Welcome to Farleyville, the blog that deals directly with the lasting legacy of my favorite comedian, Chris Farley. What you will find here is information, links, videos and my personal collection of Farley stuff. The overall goal is to create an internet presence in Chris's memory. My hope is interaction with readers collecting memories, stories and possibly pictures and video to add to this blog. Again, Welcome to Farleyville.
Holy Cow!!! As the late great Harry Carey would have said if he saw my email box two days after posting the direct tv YouTube video. At one point I had 153 emails regarding comments posted on my YouTube channel. The video was linked to a CNN news story along with a time and yahoo online articles and more I can only assume (if you are aware let me know). I think that I have succesfully achieved the overall goal of the blog... by creating an online presence to my fallen idol, now I just have to keep up the content. Hopefully I can do so. I have downloaded a new app so I can post updates anywhere (see signature below). Also since I have some new viewers I can send out an email whenever I update the blog, just contact me at welcometofarleyville@gmail.com to subscribe. And as you can see this is a not for profit site so I will not spam ya.
In the meantime, since my last post I have discoved a couple of Farley related items which I will be posting soon. In the mean time I found this Rolling Stone cover bag at Walmart. Although it has Mariah Carey on the cover if you look closely it is in fact the magazine that looked at the final days of Chris and had the first writings from Spade since his friend's death. I have the physical magazine also but it was nice to see this available too.
And of course my birthday has come and gone (September 9th for those keeping track) but my friends at work did provide a farleyesque birthday celebration.
Was watching a repeat of Letterman last night and was surprised when I saw a Direct TV Ad featuring my favorite movie, Tommy Boy. In it (youtube video shown below) we see David Spade portraying his "Richard" character from the film denouncing cable and "that," pointing to "Tommy," Chris Farley's character. At first I felt that was a distasteful commercial. Chris has been dead now over ten years and David is complaining about being stuck with "tons of Fun!" Again that was my first reaction after watching it again and again, I noticed the commercial does have good heart. David's final line is "Never gets old," when Chris rips the jacket. Meaning that he can watch this over and over again. Like I said at first viewing It seems that David is a sarchastic ass (which he is) trying to profit off his dead friend (which...he isn't.)
In case you missed it Chris Farley was in a rerun of Roseanne on June 23rd on TV Land. And even if you did check out the episode you had to look real close to find him. See in the syndicated episodes his lines are edited out and you only see him walking out of the clothing store. So unless you purchase Roseanne: Season 5 or happen to have videotaped the original broadcast (as I did) back on May 4th 1993 you more than likely have never seen Farley's appearance on this hit TV show. Well the episode is titled Glengarry, Glen Rosey and with the creation of the new WelcometoFarleyville youtube channel, I bring you the Chris Farley appearance on Roseanne.
There is no better way to celebrate Father's Day then with of course every Dad's favorite movie, Tommy Boy. Well now to complement that viewing you can purchase an American Greetings Father's Day card with...you guessed it Chris Farley: It is actually a greeting card with sound giving the film quote "I can take a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's beep (ass) but I'd rather take the butcher's word for it." But up for discussion is whether it is truly Farley's voice or not. My wife says "No" but our good friend Lauren and I say "yeah." So go out and buy the card for your father and you be the judge.
**UPDATE** I came across this link about the American Greetings teaming with Paramount to release these special occasion cards. Apparently there is another Tommy Boy card on the market, a birthday one.
The "Tommy Boy" card features Richard (David Spade) and Tommy (Chris Farley)with the phrase: "It's your birthday -- Do something exciting!" Inside, the two say, "Have fun!" The sound chip adds, "I can't believe you've never been cow tipping before! Get ready to live!"
So keep your eyes peeled and let me know if you find one.
