MORE” at the end—obviously that guy got it—and if a 2008 Rolling Stone article is to be believed, that guy was Screw magazine’s Al Goldstien. If you’re salty with me for spoiling, don’t be, the GOOD stuff is in the interview segment. Enjoy.
 

 
34 episodes of Elliott’s amazing and preposterous Adult Swim series Eagleheart recently turned up for streaming on HuluPlus. If you’re a fan of Elliott’s and a Hulu subscriber, I’d vigorously encourage you to dive straight on into that ASAP.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Before there was Blue Man Group, there was Mummenschanz
Chris Elliott’s ‘Action Family’ is a brilliant, must-see genre mashup

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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07.03.2015
10:13 am
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Chris Elliott’s ‘Action Family’ is a brilliant, must-see genre mashup
01.03.2014
09:29 am
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Action Family
 
On Vulture the other day, Community creator Dan Harmon listed his 22 most important influences on his work. As a hard-core Harmenian of long standing, I was familiar not only with most of the items on his list but also with their importance to Harmon. But there was one I didn’t know about—Chris Elliott’s Action Family—and Harmon’s description positively made my mouth water:
 

17. Chris Elliott

Way before Get a Life, he did this thing [Action Family] where everything indoors was a multi-camera sitcom and everything outdoors was a single-camera drama. In one scene, a killer the dad is tracking outside turns out to be the new boyfriend of the daughter in the multi-cam story. On the sitcom set, the boyfriend falls through a window, and it cuts to the other side, where it’s like Lethal Weapon and the body is landing on the cement. A mindblower.

 
What the hell is this thing? I had to find out more.

Action Family appeared as a one-off special on Cinemax in 1986, and it’s every bit as marvelous as Harmon indicated—any self-respecting fan of genre mindfuck satires has to watch it immediately. It’s precisely as Harmon described it, it’s a traditional family sitcom within the confines of the family home and a 1970s-style police drama outside of it. Elliott (playing a character named “Chris Elliott”) basically alternates scenes between the two modes, and the frisson of staid, by-the-numbers genres crashing into each other is intoxicating indeed. At least three times during the half-hour show I idiotically gave a round of applause (clapping my hands) in an otherwise empty room.
 
Action Family
 
I don’t want to cite individual scenes or moments because most of the fun is encountering them along the way. If not for that, I could really write a great deal about Action Family. I can, however, mention certain elements that the creative people involved absolutely nail—the differences in film/video quality, the boneheaded dialogue, the dead-on musical cues, the general absence of affect, the idiotic, Happy Days-derived convention of frequent applause as characters enter, and so on. (Laugh tracks and overly expressive live studio audiences come in for some serious abuse here.) Note that “Chris” always dons a Cosby sweater whenever he’s in sitcom mode. I’m told the inspiration for the police drama scenes is Mannix, but I’m not very familiar with that show. But it doesn’t matter: Kojak, Vega$, Starsky and Hutch, The Rockford Files, Magnum P.I., and Miami Vice all supply obvious touchstones for that insufferably self-important tone of a sturdy three-act U.S. police drama.

Elliott’s stupendously seedy persona is ideal for this sort of project. You can hardly tell if he’s playing it “straight” or not—indeed, the presence of Elliott automatically calls the entire concept of “straight” into question. This being 1986, there is (of course) a typically desultory cameo by David Letterman, as well as one by Elliott’s pop Bob Elliott, of Bob and Ray notoriety. (Note the awesomely gratuitous use of a stunt actor during Bob’s sequence.)

The production of the show is a little slipshod, particularly the acting, but without spoiling anything specific I can say that there’s a reason the Elliott family bears (if you notice) a superficial resemblance to the Partridge Family, including a young Seth Green in the Bonaduce slot.

Oh, and make sure you stick around for the closing credit sequence.

A lot of the tropes Action Family is skewering were exploded by smarter shows of the 1990s and beyond, including Seinfeld and NYPD Blue, among many others. Action Family is precisely all about tropes—sitcoms are “funny” and police dramas are “serious,” but they’re both beset by the same goddamned lazy predictability. Mixing the two sets of conventions is a spectacular way of calling network TV out for the shitty product they were putting out, a premise with which all post-Sopranos TV addicts can surely agree.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
David Letterman checking out Cher’s bum (1987)
A young Dr. Venture crashes ‘Late Night with David Letterman,’ 1983

Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.03.2014
09:29 am
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