Bullz-Eye: Well, I was able to watch the first two episodes…

Lorenzo Lamas: Oh, yeah…? How did you like it? What did you think about it?

BE: It was great. I liked the first season, but I never actually saw the second season. But this looks like it’s right on par with what the show’s been like before.

LL: From what I gather, the guy they cast for this “Schmo” is a lot different than the first guy. And what I’m gathering is that…the first guy was just a really great, friendly, open, more innocent kind of guy. Like, a real Joe Schmo, y’know? [Laughs.] Whereas I found Chase to be a very analytical, intelligent, not quite as naïve guy.

BE: Yeah, he seemed like a sweetheart, but he also seemed like a guy who really wanted to win, too.

LL: Yeah, really competitive. Absolutely.

BE: So how did you find your way into this? Did they approach you, or was there a casting call and you heard about it?

LL: You know, John Stevens and I had done something last year together – a pilot for an action show, a hybrid that was part reality, part scripted – so we met on that project, and then when Sharon Levy talked to John about doing this version of “Joe Schmo,” John says, “Well, what do you think of Lorenzo Lamas?” So he kind of brought it up to Sharon, and then Sharon asked, “Does Lorenzo do comedy?” Because the whole idea is this 10-day-long improv where everyone’s in character and they have to really stay in character. So John called me and said, “I’ve got something that’s kind of out of left field, but…would you be interested in doing this show?” And then he kind of formulated a pitch to me. And I had just finished doing “The Eric Andre Show,” and I loved it. That was improv, too. I did one episode, then they brought me back and did another episode. I’d just finished doing it, so I said, “You know, John, I think this might be meant to be…” Because prior to that, I’d also done a couple of episodes of the Nickelodeon show “Big Time Rush.” I played Doc Hollywood, who’s a bigger-than-life character, almost slapstick comedy. And I’ve been enjoying that. I’ve been enjoying the change, wrapping my mind around just…not doing action, y’know?

BE: Did they give you advance warning as to how much, uh, disrobing would be required of you on “The Joe Schmo Show”?

LL: You mean how revealing the part would be? [Laughs.] Yeah, that was John Moore. When I told John Stevens that I’d love to be a part of the show, then I went in to talk to J-Mo – John Holland Moore – about the nuts and bolts of how we were going to do this, and one of the first questions that John asked me was, “How comfortable are you wearing a Speedo on television?” I was, like, “Well, I’ve gotta know you better, J-Mo…” So I figured it’s either gonna be a show that’ll resonate with the public, or it’s gonna be a show that’ll basically shun me from the public.

BE: Either way, you can probably count on headlines along the lines of, “Another side of Lorenzo Lamas.”

LL: You know, you kind of have to just go for it. Listen, they say that being an actor, a real actor, is being fearless. And you kind of have to go to the wall with your character, beyond what you may feel are your own personal limitations. I don’t thrive on public exposure. It’s not in my nature to do that. But for this character…it was perfect for this hyper-diva character I was playing.

BE: Okay, I’ve got some flashbacks for you, if you’re up for it.

LL: Sure!

BE: First of all, I’m curious if IMDb is accurate on your supposed first onscreen appearance: did you indeed play an Indian boy in the movie “100 Rifles”?

LL: [Laughs.] I was an extra on one day of shooting in that movie, yes. My dad put me in that. I showed up on location one day to hang out with him in his trailer, and I was driving him crazy. I mean, I was 10 years old, just following him around the set. All of a sudden, he says [In a perfect Fernandos Lamas impression.] “Lorenzo, we have to find something for you to do.” And he took my hand, and he dragged me to the wardrobe trailer, and he asked the wardrobe assistant, he says, “Can you give my kid a wig and some clothes? He’s going to be an Indian boy for the rest of the day.” [Laughs.] So that was my debut, if you will.

BE: Did you always know that you wanted to follow in his footsteps, or did it just kind of happen?

