As Chase's best performance was seen on the small screen, as was his worst. Somehow in 1993 when his star was already starting to fade, years after Saturday Night Live and the Vacation films Chase managed to trick Fox into giving him his own late-night talk show, going up against the recently-launched Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Actually, the network originally wanted Dolly Parton to front the show. Chevy Chase was their second choice. What do the pair have in common? Literally nothing. Parton might at least have had some screen presence and charisma, however, two things Chase was missing and might've lead to the show's cancellation after just five weeks on air. What went wrong? Again, there was a good writing staff, an enviable time slot, and plenty of money thrown at it. In this case, it was absolutely all Chase's fault. He faltered in front of the live audience, appearing nervous and shy. The live audience hated it as much as those at home. The ones that bothered to watch it anyway. Chase produced the show through his own studio, he hosted it, wrote a lot of the material (recycling a lot of his own old stuff), and generally was responsible for it being one of the worst TV shows of all time.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
