Chris O'Connor Tells The Story Of When Chevy Chase Kicked Him Off A Trampoline

Chevy Chase isn’t about to let some punk teenager touch the sky on his trampoline – he knows first-hand what happens when an interloper enters the garden.

Any kid who grew up watching Chase play characters like Clark Griswold and Ty Webb while developing some aspirations for a comedy career is bound to look at the comedy legend with stars in their eyes. Sure, Chase was known to be a little rough around the edges during his time at Saturday Night Live (and for long after that), but for an enterprising high school freshman with dreams of one day falling down on TV, an opportunity to meet Chase is an opportunity to hit the big time – or so Chris O'Connor thought.

The Austin-based comic's story about visiting the Chase household and attempting to impress the film icon with his airborne athletics during an episode of the Pardon My Take podcast recently went viral, and O'Connor's account is a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks that Pierce Hawthorne would ever share the skies:

In fairness to Chase, telling a teenager not to reach the stratosphere in your backyard is basic responsible dad stuff – especially when you're a big-name star, you can't have irate parents taking you to court over their comedic son's aerial audition. But to immediately hop on the trampoline and show off his own skills is some absolutely classic, grade-A, Chevy Chase assholery, so it's hard to blame O'Connor for harboring some resentment towards his former idol.

Chase's trampoline antics during his daughter's ballroom dance recital probably weren't the inspiration behind the other famous story about Chase and the dangers of the double bounce in the 2010 Community episode “Aerodynamics of Gender,” but it's funny to imagine a timeline where the show's writers came up with the idea after Chase tells his own version of events on set, laughing as he describes himself booting O'Connor off of the springs.

Hopefully, that's the only part of Chase's personal life that “Aerodynamics of Gender” eerily reflected. For as bad as his behind-the-scenes behavior may have been throughout the many decades of his career, it would be a real gut-punch to learn that Clark Griswold secretly has a maze tattoo: