Cabin Man

Alas, as Robert Downey Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus tells Stiller's Tugg Speedman in Tropic Thunder, "Everybody knows you never go full retard," and though Cabin Boy was not a disaster of Elliott's own making, when it died at the box office, he was punished for it. Elliott had simply done what he has always done, let his freak flag fly, but this time, the press and the public treated him as if he were an actual idiot and not just playing one.

As it turns out, he was merely ahead of his time. Lately, we have been up to our ass cheeks in idiots — from the clueless Dunder Mifflin boss that Steve Carell plays in The Office to the disaster-prone man-children that Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly portray in Step Brothers to the self-absorbed and seriously deluded Hollywood types that populate Tropic Thunder. They can be hilarious, but in the end, they never go full retard, and that's why they're box-office stars and Chris Elliott is a comic genius.

ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel says that along with Bill Murray and Fred Willard, Elliott is one of "maybe five people who make me laugh just by looking at them. His character is so odd that he doesn't even really have to do anything to be funny," he explains, and "any moment of earnestness is funny because you know that there's not a bit of genuineness about it."

"He's a genius. Honest to God, he's a genius," says Justin Stangel, who along with his brother Eric head the writing staff of CBS's Late Show With David Letterman, on which Elliott still frequently appears. "It's all in his delivery. Everything is really silly and stupid in a good way," even if, he adds, "It's bordering on bizarre sometimes."

"There's a certain ugliness that he'll sort of beat the viewer over the head with," says Eric Stangel.

Elliott is not only, according to the Stangels, an original voice — his skills are much in need. Reality television has produced a bumper crop of real, live idiots, and whether Elliott is playing "fannyfan2000" a creepy talk-show guest with nothing to plug (but a bag full of condoms, a wet suit and a Conan O'Brien mug) — on last year's Kimmel-produced spoof of "To Catch a Predator"; or "Bedlam," star of the American Gladiators-style ripoff "El American Conqu — EEES-tadors" on Late Show, he deserves both our revulsion and our love.

• Watch Elliott's spoof of "To Catch a Predator" from Jimmy Kimmel Live!