Review: Cyanide and Happiness “Chip Chapley Unscripted”

 

OVERVIEW

Former anchorman Chip Chapley enters unknown territory as a late-night talk show host.

OUR TAKE

I guess, aside from last week, each episode this season is going to be focused solely on one of the show’s many recurring characters, instead of having little plots and skits stretched out over the whole season. That’s not necessarily a bad move since that means any given episode can be focused on what it’s about and give that a full ten minutes. So if you like a specific character, like this week’s focus on Chip Chapley, then you’re probably in for a good ten minutes! If not, then you’re kinda out of luck for that week. Unfortunately, I must say I put myself in the latter because I feel like Chip’s transparent riff on Ron Burgundy from “Anchorman” is kinda all over the place.

I mean, I could be wrong about it being a takeoff of Anchorman, since the only thing that it really has in common is that both characters are parodies of typical anchormen. Though a big difference is that Ron Burgundy has a very well defined character that helps to drive a plot whereas Chip Chapley doesn’t. He’s pompous and rude to his staff, but he doesn’t have much that can help develop him through this story other than being shocked at how low quality his first few guests are. It’s a lot of kinda funny gags about how weird they can get, but the episode doesn’t seem to have much in way of structure for its story or its comedy.

I’m fairly certain previous seasons of this show weren’t like this, although maybe me viewing this from a critical lens is also a culprit in this. Plus, as I’ve stated, comedy is pretty subjective, probably more so than any other element here. Another thing is probably that a character like Chip Chapley doesn’t really have much to say as a joke other than “man, Anchorman was a really funny movie”. But then you have Star Spangled Bastard, who is bursting at the seams with political comedy, even in that his seams look like they’re really about to burst with how fat he is. I feel like you could have said something important with Chip while also keeping the laughs, like maybe leaning towards the nature of cable news today and how we live in a “post-truth” world now, and I suppose there’s no reason we can’t do that later, but they should have today.