Thank You Doc, Have You Ever Served Time?

Anyone under twenty-five may not know this, and those older may have forgotten, but Chevy Chase was once the funniest man on the planet. Look at his lineup of films from 1985: National Lampoon's European Vacation, Spies Like Us, and this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, Fletch. That is a murder’s row of comedy if there ever was one.

The best of the three was Fletch where Chevy played Irwin M. Fletcher, a newspaper reporter who is either the dumbest smart guy ever or the smartest dumb guy ever. And it is Chase’s brilliance that he was able to walk that line like no one else could (and I am specifically talking to you Zach Braff and Joshua Jackson). While working undercover on a story about drugs being sold on the beach, which included one Norm Peterson, gets propositioned by Tim Matheson (Animal House), who is dieing of cancer, to kill him.

Naturally there is more to the story that includes some corrupt cops which includes one Uncle Phil. Also along for the ride is Geena Davis as Chevy’s buddy at the paper and the token hot chick just happen to play the mother to another token hot chick in her own right, one Miss Tyra Collette.

The legacy of the film is the absurdity of the dialogue as Fletch didn’t meet a wisecrack or horrible alias that he didn’t like. And whenever he got caught in a lie he would keep digging and digging until the other person would just give up trying to catch him in that lie.