Well it has been a while since my last update and I have come across some various news items about this blog's namesake, Chris Farley. First off if you have not picked up Tom Farley and Tanner Colby's book The Chris Farley Show: A Biography In Three Acts do so. On May 26 it was released in paperback check out deepdiscount.com for the least expensive price. Last year around this time the first ever Chris Farley award was presented at the Los Angeles Improv Comedy Festival. Well this year has brought us the second winner of the award, Pat Finn. Pat was one of Chris's best friends from High School and ended up one of the pallbearers at Chris's funeral. He performed with Farley at Second City and has moved on to other improv comedy teams since most recently with Beer Shark Mice. Along with providing personal stories in The Chris Farley Show book he has also contributed to Marylin D Andersen's book(which I have not read yet) Chris Farley (They Died Too Young) and according to the IO West he took part in the Natural High video series volume 4 on drug awareness for High Schools in which he talks about Chris's drug problems. This video is to be released soon. The award was presented by George Wendt (NORM!) on June 1st 2009 at the IO Los Angeles Improv Comedy Festival. And finally I must thank my wife for watching her favorite late night talk show Chelsea Lately last week on the E! channel. You see she saw a preview for the True Hollywood Story (THS) Top 10 Greatest Stories Ever Told and decided to watch it the next day. Well two stories in she shouted for me in a way she does anytime that Chris is on TV and said "Guess who is number eight?" The clip is about three minutes long and if you come across it on the schedule it occurs within the first twenty minutes of the show and is worth seeing for the clips alone. It shows just how funny Chris is simply walking down the street and shouting at his fans. Here is a short clip E! put on their website:
If you get a chance to listen to the Tom Farley interview with Mr. Media I believe that it is the best one on the web. I took down the embedded code to the interview, because it automatically played everytime you would open up the page, but here is the link if you would like to give it a listen:
Unfortunately the Mancow media link was taken down. If anyone is dying to listen to it hit me up with an email at farley669@hotmail.com and I will see what I can do.
Today I received the February 5th issue of Rolling Stone, with the Boss on the cover, and quickly flipped to read the article of my current favorite "FAT" comedian, Artie Lange, entitled: America's Biggest Loser. The article details the tremendous success he is currently obtaining: $700,000 a year as a sidekick on the Howard Stern Show, $3 million on the stand up circuit, Too Fat to Fish on the New York Times best seller list with Random House paying $800,000 for a follow up book. Reading this you would assume that Lange is on the top of the world, but then you get to looking at his lifestyle, past and current failures that coupled with his appetite for heroin and food you can not help to compare the similarities between Chris Farley and Lange.
Farley was also featured in an article in Wenner Media's (publisher of Rolling Stone) US magazine detailing his destructive behavior during the most successful part of his career, titled: Chris Farley: On the Edge of Disaster. As you will see in the US magazine article (Click Farley's photo below, opening photobucket, click the pages and select full size to read.) The article starts very similar to Lange's explaining his current success in movies: David Mamet (writer of Hoffa, Wag the Dog, Hannibal and more) wrote a script specifically for him, the trio of movies that made him a star (Tommy Boy, Black Sheep & Beverly Hills Ninja) and also mentioning being one of Hollywood's highest paid comedians making $6 million a picture. Both articles talk about recent trips to rehab, both mention the need to lose weight; Farley for a movie role in the Gelfin was to be shipped off for two months to a fat farm, Lange to a 21-day program of cucumber juice, therapy and wheatgrass enemas in Florida, both programs were never completed. Farley talks about a year and a half long relationship with a girl (Lorri "Kit Kat" Bagley, learned about in the Chris Farley Showbook) that he lived with and was ready to propose to when she broke up with him, he says "It is hard when they break your heart.” Lange’s girl, Dana (Cironi), left him three and a half years ago - and he is still heartbroken about it. The other woman in these guy's lives were/are their mothers. Farley's mom often accompanied him to movie premiers, late night talk shows and SNL (Mary Anne Farley was on a Mother's Day special) and Lange's mom has and still takes care of her 41 year old son, decorating his house and supplying it with the necessities. As you can see...Chris and Artie have A LOT in common.
Farley's US article was published in September of 1997, three months before his death. You can see where I am going with this. Are we witnessing the eventual death of Mr. Lange? If things pan out like they did for Farley, Lange will be dead by June.
In the Rolling Stone article Lange mentions Farley:
-but Chris Farley's death, from booze and speedballs, shook him to the core. "I'd just been with him, (Chris filmed his role in Dirty Work in early September of '97) and I'd even tried to bang the same hooker he had - just so I could say I'd done it" says Lange. "I couldn't believe he died."
I hope that we are not saying the same thing about Artie Lange.
