Rick Moranis

Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis (/məˈrænɪs/; born April 18, 1954) is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, musician, and songwriter. He is currently on
film acting hiatus. He came to prominence in the sketch comedy series Second City Television (SCTV) in the 1980s and later appeared in several Hollywood films, 
including Strange Brew (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), Club Paradise (1986), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Spaceballs (1987), Ghostbusters II (1989), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989, and its 1992 and 1997 sequels), Parenthood (1989), My Blue Heaven (1990), and The Flintstones (1994).
In 1997, Moranis began a long hiatus from acting to dedicate his time to his 2 children as a widowed father.[3] He has not appeared in a live-action film since, although he has provided voice-over work for a few animated films, notably Disney's Brother Bear (2003). He has also released comedy albums and made appearances at fan conventions.
== Early life ==
Moranis was born in Toronto, Ontario, to a Jewish family.[4] He went to elementary school with Geddy Lee, frontman of the rock band Rush.[5]
== Career ==
His career as an entertainer began as a radio disc jockey in the mid-1970s, using the on-air name "Rick Allan" at three Toronto radio stations.[5]
In 1977 he teamed up with Winnipeg-born writer/director and performer Ken Finkleman on a series of live performances on CBC's 90 Minutes Live; comedy radio specials; and television comedy pilots, including one called Midweek and another called 1980 (produced at CBC Toronto in 1979). Both pilots starred Finkleman and Moranis in a series of irreverent sketches including an early mockumentary sketch featuring Moranis as a Canadian movie producer, and another featuring the dubbed-in voiceovers of Nazi war criminals as they appear to be discussing their Hollywood agents and the money one can earn being interviewed on major documentary series like The World At War.
In 1980, Moranis was persuaded to join the third-season cast of Second City Television (SCTV) by friend and SCTV writer/performer Dave Thomas.[6] At the time, Moranis was the only cast member not to have come from a Second City stage troupe. He is known for such impressions as Woody Allen, Merv Griffin and David Brinkley.
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, a couple of Canadian buffoons. By the time NBC ordered 90-minute programs for the U.S. in 1981 (the fourth season of SCTV overall), there had been such favorable feedback from affiliates on the McKenzies that the network requested the duo have a sketch in every show.[7]
Bob and Doug became a pop-culture phenomenon, which led to a top-selling and Grammy nominated album, Great White North,[8] and the 1983 movie Strange Brew, Moranis' first major film role.
Another notable Moranis character on SCTV was Gerry Todd, a disc jockey who presented music clips on television. The sketch aired before the debut of MTV in the United States, leading both Sound & Vision and Martin Short to dub Moranis as the creator of the video jockey. "There had been no such thing" up until that point, recalled Short, so "the joke was that there would be such a thing."[9][10]
=== 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; Little Shop of Horrors; and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels. He also did the voice-over for a short-lived cartoon series on NBCcalled Gravedale High (1990).
In a 2004 interview, Moranis talked about his favorite kinds of films:
Moranis' last film roles were Barney Rubble in The Flintstones (1994) and the box-office flop Big Bully (1996). Other than the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequels, by the mid-1990s 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's final film in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise is 1997's direct-to-video film Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, in which Moranis is the final remaining original cast member. The series Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show also launched in 1997 but without Moranis, then concluding in 2000. He worked for Disney twice more (with his fellow SCTV alumnus Dave Thomas), voicing Rutt the moose in the 2003 animated film Brother Bear and its direct-to-video sequel.
Moranis was also slated to appear in The Breakfast Club, but was released by John Hughes because his interpretation of the role was not what Hughes was looking for.[12]
In 2000, Moranis received his first film credit since 1997 when he provided voice work in the animated film, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys. In 2003, he provided his voice to the animated film Brother Bear.
As of 2004, Moranis was on the Advisory Committee for the comedy program at Humber College.[13]
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."[11]
On December 8, 2005, The Agoraphobic Cowboy was announced as a nominee for the 2006 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. On February 3, 2006, Moranis performed "Press Pound" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and discussed the development of his music career.
