Rick Moranis

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Rick Moranis

Rick Moranis at the 62nd Academy Awards. Photo by Alan Light.
Born Frederick Alan Moranis
April 18, 1953 (1953-04-18) (age 55)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation actor, comedian, musician

Frederick Alan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is a Canadian actor, comedian and musician best 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. He is known in the movie business as "Slick Rick," due to his ability to play the lovable dork to perfection in every movie.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Moranis was born Frederick Alan Moranis 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, located in Baysville, Ontario, north of his native Toronto. During his last summer as a camper, Moranis achieved his Master Canoeist's award, qualifying him to teach canoeing. He is widowed, since his wife Anne Moranis died in February 1991. He has two children from their marriage.[citation needed]

[edit] SCTV

Main article: Second City Television

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.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] SCTV impressions

[edit] Feature

The handprints of Rick Moranis in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.
The handprints of Rick Moranis in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

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. ”
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

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.

[edit] 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 backing 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.

[edit] External links