Chevy Chase: Cut to the Chase

You took a shot in Playboy at Elliott Gould, who was an early and popular guest host on Saturday Night Live. You said if you had suddenly become box-office poison you would move in with Gould and open a pig ranch together. Why hit someone who's down at the moment?

That was a rude thing to say. I didn't know he was down at the time. I was making fun and hoping he wouldn't take it seriously. Sometimes you say things like that and you just figure, "Oh well, they'll never see it." If I thought for a minute Elliott would read that I would have felt like a shit. It was just a cheap shot and there's no excuse for it. I shouldn't have said it.

Care to take some cheap shots at some figures who could use a good barb from the old Chevy Chase? Starting with President Bush.

CHASE: I wasn't as upset by his winning as I was about Reagan. The Quayle thing drove me nuts. I still don't understand that. And I don't understand a man with his apparent intelligence and perspective allowing himself to get caught up in the burning of the American flag issue, and allowing his stance on the abortion issue. The American flag is a joke to me. It's so clear that the right to burn the flag is what the American flag stands for. Does this mean I can burn a little model of an American flag on my birthday cake or is that illegal? And the pro-choice issue -- I disagree with him. I don't see the workings of an intellectual mind there. I think the man is pandering, I don't think he's telling the truth, I don't believe that's how he really feels. It's the woman's prerogative to make that kind of decision. The guy who does Bush well is Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live.

Two stand-up comedians, Roseanne Barr and Jackie Mason, currently have high-ranking TV shows. What do you think of them?

Roseanne I don't get. I saw her as an overweight, whining stand-up comedienne and I thought this is about as bad as stand-up comedy gets. But I can't be fair to her because I haven't seen her show. Jackie Mason seems self-destructive but not very bright. I saw his act and it was no different from what he'd been doing for 20 years. It was always as incongruous as it is now. Flip remarks, some of which are funny, most of which aren't. They're unstudied and dangerous in some ways. I think that he should be careful about what he says. He's a relatively warm fellow who is a rabbi's son and really not a well-educated guy. He's the kind of guy who would say, "They say that fat's bad for you now, is that true?" Yeah, well we've been reading about that now for twenty-five years Jackie, better take that pastrami and let go and have some oat bran.

Who among your contemporaries tickles your funnybone?

Steve Martin, Marty Short, Christopher Guest. Robin Williams on certain occasions, as a stand-up, is unbeatable. He's very quick. Richard Belzer can make me laugh. I make me laugh. I make them laugh. I make money making you laugh. I may have just made in my pants. Sorry.

Do you think you'd ever be interested in a half-hour TV show of your own?

I'm sure I could have it any time I want. What I'd do with it, I don't know. And I'm sure at some point I will. If the outcome of that would be something similar to The Cosby Show, I don't know that that's living up to what I can do. Nothing against The Cosby Show, some of it is very endearing, but it's the kind of TV that I was making fun of when I was on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago.

So having a hit show like Bill Cosby's would only continue your self-doubt about what your true potential might have been?

I guess I'll never feel I've lived up to quite what it is I can do. But I'm not sure what it is I can do. I may always live wondering what I could have come up with. And maybe the answer is: Aw, not much.

Lawrence Grobel is the author of The Hustons and Conversations with Capote, and writes for Playboy, The New York Times and Redbook.

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