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Rick Moranis refuses to participate in GHOSTBUSTERS video game

July 6th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Rick Moranis as (clockwise) Skip Bittman, Gerry Todd, Linsk Menjuvic and Dick Cavett

Kudos to my old SCTV buddy Rick Moranis’ for having the integrity not to participate in the asinine video game restatement of Ghostbusters.

The game’s producer told Wired Magazines Das Gamer, “He made so much money off of Honey I Shrunk The Kids that he retired. He just doesn’t want to work anymore.” Well, that’s not 100% true. The five times this decade that he agreed to leave his house in search of gainful employment as an actor found him voicing cartoons.

Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson have agreed to re-team for the upcoming vidiocy. Moranis was not the only hold out. Sigourney Weaver also refused join in the game.

Moranis gained showbiz immortality for his sterling participation in 25 episodes of SCTV, still the funniest show television has yet to produce. He joined the show in its third season after it became apparent that Tony Rosato and Robin Duke weren’t clicking.

In Dave Thomas’ 1996 tome SCTV: Behind the Scenes, Moranis remarked, “I was the only guy ever to join the show from outside the little Second City world.” Moranis initially felt some resistance coming from Joe Flaherty’s corner. “I think he resented me because I hadn’t in his mind, paid my dues by coming up from the theatre. We never came to blows or anything, but if you look through the whole catalogue, there isn’t a lot of stuff that Joe and I did together.”

Catherine O\'Hara, Joe Flaherty, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, John Candy, Andrea Martin & Dave Thomas as The Beaver

Catherine O’Hara, Joe Flaherty, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, John Candy, Andrea Martin & Dave Thomas as The Beaver

Thomas met Moranis at a party where both took to the stage and jammed with the band. “He had a good reputation,” Thomas recalls, “and seemed sharp, smart and funny.” Prior to that fateful meeting, Moranis worked as a deejay in addition to working alongside John Candy on 90 Minutes Live, the Canadian answer to SNL.

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SCTV Cast Members Reunite for Charity Benefit in Toronto

May 2nd, 2008 by Scott Marks

sctv-logo.jpg

It’s been twenty-five years since SCTV left the airwaves and for many of us it remains the sharpest and funniest comedy show in the history of television.

Based on a fictional TV station located in the equally fictional Melonville, each week the show’s creators brought us a day’s worth of programming compacted into half-hour installments, later expanded to the SCTV Network 90 format. In Chicago, SCTV aired immediately following Saturday Night Live and not a week passed where comparisons weren’t invited. SCTV consistently won hands down.

Emulsion Compulsion loyalist Bushido John sent a note informing me of an SCTV reunion next week in Toronto that will bring together Joe Flaherty, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Martin Short and big shot Harold Ramis. After doing some of his finest work on the show, Ramis quit SCTV for a career in Hollywood. When last scene he was adding exceptional support to Knocked Up.

In an interview with the Canadian Press’ Lee-Anne Goodman spoke with Joe “Count Floyd” Flaherty about the series’ amazing following. “It’s tremendously uplifting and one of the greatest rewards, to hear your peers, and these really great comic minds, saying they look up to us,” the U.S.-born Joe Flaherty, 66, said Wednesday from his home in Toronto, where he’s lived since the early 1970s.

According to Flaherty, the gang will only have one rehearsal. “We’re doing some SCTV characters, we’re doing some stage stuff that we all did on stage at Second City, and we’re doing some improvisation. It should be interesting, that’s for sure, but the best thing is that it’s put us all in touch again.”

Links:

SCTV photos

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