Rick Moranis
Rick Moranis | |
---|---|
![]() Moranis in March 1990 at the 62nd Academy Awards | |
Born | Frederick Allan Moranis April 18, 1953 |
Occupation(s) | Actor, comedian, musician |
Years active | 1976–2006, 2008-present |
Spouse(s) | Ann Belsky Moranis (deceased, 1991) |
Website | rickmoranis.com |
Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is a retired Canadian/American actor. Moranis came to prominence around 1980 in the sketch comedy show Second City Television, and later appeared in several Hollywood films including Strange Brew, Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, Little Shop of Horrors, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Little Giants, Parenthood, The Flintstones and My Blue Heaven. He is the widower of Ann Belsky Moranis.
Early life and SCTV
Moranis was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Jewish parents. He went to high school at the Sir Sandford Fleming Secondary School. He went to elementary school with Geddy Lee, frontman of the rock band Rush.[1] His career as an entertainer began as a radio disc jockey in the mid-1970s, using the on-air name of "Rick Allan" at three Toronto radio stations.[1]
In 1980, Moranis was persuaded to join the third-season cast of Second City Television (SCTV) by friend and SCTV writer/performer Dave Thomas.[2] At the time, Moranis was the only cast member who had not come from a Second City stage troupe. He became famous for his impressions of Woody Allen, George Carlin and David Brinkley, among many others.
With SCTV moving to CBC in 1980 (and syndicated to the United States), Moranis and Thomas were challenged to fill two additional minutes with "identifiable Canadian content", and created a sketch called The Great White North featuring the characters Bob and Doug McKenzie. By the time NBC ordered 90-minute programs for the U.S. in 1981 (the fourth season of SCTV overall), there had been such positive feedback from affiliates on the McKenzies that the network requested that the duo have a sketch in every show.[3]
Bob and Doug became a pop culture phenomenon, which led to a top-selling Great White North album[4] and the 1983 movie Strange Brew, Moranis's first major film role.
Feature films
After his SCTV work and the Strange Brew movie, Moranis had a busy career in feature films that lasted over a decade, most notably Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels. He also did the voice-over for a short lived cartoon series on NBC called Gravedale High (1990).
In a 2004 interview, Moranis talked about the kinds of films he enjoyed the most:
On the last couple of movies I made—big-budget Hollywood movies—I really missed being able to create my own material. In the early movies I did, I was brought in to basically rewrite my stuff, whether it was Ghostbusters or Spaceballs. By the time I got to the point where I was "starring" in movies, and I had executives telling me what lines to say, that wasn't for me. I’m really not an actor. I'm a guy who comes out of comedy, and my impetus was always to rewrite the line to make it funnier, not to try to make somebody’s precious words work.[5]
Rick's last big-screen film roles were The Flintstones (1994) and the box-office flop Big Bully (1996). In the former, as Barney Rubble, Rick was barely visually recognizable because he had a blonde wig and never wore his trademark glasses. Although a successful comedy, the Flintstones film was a far departure from the sci-fi comic fare he was best known for. Other than the Honey... sequels, by the mid-90's his only appearance in that genre was a 1993 music video, Tomorrow's Girls by Donald Fagen, in which he played a man married to an extraterrestrial woman. Disney ended their Shrunk franchise in 1997 with the direct-to-video film Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, in which Rick was the last remaining original cast member. He worked for Disney twice more (with his fellow SCTV alumnus Dave Thomas), voicing a moose in the 2002 animated film Brother Bear and its direct-to-video sequel.
Retirement
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Rick_Moranis_handprints.jpg/250px-Rick_Moranis_handprints.jpg)
Rick officially left the film industry in 1997, six years after the 1991 loss of his wife, Ann, to breast cancer which had metastasized to her liver. He later explained that he began to "pull out" of making movies in about '96 or '97. "I'm a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the travelling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it."[6]
As of 2004[update], Moranis was on the Advisory Committee for the comedy program at Humber College.[citation needed]
In 2005, Moranis released an album titled The Agoraphobic Cowboy, featuring country songs with lyrics which Moranis says follow in the comic tradition of songwriters/singers such as Roger Miller, Kinky Friedman, and Jim Stafford. The album was produced by Tony Scherr, and is distributed through ArtistShare, as well as Moranis's official web site. Commenting on the origins of the songs, he said that in 2003, "Out of the blue, I just wrote a bunch of songs. For lack of a better explanation, they’re more country than anything. And I actually demoed four or five of them, and I'm not sure at this point what I’m going to do with them—whether I’m going to fold them into a full-length video or a movie. But, boy, I had a good time doing that."[5]
On December 8, 2005, The Agoraphobic Cowboy was announced as a nominee for the 2006 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. (A 1989 album by Moranis was entitled You, Me, The Music, and Me). On February 3, 2006, Moranis performed "Press Pound" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and discussed the development of his music career.
In November 2007, Moranis reunited with Dave Thomas for a 24th anniversary special of Bob and Doug McKenzie, titled Bob and Doug McKenzie's 2-4 Anniversary. The duo shot new footage for this special. Thomas subsequently created a new animated Bob and Doug McKenzie series, Bob & Doug, for his company Animax Entertainment. Moranis declined to voice the role of Bob, which was taken over by Dave Coulier, but remained involved in the series as an executive producer.[7]
On June 24, 2008, Moranis declined to come out of retirement to join the other cast members of Ghostbusters in the production of a new video game based on the films.[8] The following year, Ghostbusters' Harold Ramis told Entertainment Weekly of a proposed Ghostbusters 3 that, "Everybody said they'd do it".[9] But Ramis later stated to Student Life, "Rick won’t do it. Rick has retired from show business. But everyone else says they’ll do it."[10] In January 2010, a Moviefone columnist suggested, without attribution, that Moranis may come out of retirement to reprise his role as Louis Tully.[11] Now, he can be heard on the YTV animated series Sidekick doing minor voice rolls.
