Rick Moranis
Rick Moranis | |
|---|---|
 Moranis at the 62nd Academy Awards, 1990; photo by Alan Light | |
| Born | Frederick Alan Moranis |
| Occupation(s) | actor, comedian, musician |
| Years active | 1976 - Present |
Frederick Alan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is a retired Canadian actor, comedian and musician, known for his comedy work on SCTV and appeared in several Hollywood films including Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Spaceballs, Parenthood and My Blue Heaven.[1]
Biography
Early life
Moranis was born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario. In the 1970s, he worked (using the stage name Rick Allen) as a disc jockey at various radio stations in Toronto, including CFTR, CKFH, and CHUM-FM. Together with Ken Finkleman, he tried his hand at stand-up and did some comedy for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As a boy, he spent his summers at Camp New Moon in Baysville, Ontario, north of Toronto. During his last summer as a camper, Moranis achieved his Master Canoeist's award, qualifying him to teach canoeing.
SCTV
He followed that with his work at SCTV, enjoying particular success portraying "Bob" of Bob and Doug McKenzie. Doug was played by Canadian actor Dave Thomas.
His other memorable SCTV characterizations include motor-mouthed film producer Larry Siegel, terminally-ill rock star Clay Collins, smooth-voiced video deejay Gerry Todd, cool Leutonian pop star Linsk Minyk, kid-brother amateur comic Skip Bittman, head cheese butcher Carl Scutz, and morning homily intellect Rabbi Karlov.
Feature films
he'll also star in the film in which he gets blown to a million pieces. They'll be Rick Moranis shit everywhere!
After his SCTV work, Moranis had a busy film career that lasted over a decade. In an August 2004 interview with Sound & Vision magazine, 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.
He starred in the music video for Donald Fagen's 1993 song "Tomorrow's Girls" from the album Kamakiriad and in the "Making of Kamakiriad" documentary. As a fan of Fagen's previous album The Nightfly, Moranis said in the documentary that he ran into Fagen in New York City, Fagen offered him an advanced copy of his album which Moranis insisted that he'd wait for. Later, Fagen offered him the part in his music video.
Recent activities
As of 2004, Moranis was on the Advisory Committee for the comedy program at Humber College, the only such diploma program in the world.
In an October 2005 interview in USA Today, Moranis talked about getting away from the movie business:
"I pulled out of making movies in about '96 or '97. I'm a single parent (Moranis' wife died in 1991 of liver cancer), and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling 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."
In 2005, Moranis released an album entitled The Agoraphobic Cowboy, featuring country songs with lyrics which Moranis says follow in the comic tradition of songwriters/singers such as Roger Miller and Jim Stafford. The album was produced by Tony Scherr, and is distributed through ArtistShare, as well as Moranis' official Web site. In the Sound & Vision interview done before he decided to release the album, he commented on the origins of some of the songs:
About a year ago (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.
On December 8, 2005, The Agoraphobic Cowboy was announced as a nominee for the 2006 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. (A previous album by Moranis was entitled You, Me, The Music, and Me (1989). On February 3, 2006, Moranis performed Press Pound on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and discussed the development of his music career.
Filmography
SCTV impressions
Films
| Year | Title | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Strange Brew | Bob McKenzie | |
| 1984 | Hockey Night | Coach | |
| The Wild Life | Harry | ||
| Ghostbusters | Louis Tully | ||
| Streets of Fire | Billy Fish | ||
| 1985 | Brewster's Millions | Morty King | |
| 1986 | Little Shop of Horrors | Seymour Krelborn | |
| Head Office | Howard Gross | ||
| Club Paradise | Barry Nye | ||
| 1987 | Spaceballs | Lord Dark Helmet | |
| 1989 | The Rocket Boy | Automatic Safety System | |
| Ghostbusters II | Louis Tully | ||
| Parenthood | Nathan Huffner | ||
| Honey, I Shrunk the Kids | Wayne Szalinkski | ||
| 1990 | My Blue Heaven | Barney Coopersmith | |
| 1991 | L.A. Story | Gravedigger | uncredited |
| 1992 | Honey, I Blew Up the Kid | Wayne Szalinkski | |
| 1993 | Splitting Heirs | Henry Bullock | |
| 1994 | Little Giants | Danny O'Shea | |
| The Flintstones | Barney Rubble | ||
| Honey, I Shrunk the Audience | Wayne Szalinkski | ||
| 1996 | Big Bully | David Leary | |
| 1997 | Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves | Wayne Szalinkski | |
| 2001 | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & The Island of Misfit Toys | The Toy Taker / Mr. Cuddles the Teddy Bear | voice |
| 2003 | Brother Bear | Rutt | voice |
| 2006 | Brother Bear 2 | Rutt | voice |
References
External links
- Rick Moranis at IMDb
- Rick Moranis at the Notable Names Database
- His ArtistShare projects
- Rick Moranis, Singing 'Cowboy', a December 2005 story from Weekend Edition
- Rock Radio Scrapbook 1973, with a RealAudio clip of Rick Allen from June 1973
- Review of The Agoraphobic Cowboy from the Country Music Television website
- An Hour with SCTV's Rick Moranis, an August 2004 interview with Sound & Vision magazine
- October 2005 Interview with Moranis from the USA Today website
- OpEd Piece by Moranis from the NY Times website
- Rick Moranis Radio Interview with Chris Comer & Rob Ervin April 18, 2006
- Rick Moranis Interview Proton Charging May 27, 2006
- Top 10 Rick Moranis Flicks from The Film Fiend
- Rick Moranis Fan Page