One Year Ago Today: The Phil Morris/Jackie Chiles Interview

Today is an anniversary of sorts.  One year ago today, on December 6, 2010, we published what was to be a ground breaking, at least for us, interview with the actor who played one of pop culture’s most flamboyant attorneys, Jackie Chiles, the television lawyer from “Seinfeld.”  The character, now infamous, was played by actor Phil Morris.

Last year, he was kind enough to agree to an interview. Needless to say, we were overjoyed.

It took some doing.  We spent six months courting his agents and representatives to arrange the interview.  As fate would have it, Morris was reviving the “Seinfeld” character for a series of Internet videos on Funnyordie.com. Accordingly,  he was looking to promote himself on Internet websites and blogs.  We are sure glad he was. It was a perfect storm.

That success emboldened us a bit, and throughout 2011, we sought out additional interviews with pop culture figures.  In January, we ran an interview with Michael Sardo, the executive producer and creator of the USA television series “Fairly Legal.”  In March, we ran an interview with the writers and creators of the 1991 film Class Action.  We even interviewed Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer, the two leads from the TNT program “Franklin & Bash,” although for that one, we must confess we were part of a larger press conference call rather than a one-on-one interview.

Spoiler Alert: We have some big things in store for you in 2012.

But it all started with Morris.  We even asked him about one of our favorite topics, the McDonald’s hot coffee case:

AU: What about people filing these lawsuits for burning themselves on hot coffee?

MORRIS: Well, we’re so litigious in this society, too much. It’s way beyond the pale. So that’s where I kinda jump off from Jackie. I certainly wouldn’t put stock in a lot of that stuff. I think, it’s just, we’ve gotten away with way too much here in the United States in terms of the legal ramifications of everything. I think, again like I said, beyond the pale. Jackie is an opportunist. So anything like that is manna for him. But personally, I think we’re really hurting ourselves and shooting ourselves in the foot. Not only are we giving our legal system a bad name, but we’re abusing it! We’re misusing those bits of legal power that we have – we’re fortunate enough to have in this country. It kind of drives me crazy.

So, if you would, take a look back at our fateful interview with Phil Morris from one year ago today.

(And while you’re at it, check out this brand new interview Morris gave to The Onion AV Club just last week!)