LL: No, I actually didn’t. I didn’t even entertain the thought of being in acting until after high school, after I’d gone to a year of college and things just weren’t clicking academically for me. It was a scary moment. I’m sitting in my van in a parking lot at Santa Monica City College, thinking, “This police-science course is really difficult. What the hell am I gonna do with myself?” And it just struck me at that point, thinking that maybe there was a way for me to learn how to act and to follow in my dad’s footsteps. Also, y’know, in high school, I…I wasn’t thin. I wasn’t athletic-looking. I was overweight. I had a pretty heavy insecurity complex. So I never thought of myself as being able to live up to my father and fill his shoes. There was no fricking way I would ever assume that I could do that. So I kind of put that aside. But by the time I got to college, I’d shot up a little bit, put on some muscle, and I had a little bit more confidence in myself. I was swimming for the college team, and I said, “Well, if you’re gonna try something, idiot, you might as well try it now before it’s too fricking late, and you’re gonna be pumping gas and parking cars for the rest of your life.”

So I did. I drove to my dad’s house, and I said, “I think I wanna leave college and be an actor.” And there was a long pause…and he said, “No fucking way, asshole.” [Laughs.] He said, “You’re going to be an attorney or a business major or…” I said, “I’m not feeling that, Dad.” And he looked at me again, and he said, “Okay, then. Well, before you make a fool out of me, you’re going to do a scene with Esther (Williams),” my stepmother. And I did an improv scene with her that day, and he picked up the phone and called Tony Barr, who was an executive at CBS at that time, and…Tony was running a school in Burbank called the Film Actors Workshop. And I started going there at night, working during the day as a trainer at Jack LaLanne’s, which was a health spa back in the day. And I did their course, and after their course, my teacher, Laura Rose, said, “Go out there and start auditioning.” And that was 1976. And the first real television that I got was for a sitcom pilot, ironically, for James Komack, who wrote “Chico and the Man” and “Welcome Back, Kotter.” I auditioned for this part, and I got it, and it was “Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?” I was a character that they added in. My name was Lucky, and I was a box boy at a grocery store. And that was it. So here we are now, 30 years later, and I’m back doing comedy. [Laughs.] It’s just weird, y’know?

BE: One of your first major TV gigs, “California Fever,” actually puts you within two degrees of “Downton Abbey”: Elizabeth McGovern was a guest star in one of the episodes.

LL: Absolutely! I think her character actually had a storyline with Jimmy McNichol rather than mine. But then after that show, which was in 1979, I didn’t really see much of her. She started to do a couple of movies, and then I didn’t see much of her. But she was always a really good actress, I certainly remember that.

BE: You were in “Grease,” which is not a bad film to have on your resume.

LL: Are you kidding? It’s like having “The Sound of Music” on there. [Laughs.] It’s an incredible thing for something like that to happen. Now, I was a very small part of that movie. I basically was a glorified extra, if you will. I mean, I didn’t even have a line in that picture! But to think of how exciting it must’ve been for Jeff Conaway or Dinah Manoff or Didi Conn, these – at the time – kids, some of whom who’d performed on stage in “Grease,” playing other characters in some cases, and then for it to become a Paramount picture in national release with John Travolta…wow, it must’ve just been so exciting for them. I mean, it was exciting to me, but I’d only been acting for eight or nine months.

I just happened to get in on the end of casting for the T-Birds. They had cast all the parts, and I walked into Allan Carr’s office, with Allan and Randal Kleiser, and they just started asking me what I was into. I told them, “Well, I’m a physical trainer, and I pump gas.” [Laughs.] “But I really want to be an actor!” And they said, “Oh, okay, well, we don’t have anything for you at this time, but we’re really happy to have met you, and we wish you all the best, and we know that, with your parents, you’re bound to do good things.” I mean, it was just a very polite…

BE: Kiss-off?

LL: [Laughs.] Yeah, basically. A very polite way to say, “You’re not going to be in our movie.” And it wasn’t long after that…I think they had gone into rehearsals about two weeks prior to me getting another phone call, my agent saying, “You’re going in to replace Steven Ford as the hunky football player.” And I said, “Really?” So that was that. I had no experience, either in dancing or even acting, pretty much, except for going to that school. So to have a part in a movie that was that iconic was pretty amazing.

BE: Within a few years of that, though, you were on “Falcon Crest.”

