Get A Life, Volume 1

In the early 1990s, the noted loon Chris Elliott created a TV series called Get A Life. This home video offers two episodes from this cultish series. Elliott plays a 30-year-old paper boy who is a terminal dork. The comedian Bob Elliott, famous from his Bob & Ray days and Chris' dad, plays, yes, Chris' dad in the series. Eleanor Donahue plays his mom. The first episode, "Prettiest Week of My Life," finds Chris enrolling in the Handsome Boy modeling school. In the second episode, "Bored Straight," Chris embarks on a plan to reform a gang of toughs. Both episodes offer a bizarre perspective that is heavily invested in Elliott's absurdist sensibility. Elliott's material is more quirky than funny. As is usually the case with his work, the joke is on him and the humor is situational. This isn't the sort of comedy that can be generally recommended. For those who enjoy Elliott's particular comic thing, Get A Life is very much in his standard mode. Others will find these episodes slow and short on style. (P. Van Vleck)