Friday Fun Link: I'm Just A Life Coach With A Dream

Need to put some pep back in your step? Sit down for a session with Liza, the manic personal motivator played by Cheri Oteri in Life Coach, a series of shorts that run as interstitials on AMC and on the innertubes at LizaLifeCoach.com.

Caveat: Cheri Oteri could pretty much read the phone book and I would find it fall-down funny. Her performance here contains the expected elements of neediness, barely suppressed rage and hideous cutesiness, but the stroke of genius is that she takes her character of a life coach -- a certified life coach -- seriously. While she pays due tribute to the trade's air of overcaffeinated quackery, uses vaporous buzz words, generally makes a fool of herself and usually ends up getting implicated in her clients' problems, Oteri is hip to the fact that life coaching is a strenuously unflaky profession, powered by toughen-up rhetoric and impatient with airy-fairy self-absorption. After all, America's original life coach was Ben Franklin. The best joke may be that Liza is actually a pretty good life coach.

The show's format still seems to be in flux. In one episode Liza gets in trouble for acting black during a role playing session. In another, a client trusts her with a $148 million lottery ticket because "you're a life coach." A psychotherapist comes to Liza because the life coaches are taking all his clients. There's also an interactive element where you can send your own problems to Liza. And in this inspired piece of coaching, Liza helps out a happy grief counsellor:

Comments

[ClubMedSux]

Cheri Oteri could pretty much read the phone book and I would find it fall-down funny.

Ah, so you're the one... I knew there had to be a reason why she was kept on SNL as long as she was.

[Colonel_Angus]

What the fuck is a life coach? Like an obnoxious motivational speaker pushing books or something?

[BakedPenguin]

A combination of secretary & therapist for the chronically insecure.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

You know, I don't think it would be for me, but I have a family member who went to a life coach. She says it helped, and she does seem to be doing better in her career these days.

Like Frank Sinatra, I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniels.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

All of the above.

[ed]

So it's a shrink without a degree.

[B]

Cheri Oteri could pretty much read the phone book and I would find it fall-down funny.

Did you ever see Surveillance?

[ed]

I was getting seasick by the 1:13 mark. Does it get any less worse?

[Episiarch]

Cheri Oteri could pretty much read the phone book and I would find it fall-down funny.

Well, Tim, it's good to know that you're a pig and a philistine. SNL alums are the scum of the fucking earth. Everything they make is absolute, complete fucking garbage. Will Farrell is the antichrist of comedy movies. Tina Fey--who also has the distinction of being an unattractive woman who dorks somehow find hot--created 30 Rock, a show praised by many yet is just as horrible as any SNL episode.

SNL is where comedy goes to die, and cast members are the demons who harvest comedy souls. Lorne Michaels is comedy Satan. And you have sold your comedy soul.

[Kolohe]

Wait, I somehow find Tina Fey hot!

Oh...

[Episiarch]

Repent! REPENT!!!

[John]

Now I know why you hate Palin so much. She looks like Tina Fey.

[Kolohe]

Look, I'm not saying that Tina Fey is hotter than, say, Oliva Munn. But not all of us have supermodel nuclear physicist girlfriends who live in Canada.

[Episiarch]

Tina Fey is a dog. There's no there there. Just give it up. Come over to the light.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Tina Fey's attractive. You're just wrong on this one, Epi.

[Dagny T.]

Comparing other girls to Canadian girls just isn't fair. (Although, however awesome and badass the cigar-smoking Canadian women's hockey team may be, they're kinda bringing down my average here.)

[Dagny T.]

I was in New York last weekend with a NYC virgin (and also finance geek who hyperventilated at the sight of the NYSE), who wanted to hang out by 30 Rock, hoping to see Tina Fey (who he considers hot). Yikes. So many things wrong with this scenario.

[Michael]

I have nothing but vile contempt for 30 Rock and everyone involved in its production. As embarrassing as this is to admit, my girlfriend loves that show. We sat through an episode together once and all that I could think was, "What the hell is she laughing at? Should I break up with her?"

[Tonio]

Even "Ghostbusters"? And "Animal House"???

[Dagny T.]

The ridiculously sexy Jon Hamm almost tempted me to watch SNL for the first time in many years. If even the promise of such magnificence isn't enough to outweigh SNL's awfulness, nothing is.

[kinnath]

SNL was never as good as its press. But the show with Eddy Murphy teaching Stevie Wonder how to do a Stevie Wonder impression was excellent.

[R C Dean]

SNL alums are the scum of the fucking earth.

Eddie Murphy? Steve Martin? John Belushi?

Sure, not everything they have done is top drawer, but they've done some really good stuff.

[Episiarch]

The first and second casts were a fluke. The writers used up all their good material on them, and then went on to suck harder than a galactic center black hole.

And as much as I love old Eddie Murphy, have you seen him lately?

[SugarFree]

Norbit was genius. What's your point?

[Episiarch]

You. Are. Dead. To. Me.

[SugarFree]

I can't wait for Murphy's next film, The Misadventures of Fluffy. Especially after Fluffy starts having to explain that his handle came first and is not an homage to a crappy Eddie Murphy film.

[Tonio]

I'm just going to incif Sugar so I can remember him hale and hearty, not the tragic shell of his former self that he's become.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

LOL...I must admit I sort of enjoyed Norbit. There, I said it.

[GayLibertarian]

As Penn and Teller said: Life coaching is Bullshit.

[Rastus]

Simma down now!

[Johnny Longtorso]

Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary (1999)
Quote:

Chris Rock: Welcome to the show. Im out here because somebody had to
do it and I guess they felt I was the best guy for it. Saturday
Night Live, 25 years on the air and four funny. I mean who we
kidding? Come on, as I look around this room I see the star power,
the comedic genius, Im looking at some of the most overrated
people in the history of comedy. Some of the worst movies ever made
were made by people in this room. Thank God were going to do what
we all do best: television.

[ed]

Some of the worst movies ever made were made by people in this room

And one person in the room went on to become an actual senator.
Lame comedy, bad movies and federal power! Be afraid.

[John C. Randolph]

This is a spot-on portrayal of characters that I can't stand.

-jcr

[Alan Vanneman]

I hate to break this to you, Tim, but Cheri Oteri is a total neo-Keynesian. In fact, she used to fuck Hank Paulson. She thinks TARP is da bomb!

[The Art-P.O.G.]

She's a good performer, even if her politics are abhorrent.

[ed]

She's a TV comedian. The rest follows. It's a law of nature.

[John]

Damn she is kind of cute. There really is no justice in the world if a toad like Paulson is getting that piece of ass.

[Alan Vanneman]

Well, there is no justice, John, because I saw them on the Acela last week and they were all over each other. As for 30 Rock, as I say in my review, here
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/67/6730rock.php
you'll come for the irony, you'll stay for the tits.

[Wise Ass]

Cheri Oteri is a total neo-Keynesian

You'll come for the funny name-rhyme but stay for the discredited economics.

[John]

That is really a vision I didn't want in my head. I can't imagine having to actually witness it. I hope you got some therapy after that train trip. PTSD is serious.

[Iason]

Yeah, but Cheri Oteri is no Rachel Dratch, that's for sure.

[Chrispy]

Painfully unfunny. How did I not see "Tim Cavanaugh" and automatically skip this piece of crap?

[**]

cheri oteri = hilarious