Get A Life - The Complete Series

An unabashedly subversive take on a familiar TV format, Get A Life is very much the anti-sitcom it purported to be. From some of the clearly warped minds that would later bring us Cabin Boy, Mr. Show, Being John Malkovich and the best years of The Simpsons, the show achieved justifiable cult status due to its incongruity with everything else on television. It's nothing less than a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. This is evident in main character Chris Peterson (Chris Elliott), a 30-year-old head paperboy living above his parents' garage in the first season and inside the garage of a creepy man (Brian Doyle-Murray) in the second. He lacks even the most basic powers of comprehension, makes irredeemably terrible decisions on a whim and often ends up dead at the end of episodes, only to return in the next with nary an explanation. As the series progresses, things only become increasingly surreal. Early episodes, in which Chris journeys to the Big City or deals with gangs, feature characters seemingly from an entirely different decade. Later, he travels through time and, in an episode that hilariously turns E.T. on its head, befriends a smelly, puking alien named Spewey. Elliott, working alongside his legendary real-life dad Bob, as his father, is a committed performer with a gleefully goofy presence that often earns laughs with just a look or slightly exaggerated movement. The staff on the show featured a roster of talent that would nearly all go on to bigger and better things. Including show-runner David Mirki (a TV vet who would assume the same role on The Simpsons), the roster featured budding writers Bob Odenkirk, Charlie Kaufman and director Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest). All clearly revelled in the freedom provided by the show's malleable reality. Fans should be especially pleased by the breadth of content in this long-awaited release, including commentary tracks led by Mirkin, retrospective featurettes that include interviews with fans Judd Apatow and James L. Brooks, and an appearance by cast and crew at Paleyfest in 2000. They cover in intriguing detail the frequent battles that would ensue with a burgeoning Fox network that was looking to make a splash yet had trepidations about such a deranged main character. The only conspicuous absences on this collection are those of co-creator Adam Resnick and Elliott himself, as it's hard to believe they wouldn't want to discuss a show this hysterical.