Because of this, McDonald is like an extra DVD feature unto himself -- in any of the 80-odd steaming clumps of dumbness he's been in, you can tune in to his performance, and watch him comment on the text. I probably shouldn't say that, because actors aren't supposed to comment on text, but he's very subtle about it, so it's not distracting. You can choose to tune into Chris McDonald Performance Angle B it if you want to, or he gives a perfectly serviceable top-layer acting job that you can take at face value, that is, if you prefer to watch shit like "Leave It to Beaver" with no hope of enjoyment whatsoever.

His first substantial role was as an idiot greaser in the worthless "Grease II" (1982): Goose McKenzie, a fusion of Fonzie and Potsy, with a Sha Na Na Bronx accent ( "Da noid invaded owah sacred toif"). This role may have gotten him off on the wrong foot, as far as name/face recognition is concerned, because unfortunately, when sporting a frizzy pompadour hairdo and speaking in an illiterate East Coast accent, McDonald is pretty much indistinguishable from "Saturday Night Live's" Joe Piscopo, in younger days, before he became a bloated mook steroid-casualty. McDonald sings, he dances, he chews his tongue with flipped-up collar and basted hair. But the role was more annoying than sexy, so he was excluded from the teen steam directed toward the other male chorus boys.

In 1984, McDonald played a slick "manager" to a female wannabe break dancer in the sublime, unintentionally ridiculous movie "Breakin'"; I believe McDonald's agent must have tried to stick him in a role where he would look Handsome and Important ... possibly even Suave. The problem (naturally) was the script, which was so mind-blowingly primitive, McDonald couldn't hide a bright streak of contempt from his general vibe, which squirted out in hilarious little tics and tones -- he started a shtick collection in "Breakin'" that grew into a wide vocabulary of snarky bits he'd use in many Uptight Businessman roles in the future.

This same agent must have had him go out for a bit part in "Outrageous Fortune" (1987), wherein he plays a gay ballerino trying to go out on a date with Shelley Long (of all people) as research for his heterosexual dancing roles. He looks great -- studly, even -- but he's about as graceful and queer as a shotput, and his pliés are risible. It must have been around this point that somebody said: OK, Chris, no more beefcake roles. You're too weird.

Then he got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.

"Thelma and Louise" (1991) was a breakout movie for just about everyone in it ... except Christopher McDonald, who hijacks the entire film with his skin-crawlingly marvelous portrayal of Thelma's husband, a belligerent, big-screen TV-watching, carpet-selling, Corvette-driving, leisure-suit-wearing, redneck rageoholic dirtbag. Every line is eviscerated, every possible microsecond of onscreen ham-broasting is exploited; McDonald scenery-chewed his way into the hearts of miscreants like me everywhere, but we still forgot his name the second after we stayed through the credits to learn who he was. At this point, it was probably too late in his career to change his humdrum name to something like Cork McDonough or Rod Stewart, but it might have helped.

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