Several million dollars later, it turned out that even Dolly Parton makes mistakes.
Chevy went into the show with a $3,000,000 contract and boatloads of hype, highlighted by print ads giving a Take That! to Letterman (featuring Chevy with a gap-tooth and the tagline "Ready to Fill the Late Night Gap"). Hollywood's Aquarius Theater was given a $1,000,000 renovation into the Chevy Chase Theater, complete with a big new sign out front, and basketball hoops and a live fish tank on the stage (the latter of which was reportedly a huge chore to maintain). Chevy got a strong house band - the Hollywood Express - fronted by jazz saxophonist and legendary session musician Tom Scott. The show premiered on September 7th, 1993.
Unfortunately, right from the premiere, Chevy looked visibly nervous and uncomfortable in this setting, and his monologues made his inexperience doing proper stand-up comedy all too clear. Ensuing attempts at alternative comedy and Surreal Humor - inspired by Chevy's hero, Ernie Kovacs - were more confusing than anything, and News Update, his attempt at recreating Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update, only slightly improved the proceedings, mostly because it was the only part of the show that put Chevy in his element. The celebrity interviews showed Chevy - never known as a people person, to put it charitably - the most adrift, struggling to be conversational and inquisitive unless it was an old friend of his, such as Dan Aykroyd.
The show was a critical disaster right from the jump, and it reflected in the ratings, which steadily dropped until they were less than half of what Letterman was pulling in with The Late Show at the same time. Fox cut their losses and cancelled the show after five weeks, "in the best interests of both its affiliated stations and its star." The theater was re-renamed the Aquarius Theater mere days after the last episode, with the sign painted over, and any trace of the show was removed post-haste.
Thanks to both this and the dismal performance of his film Vegas Vacation a few years later, Chevy Chase's career never fully recovered, though he managed a brief comeback with his stint on Community.
Tropes associated with The Chevy Chase Show include:
- Bizarre Instrument: In a rarity, the desk had a piano built into it, so Chevy could play along with the band.
- Deer in the Headlights: Chevy tended to have this face when presenting a monologue, especially the very first.
- Disguised in Drag: One sketch, The Crying Game (named for the film, of course) involved three women on stage, whom Chevy had to talk to one by one, and guess which was actually male.
- Major Injury Underreaction: On the episode with Dan Aykroyd, there's a cold open where Dan uses a straight razor to shave Chevy's face, and proceeds to cut him numerous times, leaving an utterly ridiculous amount of blood. Chevy seems mostly unfazed. Subverted when Dan gives him some aftershave.
- Portent of Doom: Played for Laughs when Whoopi Goldberg gave him a "good luck charm" in the first episode - the high-heeled shoes she wore on the first episode of her own talk show, The Whoopi Goldberg Show. The joke is obviously that her show didn't last very long, but ultimately, this show would fare much worse.
- Short-Runners: The show was infamously cancelled after five weeks on the air (though it ended up running for an additional week). Less than 48 hours after the final taping, workmen had already dismantled and painted over the Chevy Chase Theater's sign.
- Stop Motion: The intro is done in claymation, featuring a clay Chevy Chase jumping from building to building in Los Angeles grabbing letters from various signs, in order to create the show's logo.
- That Reminds Me of a Song: The interview in the premiere with Goldie Hawn ended with Goldie suddenly breaking into a love ballad, singing to Chevy. As some critics have pointed out, it's eerily reminiscent of when Bette Midler sang to Johnny Carson before Johnny ended his run on The Tonight Show.
- Wet Cement Gag: In the premiere, there's a sketch where Chevy goes to put his handprints in the wet cement on the sidewalk outside, only for it to be way too thin, so he Pratfalls through it.
