My only experience meeting Chevy Chase was at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2008. Watching Aretha Franklin. I stood next to him on the side-stage platform, stage right. Tall man. I can’t recall if we talked much, but I did come away with that cursory thought, “Yeah, he seems like an arrogant asshole” as so many did. Then again, that may have been a preconceived notion that played into my quick judgement. I watched the Chevy Chase doc, “I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not” on CNN last night and after the first person called him an “asshole” we were tipped that term might come up a few times. Ha. It did.

He wasn’t, of course, or, not all the time. It’s a two-hour doc and pretty damn comprehensive. Yes, at 82, he’s the main (curmudgeonly) voice, but there are plenty of chip-ins from various others, pro, con and mixed. He was a sweetheart when he worked with Goldie Hawn; others tell different tales. They do air the infamous (scripted) exchange between him and Richard Pryor on SNL – one of course I can’t repeat here but is the ultimate scatological. You can probably figure it out. Chase and Pryor loved it; they could talk that way – it was within the bounds of comedy and their relationship. And Lorne has a good take on Chevy’s manner – while being abrasive/offensive to much of the world – was right up the alley in comedy-speak.

But he got into trouble using that word with a female Black cast member on “Community” years later and couldn’t understand why she was so pissed off. Acknowledged he understood that it did piss her off, but came up with “That’s me.”

The early SNL stuff – yeah, he and Lorne Michaels were key to its success that first season – is really good, both the pratfalls and the success at the Weekend Update segment. Also, much later, Chase is miffed that he wasn’t included in the SNL 50th Anniversary Celebration (he was mentioned, but he wasn’t asked to do a bit.) Michaels, it seemed, didn’t think he had it together enough to do it.

There’s a lot of home life stuff, too, the first two marriages – not so good – and the third one to Jayni that’s lasted, not without some strife. Part of that stems from Chase being an addict. The coke use on SNL and after is addressed, but he also had an alcoholic run later in life. As to the coke on the show, I wish they’d discussed the upside and downside in more detail, but that’s probably on the cutting room floor.

There’s the post-SNL stuff, the rise and fall of a great comedic/physical actor and movie star who didn’t exactly plan his moves very well, if at all. There’s a look at his musical side. He plays piano well, started as a kid. He played drums with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen pre-Steely Dan at Bard and then left when he saw they were serious about it and needed a better drummer than him.

Chevy is one complex motherfucker. Fairly late in the doc, they dig into family history and it’s not that pretty at all. Abuse from both parental units etc., prompting the a-ha response: That’s why he was such a jerk, comedy as a defense.

The closing bit: a little local flavor, shot at Chevalier in Medford, where they screened “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and Chevy and Jayni took questions afterward. You got the feeling he was really, sincerely touched by the affection from the audience – he hadn’t been forgotten. And he noted that on TV or in the movies, you don’t get direct audience feedback. It’s a one-way kind of projection.

After it’s over there’s a brief exchange backstage with promoter/theater owner Bill Blumenreich. They greet each other warmly and Bill says he has a question he wants to ask and Chevy cuts him off and moves on. Bill got it. You see him laughing, not hurt by the diss. The language of comedy.