Editing Christopher Guest (section)

=== 1970s ===
Guest began his career in theatre during the early 1970s with one of his earliest professional performances being the role of Norman in [[Michael Weller]]'s ''[[Moonchildren]]'' for the play's American premiere at the [[Arena Stage]] in Washington, DC, in November 1971. Guest continued with the production when it moved to [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1972. The following year, he began making contributions to ''[[The National Lampoon Radio Hour]]'' for a variety of National Lampoon audio recordings. He both performed comic characters (Flash Bazbo—Space Explorer, Mr. Rogers, music critic Roger de Swans, and sleazy record company rep Ron Fields) and wrote, arranged, and performed numerous musical parodies (of Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and others). He was featured alongside [[Chevy Chase]] and [[John Belushi]] in the [[off-Broadway]] revue ''[[National Lampoon's Lemmings]]''. Two of his earliest film roles were small parts as uniformed police officers in the 1972 film ''[[The Hot Rock (film)|The Hot Rock]]'' and 1974's ''[[Death Wish (1974 film)|Death Wish]]''.

Along with [[Bill Murray]], [[Brian Doyle-Murray]], and others Guest was one of the "Prime Time Players" on ''[[Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell]]''. This was the short-lived variety show that aired from September 20, 1975 to January 17, 1976, not to be confused with the long-running sketch show ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' that began airing a month later and lampooned the group by billing their own sketch comedy actors as "The Not Ready for Prime Time Players".

Guest played a small role in the 1977 ''[[All in the Family]]'' episode "[[List of All in the Family episodes#Season 8: 1977–1978|Mike and Gloria Meet]]", where in a [[flashback (narrative)|flashback]] sequence Mike and Gloria recall their first blind date, set up by Michael's college buddy Jim (Guest), who dated Gloria's girlfriend Debbie ([[Priscilla Lopez]]).

Guest also had a small but important role in ''[[It Happened One Christmas]]'', the 1977 gender-reversed TV remake of the Frank Capra classic ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]],'' starring [[Marlo Thomas]] as Mary Bailey (the Jimmy Stewart role), with [[Cloris Leachman]] as Mary's guardian angel and [[Orson Welles]] as the villainous Mr. Potter. Guest played Mary's brother Harry, who returned from the Army in the final scene, speaking one of the last lines of the film: "A toast! To my big sister Mary, the richest person in town!"