BOOK REVIEW: The Chris Farley Show

There is an ad currently on the air for Hertz rental cars, featuring a very familiar face, Kevin Farley, brother of the late Chris Farley. Every time I see it, I smile, and think of Chris.

In the mid 90's, when he was starring in BLACK SHEEP (the only film Gene Siskel ever walked out on) or BEVERLY HILLS NINJA, when the tabloids were filled with rumors of his personal life and drug use, I never thought I would miss those films, but I do.

The new biography THE CHRIS FARLEY SHOW (Viking Press) will make you miss him even more. Written by his older brother Tom Farley Jr as well NATIONAL LAMPOON RADIO HOUR writer Tanner Colby, THE CHRIS FARLEY SHOW is an oral biography, along the lines of the recent Tom Shales SNL book LIVE FROM NEW YORK, where it is made up of excerpts from interview with his friends and co-workers (including interviews with many from SNL). This format works extremely well for the biography, where everyone has their own memories of the subject.

Raised in an upper middle class Wisconsin family, Chris always liked to be the star of the show. Even as a child, he was constantly playing pranks at school. In one instance, his mooning of a class, the school administration thought it was so funny, that were laughing too hard to punish him.

That seemed to set the trend for the rest of his life, and his downfall. People liked him so much that they found it hard to give him the discipline he needed, whether in behavior or his addiction. No matter what he did, he was such a great guy to be around, they couldn't stay mad at him.

Chris went on to Chicago, with improv groups and eventually to Second City. In those groups, he met Tim Meadows (who would later join Chris at SNL) and he created one of his most memorable characters, Matt Foley, the motivational speaker who lived “in a van down by the river”. Foley was named for one of Chris’ close friends growing up, who later became a priest.

Chris was such a hit at Second City that he was snapped up by SNL, and the rest is comedy history. He provided some of the most memorable moments on the show in the 90’s. With Foley, The Chippendales sketch with Patrick Swayze (which Chris Rock said he always hated), and “The Chris Farley Show” (To Paul McCartney “Remember that time you were in the Beatles and there was a rumor going around that you were dead? That was a hoax, right?”)

My favorite performance of his was probably in “The Mr. Belvedere Fan Club” sketch. In it, Tom Hanks hosted a meeting of obsessive fans of the guy who plays Mr. Belvedere or Broctune as they call him.

Chris stands up at the meeting and says “Mr. Belvedere is the light of my life. He is so amazing. I wish I could know him more. I think about him all the time. So, I’m wondering ... Should we kill him?”

The way he goes from his likable self, and makes that switch to psycho was so funny, so unexpected, that it shows you that he was more than just “that funny fat guy”.

Chris' reaction to the Belvedere sketch also shows what kind of guy he was. In the book, the writer of that sketch, Fred Wolf (whose first sketch it was) says that, when it was over, Chris came up to him and said “That was funny. Thanks for the good stuff”. As Wolf says “I couldn’t believe that about him. To me, it was the other way around. I should have been thanking him.” Chris always seemed to care more about everyone around him, whether a fellow writer, or a childhood friend, than he cared about himself.

Chris’ humanity comes through in this book. More than anything, he was a devout Catholic. He always made sure to make it to mass every week, and spent a lot of time volunteering with various church functions.

After his death, his friends weren’t even aware that, for years, Chris took an elderly, formerly homeless man named Willie out to dinner once a week. He would take him to Broadway shows and other events. No one knew about this side of him.

The book is divided into three sections, his early life up through his first stint in rehab (early in his run on SNL), his sober days on SNL including when he made TOMMY BOY, and his final days, after his leaving SNL when he continually relapsed until his eventual death.

This is not as sordid a book as Bob Woodward’s Belushi bio WIRED (said to be the only book Farley read in college, and one of his favorites). The focus is on his humanity. It doesn’t sugarcoat his addiction, it is all written about. And, all the family’s emotion comes through. The final section on his funeral is heartbreaking.

Ultimately, what happened to Chris can best be summed up by what his brother Kevin says at one point.

“As a kid, when we watched THE EXORCIST, he was terrified of the idea that something evil could take over your body, possess you, and make you do things you can’t control. Here he had this thing that was eating away at him from the inside, and he was powerless to stop it. An that scared the living sh** out of him”.

His addiction was just too much for him. As much as he tried, he couldn’t fight it. He eventually succumbed to it.

At the end, he left what could have been some wonderful projects. He was the original voice of SHREK and was to star in a film version of the life of Fatty Arbuckle by David Mamet. One can only imagine what that would have been like, if it would have changed his career.

THE CHRIS FARLEY SHOW is yet another worthy entry into the growing genre of backstage SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE books. Only this is more than about the show. It is a portrait of a very funny man who left us way too soon.