Daddy’s Boy – Chris Elliott with Bob Elliott, 1989 ★★½

Man-Child Looks Back in Anger

What’s it like being the product of an overbearing celebrity parent? You know the type, pushing you into the public eye and molding you into their own image, to the point of dressing you in an ascot and shaving your head to match their own receding hairline.

This was the fate of one Chris Elliott, son of fabled entertainer Bob Elliott, as he relates in this no-holds-barred pity party of a memoir, subtitled “A Son’s Shocking Account Of Life With A Famous Father.”

Before the short memoir is completed, Chris has survived morbid obesity, a capsized ocean liner, a humiliating thumb-wresting match, and his father skipping his high school graduation to get his neck hair trimmed at the barber shop next door.

Such was the cost of living in the wake of Bob Elliott, entertainment juggernaut, even if you never heard of him:

He composed, he performed, he lifted weights, and he painted all the murals in the lobby of the RCA Building. He was King of Comedy, King of Drama, and Teen-Beat’s Hunk of the Month at age fifty-five.

Another thing about Bob: He was still alive when Daddy’s Boy was published, and thus allowed his own chapters to set the record straight.

Chris (left) and Bob Elliott as they appear on the book jacket for Daddy's Boy. About his father's awesome celebrity, Chris writes: "Between 1961 and 1964, he starred in twelve films, wrote three novels, and appeared as the Tree in a children’s production of The Phantom Tollbooth."

Chris explains he must do this to satisfy his lawyers:

All I can say, Dear Reader, is to please remember the source when skimming through his rebuttals. My Dad is like a demon, and he will mix lies with the truth in order to confuse you…I also think he’s been eating a lot of canned food lately, and he may have gone nuts from lead poisoning.

Daddy’s Boy forms a part of a comedy literature subgenre I call “gag books,” where much of the amusement lies in the book existing in the first place. For example, in 1993 Leslie Nielsen put out one called The Naked Truth, a scandalous tell-all memoir about being the coolest Canadian since Lorne Greene; there have been many others.

While not as funny a book, Daddy’s Boy is a clever stab at a sort of potboiler that doubles as celebrity takedown, with a nod in the direction of Christina Crawford’s Mommie Dearest and its campy movie adaptation. Wire coat hangers get plugs in both books, anyway.

For people like me, Chris Elliott was indeed famous, if not so gigantically as here. At the time of Daddy’s Boy, he was wrapping up eight years as a writer and performer on “Late Night With David Letterman,” where he played a number of well-known characters, including impersonations of celebrities Marv Albert and Marlon Brando.

Chris Elliott (in blue pinstripes and wig) debuts his musical tribute to gangster Al Capone in a 1989 episode of "Late Night With David Letterman."
Image from https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/12/5/18124195/cabin-boy-chris-elliott-anniversary-adam-resnick-comedy-get-a-life.

The real Albert provides a plug for Daddy’s Boy on the back cover [“Every page filled with sizzling revelations, every chapter aflame with spicy disclosures. Yessss!”] while Brando makes an appearance as guest speaker at Chris’s high school graduation, very much the way Chris did when playing him on “Late Night:”

All I remember was Marlon wearing a dress, droning on and on for two and a half hours on how just because we’ve graduated high school, we shouldn’t think that we don’t have to wash anymore.

Chris’s humor is very whimsical and absurdist like that, very much of a piece with the guy I got to know on “Late Night.” Chris once explained to Bob Costas that his persona on “Late Night” was that of someone who thought he was a star, despite all evidence to the contrary.

That’s the character you encounter here, obnoxious when challenged, as when he crashes an AA meeting early in the book to compare their situations with his own struggle with a privileged upbringing:

“I mean, I really feel for you folks, but I gotta tell ya, I just don’t relate. All I can say is, just don’t drink so much! If you’re at a bar or a party, just control yourselves, that’s all! Now, I’m sorry, but I think I have a real problem.”

Chris Elliott in one of his many movie roles, as Ben Stiller's buddy with a secret in There's Something About Mary.
Image from https://www.listchallenges.com/selected-chris-elliott-films.

There are a lot of chuckles in Daddy’s Boy, but as a gag book, it’s more serviceable than memorable. Bob Elliott, in real life a quieter sort of legend as half of the great comedy team Bob & Ray, writes his own chapters and they don’t play as well.

Love them as I do, I can’t say Chris and Bob’s comedic styles mesh here. Chris in his “Late Night” heyday was antic and playful, tuned into the 1980s zeitgeist to the point of donning an absurd mullet he pretended was his own hair. Bob Elliott was so poker-faced and buttoned down he made Bob Newhart seem like Bobcat Goldthwait.

Bob spends his chapters offering stray observations about his summer home in Maine and the fact “hijinks” is the only word in the English language with three consecutive dotted letters. He’s not into the whole Daddy Dearest schtick, which makes his sections drag.

Chris’s material plays better, if sporadically, going on a number of disconnected, amusing tangents. Since his run on “Late Night,” Chris continued his comedy career in movies, a short-lived 1990 sitcom called “Get A Life,” and with other books that similarly warp reality for comic effect.

Bob and Chris share a scene on Chris's short-lived FOX sitcom "Get A Life," joined in a special appearance by "Lost In Space" and "Lassie" mom June Lockhart.
Image from https://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/319849 

My biggest laugh in Daddy’s Boy was of recognition when he wrote of the “nauseous feeling” he got on Sunday nights when “60 Minutes” came on, associating the ticking clock with bedtime and school.

The rest of it is playful and amusing enough, pleasant as one of Chris’s vintage “Late Night” bits if longer to take in. More a skim than a read, Daddy’s Boy is supplemented with some amusing photos and worth a look, especially for those of us who wish “Get A Life” ran another seven seasons.