In 2006, Moranis reprised his role in the animated film Brother Bear 2.
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.[14]
In May 2013, Moranis announced that he would release a brand new comedy album titled My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs, his first album in eight years. The album was released on June 18, 2013.[15] Moranis said of the release "When I first began writing jokes and sketches with various Jewish partners one of us would inevitably stop at some point and announce, "Too Jewish!" Too Jewish for the star, the show, the network, or the audience. The songs on this album are all in that category. I grew up hearing the Allan Sherman and the You Don't Have To Be Jewish albums in the '60s. Now I am in my 60s."[16]
In June 2013, Moranis gave an interview where he talked about reprising his role as Louis Tully in a third Ghostbusters film and his disappointment with the sequel. Moranis said "I haven't talked to Dan Aykroyd about it. Somebody he's associated with called me and I said, 'I wouldn't not do it, but it's got to be good.' You know, I'm not interested in doing anything I've already done, and I thought the second one was a disappointment. But I guess I'm interested in where that guy is now. I sort of see him as being Bernie Madoff's cellmate in jail. Both of them being so orderly that they race to get up and make their beds."[17] In 2015, regarding an offer for a brief appearance in the film, he concluded: "[Ghostbusters] didn't appeal to me. ... I wish them well. ... I hope it's terrific. But it just makes no sense to me. Why would I do just one day of shooting on something I did 30 years ago?"[3]
=== Acting hiatus ===
In 1997, Moranis took a hiatus from working in the film industry. He later explained: "I'm a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage to raise my kids and to do 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."[18] After having declined an invitation to make a cameo appearance in 2016's Ghostbusters reboot, Moranis clarified in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he had not, in fact, retired from film acting due to his hiatus, but instead had become selective about future roles.[1]
In July 2017, Moranis and Dave Thomas reprised their Bob & Doug characters at a benefit concert in Toronto. Proceeds from the benefit will go toward caring for Jake Thomas, Dave Thomas' nephew, who suffered a spinal cord injury that has left him paralyzed from the waist down.[19]
In May 2018, Moranis was announced to return as the character Dark Helmet in an episode of The Goldbergs albeit as a voice.[20]
Also announced in May 2018, Moranis will join the Martin Scorsese directed Second City TV (SCTV) reunion documentary premiering on Netflix in 2019.[21]
== Personal life ==
Moranis married costume designer Ann Belsky in 1986; together they had two children, Rachel and Mitchell. Belsky died of cancer in February 1991. Moranis then slowly left public life to become a full-time single father.[2][1]
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes 	1983 	Strange Brew	Bob McKenzie	Also co-writer and co-director
1984 	Streets of Fire 	Billy Fish 	 	 	 	 	
1984 	Ghostbusters 	Louis Tully 	 	 	 	 	
1984 	The Wild Life 	Harry 	 	 	 	 	
1985 	Brewster's Millions 	Morty King 	 	 	 	 	
1985 	Head Office 	Howard Gross 	 	 	 	 	
‘’The Adventures Of South Park’’ 	Gamer Kid 	 	 	 	 	 	
1986 	Club Paradise 	Barry Nye 	 	 	 	 	
1986 	Little Shop of Horrors 	Seymour Krelborn 	 	 	 	 	
1987 	Spaceballs 	Lord Dark Helmet 	 	 	 	 	
1989 	Ghostbusters II 	Louis Tully 	 	 	 	 	
