The Bullseye Spotlight 4.29.07: Get A Life

Posted by Scotty Flamingo on 04.29.2007

35 episodes detailing the story of a 30 year old paperboy…

Do you have a certain movie, show, or celebrity that you love, but you don't see much praise about? We're not talking The Shawshank Redemption here, everyone loves that. This column is about those things that seem to be unfairly criticized or forgotten completely. This is The Spotlight.


Hello. It is I, Scotty Flamingo, bringing you another edition of my random brain dumpings. This is the last week of my April Fool opposite columns and I must say I am sad. I rather enjoyed talking about something I like for a change. To pull back the curtain for a second, my father has been in bad health the last three months and I really haven't even felt like writing this column at all. I came up with the April Fool's gimmick because frankly, I was tired of dwelling on bitching about things. Even though I consider my rants to be good natured even when I'm trashing Kevin Smith or Buffy, I still just haven't felt like devoting a column each week to complaining about something trivial.

So anyway, I've decided that The Bullseye is now going to merge with The Spotlight. I'm going to try and provide a balance of angry ranting along with revealing some of the obscure things that appeal to me. As always, feedback is always appreciated. If there is a huge demand for The Bullseye to come back full time, then I'll do it.

Enough of the serious stuff, let's get back to the column. First up, this week's cool thing.

The Snapshot

This week's Snapshot goes to Rosie O'Donnell leaving The View. I think everyone pretty much agrees that it is about time. You know when someone is hated when they can't even get support for their politcal rantings from their own side. From her childish feud with Donald Trump, to her bullying of Elizabeth Hasselback, she went from being the "Queen of Nice" to the most hated celeb in America. Now that she's gone, my weekday mornings have meaning again.

Get A Life

Get A Life was a sitcom starring Chris Elliott from Late Night With David Letterman fame as a 30 year old paperboy in a small town that still lived with his parents. I remember hating the show when I first saw it, only to finally getting the joke when I gave it another chance in the second season.

In college I used the newfangled technology of Usenet to obtain the entire series on VHS. I've since watched every episode numerous times and it remains one of my top five shows of all time.

Get a Life is a show that I am just surprised ever even made it on the air. It is totally bizarre. Chris Elliott's sense of humor has always been a little different, even going back to his Letterman's days, but Get A Life took things even further. How many sitcoms had the protagonist being a complete baffoon, borderline psychotic? We see this now to an extent with Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, but remember this was 1990. The same time that the Simpsons started and a decade before Family Guy.

Some of Chris's exploits include (with YouTube goodness):

-Becoming a food inspector only to succomb to corruption with five dollar bribes.



-Finding an alien he names SPEWEY, an acronym that stands for Special Person Entering the World…Egg Yolks.



-Becoming super intelligent when he is exposed to toxic waste and using the new found gift to win elementary school spelling bees. He eventually loses in the world spelling bee when the toxic waste runs out, misspelling the word "pants" by thinking there is a silent K.

-Becoming a male escort only to find himself the boy toy of a 65 year old "perfume soaked hag".

-Getting stuck in the loop of a roller coaster.

-Staring as the Wildebeast in a local production of the hit musical "Zoo Animals On Wheels"



-Finally getting his Driver's License.



Needless to say, the show was not a ratings sensation. In fact, it spent the majority of its run DEAD LAST in the Neilson network prime time ratings. For those of you that complained about the cancellation of Arrested Development, this was a show that was even further away from the cultural center of middle America. In about half the episodes, Chris gets killed at the end, five years before "He Killed Kenny" became a catchphrase on South Park.

Rhino released two "best of" DVD's of the series, each featuring four episodes. Rumor has it that the full series will be coming to DVD this year.