PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON, ABBY ELLIOTT

The comedy team of Bob and Ray made a career out of taking a magnifying glass to what was mundane and pathetic...and with subtle distortion...making it laughable human comedy.

THIS Maxim photo of Abby Elliott (grand-daughter of Bob Elliott, daughter of Chris Elliott) is not funny.

Mundane (a slightly pudgy blonde in her undies) yes. Pathetic (she could be an employee at a dollar-a-minute porn shop peep booth asking, "Did you come? Can I get you a kleenex?") yes. But funny? Sexy? A good career move? NO NO NO!

If you don't know who the fuck Abby Elliot is, that's because for four years she was on "Saturday Night Live" in the bullpen area with creatures named Vanessa Bayer and Naseem Pedrad. One did a good Myley Cyrus if you cared. Another did Zooey Deschanel. All three (or was it two and a guest star) could do Kardashians, or generic nasal porn stores and Valley Girl idiots. Whatever...most viewers were waiting for Kristen Wigg to wave a pair of Thalidomide arms with deformed fists in "edgy" sketches skewering Lawrence Welk. Or they were mourning the loss of Amy Poehler playing a one-legged piece of trailer trash or Tina Fey showing off the scar on her cheek while reading the fake news.

Variety actually ran an article wondering "What Killed Abby Elliott" as opposed to "How Posing for a Lad Mad Put the Final Nail in her Coffin."

It's sad that in the 21st Century, any woman has to still resort to the cheesy cheesecake photo shoot, the leaked porn video, the wardrobe malfunction, the hissy-fit Twitter-rant, or the other weary stunts that might get her some publicity.

First and foremost, after so many years, the cheesy cheesecake photo shoot is the oldest, tiredest and (if you have the wrong body and face) the most awkwardly humiliating ploy around.

I haven't seen Bob Elliott in years. He's moved up to Maine somewhere, and is about 95. Perhaps he's not been shown the embarrassing Maxim mess. Chris, who once speciaized in gruesome humor and was a favorite of David Letterman (to the point where the elusive Dave actually made a cameo in Chris's bomb "Cabin Boy") probably has enough film residual income to only humiliate himself when he thinks it's going to get his beloved mix of snickers and groans. Abby, only 26, got polite chuckles on SNL and lasted a while. Many cast members before her, such as Victoria Jackson, Chris Kattan or Horatio Sanz, went through the hourglass and ended up buried, no matter how big and ready for prime time they thought they were. This photo is career quicksand.

It seems to prove Hedy Lamarr wrong when she said looking sexy is easy, "All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." You can't look stupid and also awkward, neurotic, tentative, anxious and totally lacking in confidence. If you're known as a comic, and you're gonna pose in somebody else's underwear, at least play it for a gag and have people laughing with you not at you. That's how Chris Elliott would've done it.