Discography
Albums
- The Great White North (1981)
- Strange Brew Soundtrack (1983)
- You, Me, the Music and Me (1989)
- The Agoraphobic Cowboy (2005)
Filmography
Film actor
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1983 | The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew | Bob McKenzie | also writer and director |
1984 | The Wild Life | Harry | |
Ghostbusters | Louis Tully | ||
Streets of Fire | Billy Fish | ||
Hockey Night | Coach | ||
1985 | Brewster's Millions | Morty King | |
Head Office | Howard Gross | ||
1986 | Little Shop of Horrors | Seymour Krelborn | |
Club Paradise | Barry Nye | ||
1987 | Spaceballs | Lord Dark Helmet | |
1989 | Ghostbusters II | Louis Tully | |
Parenthood | Nathan Huffner | American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture | |
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids | Wayne Szalinski | ||
1990 | My Blue Heaven | Barney Coopersmith | |
1991 | L.A. Story | Gravedigger | uncredited |
1992 | Honey, I Blew Up the Kid | Wayne Szalinski | |
1993 | Splitting Heirs | Henry Bullock | |
1994 | Little Giants | Danny O'Shea | |
The Flintstones | Barney Rubble | ||
Honey, I Shrunk the Audience! | Wayne Szalinski | ||
1996 | Big Bully | David Leary | |
1997 | Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves | Wayne Szalinski | |
2001 | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys | The Toy Taker Mr. Cuddles the Teddy Bear |
Voice only |
2003 | Brother Bear | Rutt | Voice only |
2006 | Brother Bear 2 | Voice only |
Television actor
Year | Television | Role | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1980–1981 | Second City TV | Bob MacKenzie Rabbi Karlov Various |
Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program (3) | |
1981–1982 | SCTV Network 90 | Bob McKenzie Various |
||
1983 | Saturday Night Live | Bob McKenzie | Episode: "Lily Tomlin" | |
1984 | Hockey Night | Coach | Episode: "Crackers" | |
1989 | The Rocket Boy | Automatic Safety System | ||
1990 | Gravedale High | Max Schneider | ||
1997 | Muppets Tonight | Himself | Guest star | |
2003 | The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie | Bob McKenzie (voice) | Planned series; changed into Bob & Doug | Sidekick | Golly Gee Kid, Aditional voices |
Writer
Year | Film/Television | Notes |
---|---|---|
1980–1981 | Second City TV | 26 episodes |
1981–1982 | SCTV Network 90 | 27 episodes |
1983 | The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew | |
2009 | Bob & Doug | 9 episodes; also creator |
Film Soundtrack
Year | Artist/Writer | Song | Film | Role |
---|---|---|---|---|
1986 | Howard Ashman & Alan Menken | "Skid Row Downtown" "Da-Doo" "Grow For Me" "Feed Me Git It" "Suddenly, Seymour" "The Meek Shall Inherit" |
Little Shop of Horrors | Seymour Krelborn |
1997 | Various artists | "High Hopes" "Salute to the late fifties crooners, obscure British bands and Bill Withers" |
Muppets Tonight | Himself |
Awards and Nominations
Year | Award | Category | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1981 | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program | Won |
1982 | Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program (3) | Nominated | |
1990 | American Comedy Award | Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture | Won |
1995 | Earle Grey Award | Best Cast | Won |
2006 | Grammy Award | Best Comedy Album[12] | Nominated |
Audio/Video
- Rock Radio Scrapbook 1973, with a RealAudio clip of Rick Allen from June 1973
References
- ^ a b Rick Moranis bio at Yuddy.com
- ^ SCTV Guide
- ^ Plume, Kenneth. "Interview with Dave Thomas (Part 1 of 5)" at movies.img.com, February 10, 2000.
- ^ Hanna, Erin. "Second City or Second Country?" Article at cineaction.ca, 2009. [1]
- ^ a b Mettler, Mike. "An Hour with SCTV's Rick Moranis - Web Exclusive, eh: The popular Canadian comedian welcomes SCTV to DVD", Sound & Vision, August 2004
- ^ "Rick Moranis: From 'Spaceballs' to country 'Cowboy'", USA Today, October 13, 2005, no byline
- ^ Rob Salem, "Bob & Doug taking off again". Toronto Star, April 19, 2009.
- ^ Kohler, Chris. "Retired Rick Moranis Won't Do Ghostbusters Game". Wired.com., June 24, 2008
- ^ Schwartz, Missy. "Ghostbusters III: Harold Ramis offers details, says original cast will be back", Entertainment Weekly online, April 3, 2009
- ^ Steph Spera. "Q&A with Harold Ramis".
- ^ Hall (January 13, 2010). "Ivan Reitman to Direct 'Ghostbusters 3'!". "Cinematical" (column), Moviefone.
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External links
![]() | This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (October 2012) |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- rickmoranis.com
- Rick Moranis at IMDb
- Moranis ArtistShare projects
- Rick Moranis, Singing 'Cowboy', a December 2005 story from Weekend Edition
- OpEd Piece by Moranis from the NY Times website
- Rick Moranis Interview Proton Charging May 27, 2006
- Wikipedia external links cleanup from October 2012
- 1953 births
- Canadian film actors
- Canadian radio personalities
- Canadian television comedians
- Jewish Canadian actors
- Jewish comedians
- Emmy Award winners
- Living people
- People from North York
- Second City alumni
- Actors from Toronto
- Canadian comedians
- 20th-century actors
- 21st-century actors