LL: Well, a little bit after that. We filmed “Grease” in 1977, it was released in ’78, and then “California Fever” was ’79. From there, I did a couple of small-budget movies. One was for Rudy Durand with Brooke Shields called “Tilt.” And I did a movie for Kieth Merrill, who won a Best Documentary Oscar for “Greatest American Cowboy,” called “Take Down.” It was a movie about high school wrestling for Buena Vista, which was basically Disney. It was my first real leading role, and it was kind of a “Rocky”-esque story about a kid in high school who has an alcoholic father, and he faces all the odds, he’s failing at school, and he becomes the star wrestler on the high school team and graduates. You know, actually, it’s less “Rocky” and more like “All the Right Moves.” Basically, I was just kind of bouncing around, getting a part here, a part there, a break here, a break there. But nothing really happened until 1982, when I got “Falcon Crest.” I did a couple of pilots for Lorimar and…oh, actually, one series did go. It was called “Secrets of Midland Heights,” with Robert Hogan, Bibi Besch, and Linda Hamilton. That was Lorimar, and it went nine episodes. But after that, nothing until “Falcon Crest.”

BE: Was it a long audition process to get “Falcon Crest”?

LL: Fairly long, yeah. They had a lot of characters to cast and a lot of actors who wanted to be in it. [Laughs.] I think I read two times for the writers, and then one more time for the producer and the director, and then they liked the audition, so I went to test for the network executives, which was another audition.

BE: So given your parentage, was Jane Wyman a family friend?

LL: Jane Wyman was a family friend. I’d never met her, but she knew my father because he did her show, “The Jane Wyman Show.” It was a 90-minute variety show. My mom was pregnant with me at the time, and after the first act, the stage phone rang, and it was the hospital where my mother had to be taken because of an emergency. I was being born, and it wasn’t a normal birth situation. My mother was having difficulties with me. And they called Dad, and Dad left Jane…on live television! During the commercial break, he took off! So when I first met Jane, she kind of laughed about it and made a joke, like, “I hope you don’t leave me without a second act like your father did.” [Laughs.]

But we became very, very close. She was like my grandmother. She really was. She played my grandmother on TV, and I really respected her and listened to her a lot like you would a real grandmother. That show was like my graduate school. There were some wonderful actors on that show – Robert Foxworth and David Selby and Susan Sullivan – and then we had a great guest cast. Cesar Romero came in, Cliff Robertson…and, gosh, I mean, Robert Taylor! All these great iconic actors…and here I was, this twentysomething young idiot, just hoping not to bump into furniture, make my mark, and not look like a fool. I learned so much on that show.

BE: When the show had run its course, did you have a desire to leave television and move into film, or did you immediately go looking for another series?

LL: No, y’know, I was on that show for nine seasons, and it was a scripted drama, and…I grew up watching Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and Sean Connery and all these great action characters, and after nine seasons of being on a soap opera, I really wanted to try to do action. And I told my agent that I really wanted to go and try to break into the action genre, which was starting to really take off, and he said, “Well, let’s see what we can get going here.” He reached out to a Canadian company called Cinepix, who were doing low-budget action movies in Montreal, and they sent my agent a script called “Snake Eater.” And the first thing I said was, “They’ve got to change the title. Because no one’s gonna know what ‘Snake Eater’ is, and even if they do, it’s not gonna be attractive.” [Laughs.] But I wanted to do the part, because it was a really good role. He was a loner, the kind of part I wanted to play. A hero, a stand-up guy, a cop that was an ex-Marine, so he had a back story. So I agreed to sign on to do that, and I did three of those, pretty much back to back. And during the late ’80s and early ’90s, that really broke open my acting opportunities. Because, y’know, the industry knew I could act because I’d done drama for so long, but they didn’t really know I could do action.

So that kind of helped to open that door, and then Stephen Cannell asked me to play Reno in “Renegade,” and that’s when I was really able to bring it full circle and use my acting chops along with my karate chops, if you will. [Laughs.] And that was a very successful genre for me. I did five seasons of “Renegade,” and in between seasons of “Renegade,” I would do action movies that would go to video. But that marketplace was just booming back then. I mean, direct-to-video was a huge market, and I had a very strong foreign name because of “Renegade” and because of “Falcon Crest,” so it was very easy to get financing just based on the fact that I was doing the picture. So I did a lot of those.>

