Will New Chevy Chase Documentary Ignore His Many Controversies?

Chevy Chase, the Cuddly Grandpa version, introduced the world to the trailer for a new CNN documentary about his life yesterday. In less than a minute and a half, the teaser for I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not tells you nothing and everything you need to know.

I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not promises to reveal the comedian’s rascally side. “Oh, Chevy,” laughs SNL writer Alan Zweibel, shaking his head as if Chase tripped down the stairs once again. “He’s the asshole who you love,” smirks Rachel Brosnahan, as Chevy hilariously slaps himself on the forehead. “Can I say asshole?”

That naughty word is a way for the documentary makers to say, “Oh, we’re going to go there!” while showing you that they have no intention of going there. Based on the trailer, this is hagiography of the highest order, showing us nostalgic home video footage of Chase’s kids while Foul Play costar Goldie Hawn talks about a man who “has a deep heart.”  

“Chevy Chase is exciting and talented,” gushes Dan Aykroyd. 

“I immediately fell in love with that bumbling idiot doing Weekend Update,” says Kevin Nealon. 

Hawn, Aykroyd and Nealon are big names, but a few voices are missing from the trailer. 

Where’s Community co-star Donald Glover, who Chevy told, “people think you’re funnier because you’re black?”

Where’s Joel McHale, who heard Chase “joke” to a female cast member, “I want to kill you and then rape you?”

How about gay SNL cast member Terry Sweeney? Chase suggested SNL do a recurring sketch about Sweeney having AIDS, “and we weigh you every week.” 

Do we hear from Nothing But Trouble costar Demi Moore, who called Chase “a goddamn turd shithead?” 

Any chance the filmmakers talked to Chris Columbus, Will Ferrell, Alison Brie, Dan Harmon, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, Kevin Smith, Cheri Oteri, Robert Downey Jr., or Yvette Nicole Brown? Is there another “beloved” celebrity who has so many people in his circle willing to talk trash in public? 

I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not does promise to explore the comedian’s fall from grace, but from the looks of it, we’ll only learn about his addiction to painkillers and his brave return to prominence. He’s been more open about his troubled childhood lately, and maybe he believes that makes him a sympathetic character. 

“I don't think a lot of people have the happiness I have,” Chase says, sappy music playing as we watch snapshots of his family growing up. “I am who I am and I like who I am.”

I’m happy Chevy’s happy — I guess — but it’s too bad the documentary makers couldn’t have captured the defiant jerk profiled by the Washington Post in 2018. Just a few short years ago, he was still ranting about how much Saturday Night Live sucked (“A whole generation of shitheads laughs at the worst fucking humor in the world”) and trashing the writer of his authorized biography (“She had the sense of humor of an egg timer”).

The documentary wants us to believe Chase has morphed into kindly Clark Griswold, but it would be more entertaining to watch him keep raging. I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not looks precisely like the kind of sanitized history he’d have ripped to shreds on Saturday Night Live.