Get a Life (1 Viewer)

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BicycleTragedy

I just found an 8-gig torrent of every episode (2 whopping seasons) of a failed sitcom called Get A Life. It starred Chris Elliot, who used to do Letterman skits in the 80s. He was also in Cabin Boy.

Anyway, the show is from around 1990. I used to watch it but I was only 14 then, and I liked it but then it disappeared; if you watch it or know about it, then the reason why it failed is easy to see. Not that it was a bad show: it was just totally out of place on prime time TV.

It's about a 30 year old guy who lives with his parents and delivers newspapers on his bicycle. But there is a lot more to the show; a lot of the premises are completely out-of-the-bounds-of-reality surreal, yet they are presented in very matter of fact ways which makes them even more surreal.

Anyway, the show is buried in obscure TV castaway oblivion, I don't even think you can get it on DVD. But now I'm happy to be able to watch it again, and I wonder if I'll like it at 33 like I did when I was 14.

 
i loved/still love this show (i bought a season of it on DVD a few years ago). i think my favorite episode is the one where he tries to become a male model named "sparkles," while feuding with a rival model named "sapphire."
 
Elliott was a writer and sometime performer on the old David Letterman show. Letterman is a polished turd now, but in the early days of the late night show, they did some seriously fucked up and funny shit, and Elliott hand a hand in a lot of it.

I thought he floundered in prime time, but the pressures to hammer away at every idea until it sucks enough for prime time are great, and it's unusual that someone can overcome them. I suppose in comparison to everything else it was bound to stand out, even in a de-fanged state.
 
I think I understand what you are saying. From what I've watched so far, the show's mandatory laugh track really cocks it up. I've heard that there are versions without the canned laughter, like DVD extras or something (I guess some episodes were reissued on disc.) The torrent I found was all VHS uploads.

Anyway, it's very hard to guage the genuine hilarity factor of the show's actual premises because every time he says ANYTHING the audio track is just drowned in massive forced laughter.

I do remember his Letterman skits, I used to watch Dave a lot as a kid. I think that's why I got excited when the guy got his own show, but like I said before I remember very little about the actual program, so maybe now, 20 years later, I'll have different feelings. Or maybe I won't.
 
Chris Elliot is funny and in my house he's funnier because my wife can't stand him. He plays a great part in There's Something About Mary.

I vaguely remember the show Get a Life but I have a hard time remembering very funny shows. I can see why some people can't stand Chris Elliot. He does a great job of making fun of himself and people who are full of themselves.
 
Chris Elliot is funny and in my house he's funnier because my wife can't stand him. He plays a great part in There's Something About Mary

I know exactly the scene you are talking about, and even though it doesn't last long, it's a really good moment in the movie.

He looks at his family, detached from them; I think they are playing in the yard of his house or something, and as he is talking to Ben Stiller he says, "every day is better than the next." He says it in that deadpan style of his, very matter of factly, almost sounding content, and it's probably lost on a lot of people watching the film what he is really saying, but it's a really good line, and a great delivery, subtle and sneaky as hell.
 

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