But then around 2001, I finished my last action show for television, one called “The Immortal,” and there was nowhere left for me to go, because one-hour syndicated television was drying up and the foreign companies that financed the straight-to-video movies were not buying any American talent or doing American scripts anymore. They were producing their own shows and their own movies in their country. So I was really just kind of stuck, not knowing where I was going to get the next paycheck. So I raised my kids. [Shrugs.] I raised my daughters, who are pretty much teenagers now, and…I was glad to have had the time to really be a dad, to really do that the right way. And to do a little stage, a little theater. And that pretty much kept me busy until a couple of years ago, when I started to do a little comedy. I did “Big Time Rush” for Nickelodeon, I did an animated show called “Phineas and Ferb,” where I played the character Meap, and a little more comedy here and there, including episodes of “Reno 911!” and “NTSF: SD: SUV.” And then John Stevens called me and said, “Would you like to come on board and really push the limits of your comedic abilities?” [Laughs.]

>I really, really enjoy the process of comedy. I’m even taking a stand-up comedy class and getting some experience onstage doing stand-up. I had a cabaret show I was doing up until about a year or so ago, and I think that gave me the confidence. Also, doing the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful,” which is shot pretty much live. I mean, it’s obviously tape-delay, but they shoot it like a live television show. There’s very little rehearsal, and you don’t get another take, so you have to come on camera ready to go. And I think that experience really helped solidify my confidence and my acting. So now I can walk around in a blue Speedo and be okay with it. [Laughs.]

BE: Okay, just a few more things to wrap up. First of all, I can’t not ask you about “Body Rock.”

LL: I wanted to do that movie so bad…and my manager did not want me to do that movie. [Laughs.] And I fought and I fought, and he finally said, “Okay, dammit, if you want to do it that bad, then go ahead and do the movie. At least I got a friend of ours in it: Ray Sharkey.” I said, “Oh, cool!” Because my manager at the time was handling me and Ray and Ken Wahl. To this day, I look at that movie and I go, “Why didn’t it work?” You know, it was the perfect time for that movie, it had a great soundtrack… I think what it was was that it was at the tail end of a string of movies like “Beat Street” that were basically…the hip-hop culture at that time was really still almost underground, and we had a very strong urban audience. The movie opened for New World to respectable numbers, but we didn’t have that second weekend, y’know? I think the numbers weren’t that big for what the studio was expecting. But I liked the movie.

BE: You got a small hit single out of it, too.

LL: Yeah!

BE: Which is no doubt on YouTube, although I should’ve checked that before we chatted.

LL: I don’t think so. I don’t think it is! [Laughs. ]

BE: Well, if it is, you can count on it being posted with the interview.

LL: I was pissed that it didn’t make the studio soundtrack, actually. Because I was under contract to Scotti Brothers Records, so I couldn’t do the studio album. My single couldn’t be included on the studio album. Which is too bad, because that studio album for “Body Rock” did really well. But, hey, listen, you chalk it up to experience, and you walk away from stuff that you do without understanding why it didn’t perform well, but you look back on it, and…well, it’s like a movie, actually. There’s a storyline, and one thing leads into something else because you’ve met this people on this thing. Which is why I’m here doing comedy and feeling very comfortable about it.

BE: You’re in the promo for Michelle Beadle’s new series, “The Crossover.” How did that come about?

LL: They just wanted the craziest bunch of reality-show dropouts that they could think of. [Laughs.] So it’s me, Gary Busey, Jose Canseco, Kara Todd, Dennis Rodman… And when I got that, I asked, “Well, who else is doing the commercial?” And they said, “We can’t tell you.” So I didn’t know who I was going to be doing the commercial with until I got to the set that day. Oh, it was crazy, man. Because I knew Jose from before, so we were friends. Gary Busey and I have worked on probably a dozen movies together that went straight to video, so I knew Gary. Anyway, we just had fun.

BE: Lastly, is there any project you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

LL: I’ve got to say “Body Rock.” And probably “Take Down,” the wrestling picture I did. I think the problem with “Take Down” was that Buena Vista didn’t really know how to market a PG-rated picture. It was the first PG-rated film that Disney ever distributed under their banner. Of course, then they later formed Touchstone. It would’ve been great if it’d been under Touchstone. But I think its timing was off, and that was a disappointment, because I was really hoping that that movie was gonna kick off a motion picture career for me. It got a major theatrical release, it was a decent movie with a great story and a great cast, including Edward Herrmann and Kathleen Lloyd. But, y’know, you never know. You never do know. And that’s what makes this show, “The Joe Schmo Show,” both exciting and scary for me. Because people who know me don’t know me as a comedy actor. So I’m hoping that they dig it. But I just don’t know. I guess I’ll find out on Wednesday morning, right? [Laughs.]

