Get a Life: 1977 2000 (1992)

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During the tragically brief run of Get a Life, the show often transcended mere sitcom parody brilliance and became something unique and wonderful in the world of television -- a truly surreal comic masterpiece. That is certainly the case with the bizarrely named "1977 2000" episode (show episodes were frequently given the title "Something 2000," -- such as "Terror on the Hell Loop 2000," the series premiere, or "Meat Locker 2000" from season two -- in an apparent effort to highlight the show's ahead-of-the-curve, millennial bent). This episode finds Chris (Chris Elliott) sadly pondering the fate of Gus (Brian Doyle-Murray), his beloved abusive landlord. Gus reminisces about his glory days beating up jaywalking suspects, and laments getting sacked for drunkenly urinating on his captain at a party after being passed over for a promotion. Assessing the state of his friend's life, Chris tells Gus the painful truth as only he could see it: "You're ugly and you're doughy and you're bursting with love like some kind of rancid wedding cake that was left out in a terrible rainstorm by a drifter who's smelly named Hank who lives in a storm drain and he wears five pairs of pants, even though it's summertime and he'd be much more comfortable wearing five pairs of shorts." Despite a stern warning from Gus about the dangers of time travel, Chris boldly decides to travel back to 1977 and save his friend's law enforcement career. Things don't go as planned, and Chris inadvertently and repeatedly alters the future in terrible ways. As Gus warns him, having seen enough Twilight Zone episodes to know, "You mess with the past, you get screwed over." This cornucopia of darkly comic goodness was written by Charlie Kaufman, who would later go on to write the equally surreal and hilarious Being John Malkovich. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi