Tonight marks the end of a tumultuous five-season run for the NBC action-comedy/spy-drama series Chuck, from creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak.

The story of “Chuck” revolves around computer service technician Chuck Bartowski, played by Zachary Levi, who inadvertently becomes a CIA/NSA asset when his former Stanford roommate turned CIA operative downloads the only copy of a secret government database, the Intersect, directly into Chuck’s brain. The government assigns two agents to protect and work with Chuck, CIA Agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and NSA Major John Casey (Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin).

The supporting cast includes Chuck’s best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez), sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster), brother-in-law Devon (Ryan McPartlin) and fellow computer technicians and lackeys Jeff and Lester (played to comedic brilliance by Scott Krinsky and Vik Sahay). Guest stars over the years have included Chevy Chase, Scott Bakula, Linda Hamilton, Timothy Dalton and Carrie-Anne Moss.

The cast worked incredibly well together which, when combined with good writing and interesting storylines, produced a series that was extremely entertaining and kept me watching from the first episode. For whatever reason, the show was never able to draw in a large audience and slipped in the ratings in each subsequent season.

Chuck was able to stave off cancellation numerous times thanks to a very vocal and loyal, but unfortunately small, fan base who mounted multiple “Save Chuck” campaigns. If not for a unique sponsorship deal with the Subway restaurant chain, the series would have never even seen a third season. A deal between production company Warner Brothers and NBC for a 13-episode fifth season was only struck to get to the minimum syndication threshold of 88 episodes, which brought the series to a total of 91 episodes.

I recently spoke with Big Hollywood contributor Adam Baldwin about the series, its finale airing at 8 p.m. EST tonight and being a conservative in Hollywood.

How did you get involved with “Chuck?”

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–’ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK’ REMAKE DEAD … FOR NOW–

A draft I read of this intended remake was extremely well written but also an environmental allegory and warning. If memory serves, Manhattan had become a prison due to the flooding caused by *prepare for eyeroll*  man-made Global Warming. After director John Carpenter’s own disastrous return to his 1981 classic with “Escape From L.A.,” it wasn’t as though we really needed another reason to wish doom upon a remake.

Man, I remember sitting through the dreadful “Escape from L.A.,” which I had dragged my dad to, all excited in the knowledge that Pam Grier was going to show up onscreen. Just the vision of her beautiful-ness would lift these awful two hours into something worthwhile … only to discover Carpenter cast her as a man, or something.

Regardless, you can’t replace Kurt Russell.

You can’t.

No one working today comes close to his mixture of menace, masculinity, unspoken intelligence and charm. He’s a one-of-a-kind who created an iconic role for the ages and you might as well have someone else try to play Cool Hand Luke or Bullitt.

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It’s like Chevy Chase doing an impersonation of Chevy Chase doing an impersonation of Gerald Ford (which I loved, by the way).

The best Chase could summon in defense of He Who Hit 41% Today, was an excuse that sounds an awful lot like what the Right was warning us about in 2008:

“It’s too early to tell. He’s young. Maybe he has not anticipated or hadn’t yet anticipated, with perspective, a way to gauge what’s going to be most important to the electorate and to people as he came in because he’s young. Perhaps he came in with all sorts of great thoughts and found out that in fact, in order to make things happen he had to deal with upper most issues as it were that were political[.]”

Shorter Chase: Obama has no idea what the hell he’s doing but we expect him to do better next time.

Wars, tax cuts for the rich, Gitmo open, military tribunals on, gas prices spiking, jobless claims up, a health care bill growing less popular by the day, and everyday citizens organizing and taking it to the streets for the first time in generations.

Quick question, Mr. Chase:

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By now, you’ve probably heard about what Politico is billing as a potential “October surprise” – a “Rally to Restore Sanity,” planned for October 30th on the Mall in Washington and hosted by the brilliant comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

The day before Halloween? I’m sure it’ll be a solemn occasion, where people intend to reflect upon the real problems that face our nation, dressed up in costumes mocking conservative movers and shakers like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. In fact, I can just imagine the oh-so-clever people who will be dressed up like Christine O’Donnell as a witch. (Funny, isn’t it, how when a conservative admits to “dabbling” in something like witchcraft as a teenager it’s a big scandal, but progressive, leftist PC dictates that we should be sensitive to the beliefs of those who declare themselves pagans and Wiccans.)

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert – your hosts

Oh, but I’m being cynical. The Comedy Central guys don’t really “mean” anything by the whole thing. It’s just a big joke, doncha know:

“We’re not provocateurs, we’re not activists; we are reacting for our own catharsis,” Stewart tells [New York magazine's Chris] Smith. “There is a line into demagoguery, and we try very hard to express ourselves but not move into, ‘So follow me! And I will lead you to the land of answers, my people!’ You can fall in love with your own idea of common sense. Maybe the nice thing about being a comedian is never having a full belief in yourself to know the answer. So you can say all this stuff, but underneath, you’re going, ‘But of course, I’m f*cking idiotic.’ It’s why we don’t lead a lot of marches.” (emphasis mine)

Perhaps that’s why the Comedy Central overlords have asked Craig Minassian, former Clinton administration press aide who is now a consultant to Comedy Central, and Chris Wayne, a former Clinton White House event organizer who works on large-scale media events and promotions, to help them file their permit for the October 30th event. But I’m sure they won’t be helping them actually run the event… (more…)

“I’m very nervous!” twittered super-model Naomi Campbell during a press conference held in Havana’s Hotel Nacional in 1998. “I just spent an hour and a half talking with your president, Fidel Castro!  But he told me there was nothing to be afraid of because he already knew a lot about us (Campbell and her travel-chum, Kate Moss) from reading the press!” 