Bullz-Eye: First off, let me just tell you what a pleasure it is to talk to you. I’ve been a fan for many years.

Chris Elliott: Oh, well, thank you. I just don’t hear that enough. [Laughs.]

BE: In my case, it’s no exaggeration: when I was in high school, I sent off for tickets for “Late Night with David Letterman.” Granted, I had graduated by the time I actually got them, but, hey, at least I got them.

CE: Oh, my gosh. That’s pretty funny. So did you actually wait four years for tickets?

BE: No, but it was more than a year: I sent them off during my senior year, and it was well after graduation when they finally arrived.

CE: Wow, that’s pretty amazing. But it proves that you were a hardcore fan. Do you remember who was on the show when you went?

BE: Absolutely: it was Jane Pauley and Bruno Kirby. I also remember that they did Shoe Removal Races that night, with a podiatrist squaring off against a shoe salesman.

CE: Ah, yes, that was an excellent episode. [Laughs.]

BE: You were actually just on Letterman’s show a few nights ago. It sounded like you may have taken a bit of flour into your lungs.

CE: [Laughs.] I started to smell like cookies after I was under the lights for a little while. But I thought it came off all right. It’s always fun to go back there, and I hate coming back on there as myself in any form. This interview is okay because I can’t see you. [Laughs.] But I don’t like coming on and just talking as myself, so I always come on with something.

BE: The “Downton Abbey” thing was great, too.

CE: Yeah, I thought that came out great.

BE: So let’s talk “Eagleheart.” One of the most surprising things about the series, at least to me, is that you don’t actually get a writing credit on the show. Not that you don’t have some input, given that you’re a consulting producer, but…

CE: I’d say these guys have my voice down. I knew that when I met with them. They were huge fans of mine, and, honestly, I didn’t want the extra work. [Laughs.] And at the same time, y’know, they changed the pilot quite a bit to suit me, and what I do – and Adam Resnick does this, also – is sort of take a pass at the scripts when they’re done with them and change a couple of jokes here and there, and if something’s not quite in my voice, I just kind of paraphrase what I would be saying, and that sort of thing. I’m sort of at the point in my career where writers that are working in the business sort of grew up knowing about me. At least the ones that are fans of mine, anyway. And they’re really capable of writing for me. It wasn’t always that case. Early on in my career, it was pretty much Adam and me just trying to establish this voice.

BE: Of course, it makes me wonder if people sometimes come to you with something utterly off the wall, saying, “Well, ‘Cabin Boy’ was so nuts that I figured you’d be into this.’

CE: Yeah, I think I get that a lot. It’s interesting: some people put anything weird in the “weird” category and think, “Oh, Chris’ll do that because it’s so weird.” But you’re right. Certain people, like yourself, get why certain things are funny-weird as opposed to just being strange. That’s a different breed. I think I do get lumped in a lot with “he’s just off the wall, he’s crazy.”

BE: On paper, “Eagleheart” would seem to be more or less just a “Walker: Texas Ranger” parody, but it’s definitely been evolving into something more.

CE: Yeah, it was sort of that when it first started. That’s what the pilot was like. It was gonna be this half-hour show…you probably already know this, Will, but it was gonna be a show within a show, like “Walker: Texas Ranger,” and then behind the scenes of that show. We shot that pilot, and then within it were also examples of what the actual show we were doing was like…and Adult Swim actually liked the fake show better than all the behind-the-scenes stuff. [Laughs.] So that’s what they picked up: the fake show.

BE: Have you been happy with the show’s evolution?

CE: I’ve been very happy. I mean, right from the start, I thought it was gonna be fun, but it really did sort of evolve into this very surreal and very comfortable place for me to work. I mean, like you said, it seems like I’m a writer on it because it’s all my kind of humor. Jason Woliner, who directs all of them, gives the shows a very film-like look to them, which makes them stand apart, and then Andrew Weinberg and Michael Koman, the writers, along with Jason, are a cut above, I think. We all came from kind of the same background to a degree. Andrew and Michael were “Conan” writers. So the sensibility was always the same.

