Chrissy Plain & Simple

The other night I went (blessed with the company of the amazing Ngoc em and her cousin, Bao — and my co-worker Hiland) to see the filming of the pilot for a Chris Elliott vehicle called Chrissy Plain & Simple. I like the name and concept. Just pure, unadulterated Chris Elliot, without any bells and whistles and jangles and bangles and be-bops and re-rops and flee-flops… or something to that effect. If you’re a fan, you know how he just stupidly starts rambling to that effect.

On the downside– it’s sketch comedy with pre-filmed satirical segments that we had to watch a couple of times and force some laughter for the second time around. At one point I looked up at a monitor and the entire frame was filled with my chin and some teeth laughing at nothing but the instructions of the episode’s director, Bobcat Goldthwait.

The show takes place on a stage cluttered with Chris Elliot cut-outs of Chris in different poses, always wearing socks regardless of the character being portrayed and, I have to say, his stupid expressions forced me to smile over and over before filming whilst Jimmy Kimmel cracked jokes– and talked about the fact that he, I and some other guys were all coincidentally wearing maroon shirts.

The show started with an introduction and the first skit was a parody of My Super Sweet 16, which gave Chris a chance to do his annoying, entitled brat shtick, which is one of my favorites but, of the MTVs, I only have MTV Trés, which seems to be mostly videos and not reality programming so some of it might’ve gone over my head.

The second skit was a parody of Deadliest Catch. Do I need cable? I don’t think so. This time Chris and crew fished for eels in a la s behest, to love himself resulting in him having an affair with himself and subsequently shooting himself in jealousy that I found extremely funny.

So, there’s pretty much no chance that the show’s getting picked up, which is a shame, but I really would rather see Chris in a sitcom than sketch comedy anyway and I’m glad I saw a vastly under-appreciated comedic genius perform live.

Although one of my favorite characters of his is the Canadian hitchhiker on Letterman who foretold bad things happening before passing on; I’ve never been able to find any of those clips so I leave you with other highlights.

*****

Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, writer, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities — or salaried work. He is not interested in writing advertorials, clickbait, listicles, or other 21st century variations of spam. Brightwell’s written work has appeared in Amoeblog, diaCRITICS, and KCET Departures. His work has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Form Follows Function, Los Angeles County Store, Skid Row Housing Trust, and 1650 Gallery. Brightwell has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, and on Notebook on Cities and Culture. He has been a guest speaker on KCRW‘s Which Way, LA? and at Emerson College. Art prints of his maps are available from 1650 Gallery and on other products from Cal31. He is currently writing a book about Los Angeles and you can follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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