The ‘Saturday Night Live’ veteran who compared Chevy Chase to an unflushable turd: “Comes back up again and again”
In all honesty, based entirely on what he’s been called by many of the people he’s worked with over the years, a Saturday Night Live veteran comparing Chevy Chase to a turd that just won’t disappear down the toilet pipes, no matter how many times you flush it, is positively quaint.
As popular as he was in his heyday, which was a long time ago, the modern picture that’s been painted of the actor and comedian is that of an absolute dickhead. If one person says you’re an arsehole, then maybe you’re not an arsehole, but if countless people over a number of years say you’re an arsehole, then you’re definitely an arsehole.
It’s literally a multi-generational thing; Bill Murray fucking hated Chase’s guts when they worked together on SNL, Will Ferrell was one of the show’s breakout stars in the late 1990s and called him the worst guest host he’d ever encountered, and Pete Davidson had no bones about branding him an irredeemable douchebag.
Not that it’s strictly limited to the long-running sketch series, either, since almost everyone involved in Community on both sides of the camera thinks he’s a prick, he was such a terror that John Carpenter considered quitting the business after working with him on Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and he almost derailed Chris Columbus’ filmmaking career before it had gotten started.
Clearly, Chase is not a popular man, and to nobody’s surprise, he also revealed himself to be a bigot. Terry Sweeney was SNL‘s first openly gay cast member and writer, spending six years on the show in various capacities, only to be subjected to a homophobic tirade when Chase returned as a guest host.
Having previously called him a “monster” and an “awful” person who “acted horribly to everyone,” Sweeney wasn’t remotely surprised to discover that in his documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star didn’t only claim that he’d never doled out those insults in his direction, but suggested that he was dead. He’s not, and the SNL alum responded in kind.
“Chevy is one of those turds you flush down the toilet, but it comes back up again and again,” he informed the New York Post, perfectly illustrating his ongoing apathy toward the colleague he’s loathed since the 1980s. He’s definitely been called worse, and you can understand why Sweeney refused multiple invitations to appear as a talking head in his nemeses’ doc.
The bone of contention between them arose from Chase’s insistence that, as an openly gay man, it would be hilarious if Sweeney appeared in a recurring sketch about a character he played having AIDS. Funnily enough, he didn’t find that humorous in the slightest, and despite how offensive it was to even suggest, Lorne Michaels still tried to defend him.
“I think Chevy was just being Chevy,” the SNL head honcho explained. “He would say things that were funny, and he would assume you were comedy people, and he could speak that way. You know, we would say terrible things, because that’s what would make us laugh.” That’s a paper-thin excuse for trying to justify his actions, but maybe one day Sweeney will get his wish and see Chase flushed away from the public consciousness for good.
