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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: September 18, 2012.
Director: David Mirkin
Cast: Chris Elliott, Robin Riker, Bob Elliott, Elinor Donahue, Sam Robards, Brian Doyle-Murray
Year: 1990-1992
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The Series:
Created by Chris Elliott, Adam Resnick and David Mirkin, Fox's Get A Life debuted in September of 1990 and was cancelled not too far after in March of 1992. With just thirty five half hour episodes to its credit, the series never really got the chance to grow the way it should have, given how ridiculously creative and genuinely funny the series really was. Sometimes, however, time can heal all wounds and through the magic of home video, the saintly folk in the acquisitions department at Shout! Factory have seemingly done the impossible and managed to release the entire series in this newly spiffed up complete series boxed set release.
For those who haven't seen the series, the show revolves around a man named Chris Peterson (played by Elliott) who lives what he considers to be the perfect bachelor life… despite the fact that he still lives at home with his parents, Fred (Bob Elliott… Chris' real life father) and Gladys (Elinor Donahue). Chris makes his living as a paperboy and aspires to do nothing else. While many of the other paperboys, all of whom are prepubescent, look up to him to a certain degree, pretty much everyone else thinks that Chris is not only a slacker/loser, but also that he's pretty much insane. This attitude even stems to his parents, who don't have much in the way of expectations for their son. Fred routinely calls Chris on his insane plans and more or less expects the worse of his kid, even if he and Chris' mother obviously do love their screwed up son as made apparent early on in the series when, after some convincing, Fred agrees to finally join Chris at the father/son paperboy games competition.
His only friend is Larry (Sam Robards), a neighborhood boy he grew up with who is now a father of two girls and married to a woman named Sharon (Robin Riker). Understandably, given that Chris has a tendency to let himself into their house anytime he feels like it, Sharon can't stand Chris and is never happy when he and her husband hang out. Larry likes Chris but realizes his friend is a bit of his rocker. This doesn't stop them from occasionally getting into trouble, the perfect example being when Chris convinces Larry to call in sick to work to go to an amusement park with him. When the two get stuck upside down on a loop in the roller coaster, TV crews show up and of course, Larry's boss sees him.
Much of the humor from the series stems not so much from the sit come predicaments that Chris winds up in, but from the fact that he's completely delusional. One of the best episodes of the series happens in the first season when Chris, bald and chubby and out of shape, decides to enlist at the Handsome Boy Modeling School to embark on a new career as a male model. Of course, there's no way he'd ever make it, but this doesn't stop him from kinda-sorta trying (or at least convincing himself that he's trying) to make it to the big break… the runway show at the local department store.
Other highlights include an episode that finds Chris going up against a new breed of paperboy - a giant all terrain tank (it's actually the infamous vehicle from the Jan Michael Vincent film Damnation Alley!). The latest in technology against the dopiest man in the area proves to be a match for the ages, and Chris' boss of course pays very close attention to the results. In another episode, Chris proves to be a sex machine when he gets involved with Sharon's pretty younger sister. Though Sharon does everything in her power to make her see the error of her ways, she just can't get enough of Chris in the sack. Later in the series, Chris actually moves out of his parents' house and gets an apartment in the garage of a tough talking ex-cop named Gus Borden (Brian Doyle-Murray). The two don't get along very well at all, and in one episode where Chris is being held hostage by a female convict he was once penpals with, Gus actually (accidently?) shoots his boarder a few times.
Chris periodically dies at the end of various episodes - but this never factors into what little continuity the show has (and doesn't need to). It simply adds to the off the wall aspect of the series, as do moments such as the one where Chris eats an alien from outer space or where he comes into contact with radioactive material and takes on special powers that let him almost win a spelling bee.
Rarely concerned with appeasing the suits at Fox (part of the reason it was cut short), the series remains fresh, funny and unique, particularly when stacked against the frequently bland sitcoms that were airing on TV against it. The cast play everything completely straight, and the series is all the better for it, and the show still, even by modern standards, has a wonderfully reckless feel to it, the same sort of feel that can now be seen far more frequently in a lot of more modern cable comedy shows.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Get A Life looks okay on DVD from Shout! Factory. Each episode is presented in fullframe, just as it was broadcast. Detail varies a bit but overall the picture quality is fine if a bit soft as you'd probably expect from an early nineties TV series. Colors look decent, black levels are okay if far from reference quality and detail is perfectly acceptable.
The only audio option included here is an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix, there are no alternate language dubs or subtitles of any kind offered. Audio quality is more or less on par with the video quality. It's not bad for a series like this - dialogue is clear, if slightly flat sometimes, and the various bits of music that pop up throughout the show sound good.
Shout! Factory have included a ridiculously great selection of extra features for this release including commentary tracks from various participants on every single one of the thirty five episodes that make up the complete series. The special commentary on the Roots episode with Psychologist Dr. Wendy Walsh in which she analyzes Chris is an interesting one and worth checking out. As David Mirkin is featured on pretty much all of the tracks his input is the most frequent but all involved have got some interesting stories to share here. Fans will appreciate all of the behind the scenes stories and anecdotes that these tracks are able to provide. Aside from Mirkin, here are the other contributors to the commentaries (for the episodes not listed, Mirkin flies solo):
The Big City: David Mirkin, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale
The One Where Chris And Larry Switch Lives: David Mirkin and Kevin Nealon
Meat Locker 2000: David Mirkin, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale
Health Inspector 2000: David Mirkin, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale
Girlfriend 2000: Selected Scenes David Mirkin, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale
Chris' Brain Starts Working: David Mirkin, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale
Spewey and Me: David Mirkin, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale
The set also includes some interesting featurettes starting with Horrible Secrets Of The Writing Room: A Conversation With Executive Producer/Co-creator David Mirkin And Writer/Producers Steve Pepoon And Jace Richdale. This is more or less what it sounds like - a sit down chat in which those involved with the series for almost fifty-five minutes about their work on the series, where certain ideas came from, and what went into just getting the concepts and ideas that would become the series fleshed out enough to work.
The twenty-nine minute long Get A Life 2012 Featurette includes input from the likes of noted comedy writers James L. Brooks, Judd Apatow and Fox executives Kelly Kulchuk and Peter Chernin, all of whom express their admiration for the show and talk about the history of the show and how it came to be. Also worth watching is Paleyfest 2000! Which features David Mirkin, Elinor Donahue, Brian Doyle-Murray, Robin Riker, Charlie Kaufman, Bob Odenkirk, Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale in a half hour long panel discussion about the series, it's history and its influence.
Shout! Factory has also given viewers the option to watch certain episodes without the laugh track if they so choose. Each disc includes menus and episode selection and each episode is split up into easily findable chapters. Some shooting script pages, storyboards and other notes and related ephemera are also includes as is a fun extra entitled This Does Nothing - Do Not Select. On top of that, inside the slipcase packaging is a full color booklet containing an essay on the history and influence of the series as well as an episode synopsis and credits listing for each episode.
The Final Word:
A series that was killed too early in its lifespan, Get A Life proves to be just as funny today as it was in the early nineties. Yes, it's a flat out bizarre show about a man child lunatic who seems to live in a fantasy world but it's funny, creative and proved to have been way ahead of its time. If the complete series release from Shout! Factory won't blow you away with amazing audio and video quality it certainly looks good enough and more than makes up for that with a boatload of awesome extras features. All in all, this is a great set that has been long, long overdue.