1989 	Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 	Wayne Szalinski 	 	 	 	 	
1989 	Parenthood 	Nathan Huffner 	 	 	 	 	
1990 	My Blue Heaven 	Barney Coopersmith	 	 	 	 	
1991 	L.A. Story 	Gravedigger 	Uncredited cameo[22]	 	 	 	
1992 	Honey, I Blew Up the Kid 	Wayne Szalinski 	 	 	 	 	
‘’The Adventures Of South Park 2: Don’t Blow Up Kyle’’	Gamer Kid 	 	 	 	 	 	
1993 	Splitting Heirs 	Henry Bullock 	 	 	 	 	
1994 	The Flintstones 	Barney Rubble 	 	 	 	 	
1994 	Little Giants 	Danny O'Shea 	 	 	 	 	
1996 	Big Bully 	David Leary 	 	 	 	 	
1997 	Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves 	Wayne Szalinski 	Direct-to-video 	 	 	 	
1999 	‘’The Adventures Of South Park 3: The Shrink Our Families’’	Gamer Kid 	 	 	 	 	
2001 	‘’The Adventures Of South Park 	Gamer Kid 	
 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys	The Toy Taker / Mr. Cuddles	Voices
 Direct-to-DVD	 	
2003 	Brother Bear 	Rutt 	Voice 	 	 	 	
2006 	“The Adventures Of South Park 2: The Monster House” 	Gamer Kid 	
 Brother Bear 2 	Rutt 	Voice
 Direct-to-DVD	 	
2012 	“The Adventures Of South Park 3: The Rock Of Ages” 	Gamer Kid 	 	 	 	 	
2016 	“The Adventures Of South Park 4: Business Officers” 	Gamer Kid 	 	 	 	 	
2018 	“The Adventures Of South Park 5: The Dragon Warrior” 	Gamer Kid 	 	 	 	 	
=== Television ===
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes 	1980–1981	SCTV	Various roles	25 episodes; also writer
1981–1982 	SCTV Network 	Various roles 	26 episodes; also writer 	 	 	 	
1982 	Twilight Theater 	 	Television film 	 	 	 	
1983, 1989 	Saturday Night Live 	Himself (host) 	2 episodes 	 	 	 	
1984 	Hockey Night 	Coach 	Television film 	 	 	 	
1985 	The Last Polka 	Linsk Minyk 	Television film 	 	 	 	
1989 	The Rocket Boy 	Automatic Safety System 	Television film 	 	 	 	
1990 	Gravedale High 	Max Schneider 	Voice
13 episodes 	 	 	 	
1990–present	‘’The Adventures Of South Park’’ 	Gamer Kid 	Voice
934 episodes 	 	 	 	
1990 	The Earth Day Special 	Vic's Buddy 	Television special 	 	 	 	
2003 	Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids 	Holley 	Voice
Television special 	 	 	 	
2007 	Bob & Doug McKenzie's Two-Four Anniversary	Bob McKenzie 	Television special 	 	 	 	
2009 	Bob & Doug 	 	Co-creator and executive producer	 	 	 	
2018 	The Goldbergs 	Lord Dark Helmet (voice)	Voice
1 episode 	 	 	 	
2019 	An Afternoon with SCTV 	Himself 	Television special[23] 	 	 	 	
== Awards and nominations ==
Year	Association 	Category 	Work 	Result
1982	Primetime Emmy Awards 	Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program	SCTV (shared with other writers)	Won
1990	American Comedy Awards	Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture 	Parenthood 	Won
1995	Gemini Awards 	Earle Grey Award for Best Cast 	SCTV 	Won
2006	Grammy Awards 	Best Comedy Album[25] 	The Agoraphobic Cowboy 	Nominated
Category:1953 birthsCategory:Canadian people of Austrian-Jewish descentCategory:Canadian people of British-Jewish descentCategory:Canadian people of Dutch-Jewish descentCategory:Canadian people of English descentCategory:Canadian people of French descentCategory:Canadian people of German descentCategory:Canadian people of Irish descentCategory:Canadian people of Northern Ireland descentCategory:Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descentCategory:Canadian people of Russian-Jewish descentCategory:Canadian people of Scottish descentCategory:Male actors from TorontoCategory:Jewish Canadian comedians
Category:Jewish Canadian male actorsCategory:Living people
Category:Actors
Category:Voice actors
Category:1950s births