BE: Speaking of Mr. O’Brien, I haven’t actually seen the Season 2 episodes yet, but I understand he has deigned to make a cameo.

CE: Yeah. He was really hard to get. [Laughs.] A lot of contractual obligations for that one. Basically, there was one sticking point that was really hard to get over, which was that he didn’t want to do it. But once they got through that…

BE: Bud Cort apparently turns up as well.

CE: Yes! Bud Cort, Conan O’Brien, Ben Stiller makes an appearance. It’s a star-studded cast this year.

BE: As a “Breaking Bad” fan, I’m thrilled to see that Dean Norris is going to be appearing as well.

CE: And he’s really funny. Really, really funny. And a great guy, too.

BE: How did Mickey Rooney find his way into Season One?

CE: Uh, I wasn’t in that meeting. [Laughs.] It kind of happened without my knowledge. That was an episode where they needed an actor who had a good wattle underneath his chin. An older actor, because the premise was that there were all these older people who were doing sound effects on television, and apparently the sound effects were made by the neck wattles. And Mickey Rooney…we had a lot of people come in and audition for that, and apparently Mickey Rooney had the best wattle. Apparently. [Laughs.]

BE: As an old-school Letterman fan, I could ask you about dozens of things about “Late Night,” but first and foremost has to be your Marlon Brando impression. To my mind, the banana dance is nothing short of iconic.

CE: Well, that’s nice to hear. And you’re not alone. Yeah, it was pretty popular back in the ‘80s. I think that and the Truffle Shuffle were the big dances back then. [Laughs.]

BE: Being that Brando was as eccentric as he was, did you ever actually hear from him about the impression?

CE: No, but we actually did… I think I got his phone number at one point, and I remember actually calling and getting to a maid or somebody… [Starts to laugh.] I asked to speak to him and said who I was, and the line went dead after that. So I never actually spoke with him. And then I do remember him doing an interview, I think with Connie Chung, and she asked him…not specifically about the Brando impersonation, but she asked him, “What do you think about David Letterman?” And he didn’t answer. He just made a grotesque face. That may have been a reaction to my doing him on the show. I don’t know. I like to think that it was.

BE: Is it strange to find yourself now the middle Elliott, generationally speaking, given that your daughter (Abby Elliott) is now on “Saturday Night Live”?

CE: It’s really nice, but it is odd. Anyone at 51, I think, is starting to look back a little bit with a bit of astonishment at how fast time goes, so it is odd. I think it would be odd if… Both of my daughters are in the business, and I think it would be odd if they were doing anything else. I now have a 24-year-old and a 21-year-old, but the fact that they’re actually doing what I did when I was at their age is even weirder. And it must’ve been weird for my dad, too.

BE: And how is your dad doing?

CE: He’s doing well, thanks. He just turned 89 a couple of days ago.

BE: It’s fun being able to look on YouTube and see clips of some of the “Bob & Ray” stuff.

CE: It is. I do that every now and then myself. [Laughs.] It’s amazing to me how much I have in common with my dad and our comedy, because on the surface it does not look the same at all. But especially when Bob and Ray were starting out, some of the stuff they did was pretty bizarre and off the wall, and I realize that, yeah, that’s obviously where I got it from. I was thinking the other day that…I think if I worked at a radio station when they were first starting out, I would’ve been drawn to their sense of humor right away. I would’ve tried to be on their staff. And they probably would’ve been drawn to me in some way. They would’ve made me the goofy record-puller in the studio. [Laughs.]

BE: Abby’s obviously doing very well on “SNL,” but given that you had the chance to work with your father on “Get A Life,” were you disappointed when the pilot you did with her, “You’ve Reached the Elliots,” didn’t take off?

CE: Yeah, I mean, I actually thought that was a good pilot. It’s…ever since “Get A Life,” it’s been hard for any network to sort of see me doing anything but what I did on “Get a Life.” And at the same time, they don’t want me to do what I did on “Get A Life.” [Laughs.] So that’s doubly hard for me. I mean, back then, six years ago, the idea of playing a dad but playing him like a grown-up Chris Peterson, seemed like, “Okay, this is the best of both worlds.” But ultimately I think it’s hard to imagine that guy from “Get A Life” having kids. [Laughs.]

