Joining a “Dark Side” lineup that currently includes Dark Side of the Ring, Dark Side of Football and Dark Side of the ’90s, Dark Side of Comedy is a series that examines the internal battles, unexpected fame and societal pressures that are ever-present in the comedy world; as well as the lasting legacy of the women and men who allow us to see the world through their eyes.
Throughout the history of comedy, many comedians have lost themselves to the art’s darker side, through addiction, suicide, depression and self-destruction. Vice TV’s Dark Side of Comedy explores these stories, shining a new light on comedy’s darkest corners. The first season of the show, which is narrated by Dave Foley, will consist of 10 episodes focused on these comics: Andrew Dice Clay, Chris Farley, Freddie Prinze, Artie Lange, Roseanne Barr, Dustin Diamond, Greg Giraldo, Brett Butler, Richard Pryor and Maria Bamford.
Struggling with addiction and a dangerously low self-image, Chris Farley’s old friends at Saturday Night Live conspired to help save the falling star.
A boy who took to making other students laugh during his Catholic grade school years, he later studied theater and communications at Marquette University. After joining the cast of the Second City theater, Farley was discovered by Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. He made his cast debut in 1990 and quickly became known for skits that included doing a Chippendales dance alongside Patrick Swayze, playing motivational honcho Matt Foley (named after a real-life reverend who was friends with Farley) and hosting “The Chris Farley Show,” in which he fumblingly interviewed guests like Jeff Daniels and Martin Scorsese. Farley often had a distinctly physical brand of comedy that self-deprecatingly played upon his large size.
Farley was also able to parlay his SNL success into a big-screen career, making his film debut as a security guard in Wayne’s World (1992) and starring in its 1993 sequel. Farley was then featured in Coneheads (1993) and Airheads (1994) before landing his first lead role in the hit Tommy Boy, in which he co-starred with friend and comic partner David Spade. After Farley was featured in the Adam Sandler comedy Billy Madison (1995), he and Spade reunited for 1996’s Black Sheep. The following year, Farley again appeared in a lead role in the martial arts vehicle Beverly Hills Ninja.
Outside of his movie stardom, the comedian had major personal demons. Farley was consumed by fame’s spotlight, struggled with drugs and liquor, was in and out of rehab more than a dozen times within a two-year span, and regularly engaged in highly excessive, out-of-control behavior. Farley spoke of feeling pressured to constantly be an attention-getter, even when not in front of the camera. His manager publicly expressed concern over his client’s well-being via a magazine article, and Spade shared similar sentiments over his friend’s health in an interview.
On December 18, 1997, Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment after an extreme binge of substance use and party-hopping. It was later declared that he died of an overdose of cocaine and morphine exacerbated by advanced heart disease. He was 33, the same age at which Belushi died from an overdose.
Years later, in the summer of 2005, the actor received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