Castro undoubtedly knew plenty about Mss’ Campbell and Moss–but probably not from reading Vogue, Elle or Cosmo.  

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices.

“When word came down that models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss were coming to Cuba the order was a routine one: 24-hour-a-day vigilance. Then we got a PRIORITY alert, recalls Fernandez, “because there was a rumor that they would be sharing a room with Leonardo DiCaprio. The rumor set off a flurry of activity and we set up the most sophisticated devices we had.”  (more…)

In this household, the Christmas season can’t officially begin until we hear those two magic words… “Shitter’s full.”

Once again screenwriter/producer John Hughes delivers the Christmas goods, this time with  Christmas Vacation, a masterpiece of a family holiday comedy (and the third of four “Vacation” films) with so many iconic scenes and pieces of quotable dialogue that it would take less time for you to watch the movie than for me to try and list them here. It’s the simplest of stories: Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase), a Chicago family man whose enthusiasm forces him to overdo everything, wants to throw his kith and kin a fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. But from the moment his parents and in-laws arrive all kinds of hell breaks loose including house fires, electrocuted cats, SWAT raids, and sewer gas explosions. 

What makes Christmas Vacation a must-see perennial (I’ve already watched it twice this season and the season’s not over) is that Hughes’s script expertly wrings every possible situation out of his concept, and first-time feature director Jeremiah Chechik does a beautiful job wrapping the whole production, even the more slapsticky and cruder moments, into an old-fashioned package that never loses the winning sincerity so crucial to the film’s success.  Not only is the look of the film much warmer than most comedies, but most impressively, Chechik controls the overall tone like a seasoned pro.  (more…)

Big Hollywood’s Alexander Marlow has written a spot-on assessment of “Saturday Night Live’s” skit about Obama. This video clip of Chevy Chase on CNN bolsters Marlow’s claim and reveals the truth behind “SNL’s” political parodies: 

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To paraphrase Groucho Marx, a child of five could improve on this immensely.  Anyone could make these parodies of Obama funnier.  Obama’s mannerisms, speech patterns, physical oddities (ears) etc. are ripe for satire. Add Michelle Obama and Joe Biden to the mix and it only gets better.  The audience would be rolling in the aisles. Obama presents a comedy writer with the potential for endless comedic situations.  Obama is a unique character who offers a buffet of satire, pregnant with possibilities. (more…)

Tina Fey recently won an Emmy for her uncanny resemblance and venomous impersonation of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.  In accepting her award, Fey was her typical, obloquious self saying, “Mrs. Palin is an inspiration to working mothers everywhere because she bailed on her job right before Fourth of July weekend. You are living my dream. Thank you, Mrs. Palin!”

2008 marked a departure from the memorable, more cordial years of Chevy Chase as a clumsy Gerald Ford or Dana Carvey’s hilarious H.W. Bush: “wouldn’t be prudent.”  Fey was downright mean.

For her part, Palin was an easy target — a conservative woman and mother. And seemingly abhorrent to Fey and friends, Palin had small town values, a small town family and — as Fey chafed on Palin’s world view — “I can see Alaska from my house.”  The impersonations were sometimes funny, but more often foul.  ”I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers…,” Fey roasted during one of the skits… an innuendo on Palin’s pregnant, unwed daughter.  Her satire strayed from the issues into catty, sexist territory — intellect, pregnancy, family attacks and even sexual riffs. (more…)

Hard to believe the lovely actress Cindy Morgan was once told she belonged behind the camera, not in front of it.

Morgan, who became a pop culture sensation by playing Lacey Underall in “Caddyshack,” started her career in broadcasting. “I ran camera, I ran sound,” Morgan tells Big Hollywood. “But they wouldn’t let me on camera. ’You’ll never get a job,’ they said.

A few years later, she was sharing the screen with Chevy Chase in the 1980 comedy classic.

Morgan’s “Caddyshack” role gave her an early lesson in how Hollywood works, and it wasn’t pretty. The day before her nude scene, a producer called to say a Playboy photographer would be on set to snap pictures which would run in the nudie magazine. (more…)

These  pictures were obtained here. If Gerald Ford had hit is head, I somehow suspect comedians would have had a field day with it. When Ford slipped on some wet steps while deplaning Air Force One, that single incident was fodder for political comedians such as Chevy Chase for years. If George W. Bush had hit his head, I suspect that the same thing would have occurred. Remember Bush passing out because he choked on a pretzel in January 2002? There were a huge number of political jokes about it.

It will be an interesting academic exercise to see how many late night jokes there will be regarding Obama hitting his head while leaving Marine One. Obama is essentially the same height as George H.W. Bush (6′ 1″ to 6′ 2″) and Ronald Reagan (6′ 1″). (more…)