Chris Elliott

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Chris Elliott

Chris Elliott on the Late Show with David Letterman
Born May 31, 1960 (age 46)
New York City, New York, Flag of United States United States


Chris Elliott (born May 31, 1960 in New York City) is an American comedian and the son of comedian Bob Elliott.

Contents

[edit] Career

Elliott often tends to play a smarmy character who thinks he is a "ladies' man" and is clueless to the fact that the women can't stand him. He exploited that in a series of TV ads touting snack foods, in which the women tell him "Get out of here!" and mean it, only he doesn't quite catch on. In real life, Elliott has been happily married since 1986 and has two children.

[edit] Television

Elliott became known in the early 1980s, when he was a writer and performer on "Late Night With David Letterman," playing an assortment of recurring oddball characters. His characters on the show included:

  • "The Regulator Guy", a parody of the Mad Max series of films. The Regulator Guy segments were usually pre-taped, and presented by Letterman as the trailer for an upcoming television series. The segments featured the theme music associated with the Mad Max character. The font used for the title was similar to the font used for the then-popular American television series The Equalizer. In the Regulator Guy's only live, on stage appearance, Elliott, carried by wires, "flew" over the audience via jet pack onto the Late Night set. The "jet pack" prop appeared to malfunction, which the Regulator Guy then blamed for ruining his dramatic appearance.
  • "The Fugitive Guy" (a parody of the TV series, The Fugitive),
  • "The Guy Under the Seats",
  • "Marlon Brando" (an impersonation of the well-known actor), in which Elliott portrays the actor as a semi-deranged man who performs a "banana dance" to the tune of "The Alley Cat"), (Curiously, a "banana dance" was not a trademark of Marlon Brando but of Josephine Baker: she was photographed dancing wearing a short skirt made up of bananas, high heels, and nothing else.
  • "Chris Elliott, Jr." (a spoof of talk-show host Morton Downey, Jr.),

and others.


In 1990, Elliott created and starred in his own sitcom, which was called Get A Life!, about a 30-year-old paperboy named "Chris Peterson," who lived at home with his parents. Elliott's real-life father, Bob Elliott, appeared in the show as Peterson's father. The show also featured Brian Doyle-Murray (brother of Bill Murray). The January 1999 issue of TV Guide called the "Zoo Animals On Wheels" episode the 19th funniest TV moment of all time.

Elliott became a cast member of the popular Saturday Night Live show in 1994. Also that year, Elliott starred in his first movie--entitled Cabin Boy--which also featured a short appearance by Elliott's old boss, David Letterman, and was produced by Tim Burton.

He also provided the voice of Dogbert on the short run show Dilbert for UPN.

In the last two seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond, he played a member of Robert's strange collection of in-laws.

In 2006, Elliott starred in a semi-autobiographical sitcom pilot for CBS, entitled You've Reached the Elliotts, playing a man who tries to balance a modest showbiz career with his homelife.

Since 1998, Elliot has appeared on the television show King of Queens multiple times.

While performing a skit on Late Nite, he drank a bottle of vegetable oil and a bottle of peanut oil. When asked by Letterman which one tasted better, Elliott simply stated "I really can't see any difference between the two."

[edit] Film

Elliott has appeared in the films Cabin Boy, There's Something About Mary, Groundhog Day, The Abyss, Scary Movie 2, Scary Movie 4, Snow Day, Osmosis Jones, and others. He had the starring and title role in Cabin Boy, which, while not successful at the box office, has developed a cult following. He also had a short cameo appearance in the 1986 Hannibal Lecter film Manhunter.

[edit] Literature

Elliott has written two books. Daddy's Boy is a fictionalized biography about growing up with his famous father. The Shroud of the Thwacker is a fictional historical novel about Elliott's investigation of a serial killer in 1882 New York City, spoofing London's infamous Jack the Ripper case.

Thwacker landed Elliott in an awkward situation, when he included the fictional robot Boilerplate in the novel as a character. Elliott had been taken in by the central conceit of the Boilerplate website, i.e. that Boilerplate was an actual Victorian era creation. An embarrassed Elliott was forced to admit that he'd been fooled. He later said that he had assumed the robot was a hoax, but that it was a Victorian-era hoax, not a modern-day hoax. He apologized and reached a financial settlement with Boilerplate's creators.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

[edit] External links

*Get A Life! Chris Elliott fan site
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