BE: Speaking of “Get A Life,” has there been any movement on seeing it released as a complete series on DVD?

CE: It is going to be coming out. I’m not entirely sure when. I think probably in the fall…? But, yeah, it will be actually coming out…finally!

BE: Do you know who’s putting it out? Is it Shout Factory?

CE: It is Shout Factory.

BE: I knew it had to be. [Laughs.] That’s awesome. Now if we can just get “FDR: A One-Man Show” back out there…

CE: That was out there once upon a time. I think it was on tape when it came out. I don’t think it ever went to DVD at any point, unfortunately. But, of course, I continue to travel the country performing it… [Laughs.]

BE: Of course. Have you done any special features for the “Get A Life” set yet?

CE: We’re going to. I guess the end of April we’re going to go out and do those. Commentaries and that sort of thing.

BE: As you can tell, I’m a little psyched.

CE: Oh, good. No, I’m glad! I think it’s time that fans like yourself can get it. I don’t know why, really, that it’s taken so long.

BE: To touch on “Cabin Boy,” I also must tell you that I’ve got my daughter to the point where, whenever she sees a sock monkey, she asks, “Would you like to buy a monkey?” And she’s only six, so she’s clearly damaged for life.

CE: [Laughs.] Yeah, that’s one of those catchphrases that’s entered our culture, thanks to “Cabin Boy.”

BE: I also write for the Onion AV Club, and we just had a piece on there where the film was inducted into the New Cult Canon.

CE: I saw that! Yeah, that was nice to see. I’ve always said that I stand by that movie. I think Adam did a great job directing it. Every time I see it on TV, I’m amazed at how interesting it looks and how bizarre it is. At the time it came out, it was just vilified, but it seems to have grown on people.

BE: Setting aside the obvious answers of “Cabin Boy” and “Get A Life,” is there any other project you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

CE: Oh, that’s a good question. You mean something that actually was made that then was not appreciated as much?

BE: Right.

CE: Just about everything. [Laughs.] I know that sounds like a broad answer, but just about anything that’s been initiated by me or by people close to me for me…it’s not that it hasn’t been appreciated. I always feel like I’ve been very lucky, and I have a hardcore following, but I think that most of…just about everything I do is met with a certain amount of bafflement by the general public. [Laughs.] And I think that’s a good place, actually, for me to be: just slightly on the outside of the mainstream. And I’m perfectly comfortable being there.

BE: To get really obscure for a moment, I talked with Stephen Collins last year…

CE: Oh, yeah!

BE: …and we talked briefly about your work on the series “Tattinger’s.”

CE: That’s funny. Geez, that’s going way back. That was, like, my first outside television gig other than working for Dave. Yeah, he was in that, and…who else was in that? Blythe Danner! And I remember that Gwyneth Paltrow was a little kid, and she was running around on the set when we were shooting “Tattinger’s.” [Laughs.] But that was really fun. Those guys were fans of mine from what I was doing on “Letterman,” and they let me be this goofy character. I think in general that’s where I’ve fit in the best: when I’m the odd next-door neighbor or the odd brother or something like that. “Get A Life,” actually, was always kind of…the concept of that show, essentially, was that it was built around a bizarre secondary character from any other normal, more or less mainstream sitcom. In the real world, that character would’ve been on, like, the old “Newhart” show or something. With our show, we followed him home and saw him living with his parents.

BE: I know we’re up against the wall, but, lastly, I just wanted to touch on your voice work over the years. You said in an AV Club interview a few years ago that you were never fond of the work you did on “Dilbert,” but is there anything you’ve done that you’ve been particularly proud of?

CE: Um…I’ve never liked my voice. [Laughs.] Unlike my dad, who has this beautiful radio voice, I’ve always thought that I had a whiny, adenoidal voice, and it’s really hard for me to listen to it on its own. So I don’t enjoy doing voiceover-type stuff. Also, I don’t think I’m any good at it. I don’t think that’s where my expertise lies…if I’m even an expert at anything. [Laughs.]

BE: Well, you’ve doing very well with “Eagleheart.”

CE: Well, thanks. Again, this is my comfort zone: playing a complete moron in a really crazy, violent show. [Laughs.] It’s what I was born to do.