When I was a kid, there was nothing funnier than SCTV. The Canadian comedy program — aka Second City Television — was around for six years and served as a launchpad for some pretty big careers: Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Harold Ramis and John Candy, to name a few. Sadly, we’ve started losing a few of them. Joe Flaherty (Count Floyd, Sammy Maudlin, Guy Caballero) died on April Fools Day last year. Tony Rosato passed away in 2017, Candy in 1994 and Ramis in 2014.
But my favourite cast member was the one who was the most musical: Rick Moranis. Amazingly, we haven’t seen him on screen for nearly 30 years. In 1997, he stepped away from his career to raise his two kids, having become a widower in 1991 when his wife Ann died of breast cancer. He decided making films and flying around the world was not a good way to be a single father to his twins, who were three years old when their mom died. Apart from a Bob & Doug McKenzie reunion, some voice work and a handful of appearances, their dad hasn’t appeared on screen since Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves in March 1997. His last TV appearance was as a guest on The Muppet Show reboot Muppets Tonight in September of that year. And that was it. Full-time dad. Thankfully, as he says, he discovered he didn’t miss the work.
These days he’s not officially retired, but is extremely picky about what he says yes to. For example, he turned down a Ghostbusters sequel, and even though he agreed to another Shrunk sequel, that project has been shelved indefinitely since the pandemic. These projects wouldn’t really get me pumped, however. For me, Moranis’s great talent was bringing musical parodies to the table — particularly on SCTV.
Moranis has been interested in music all his life. His first showbiz gig was as a Toronto DJ. He did live comedy in a duo with a former summer camp pal and some solo standup comedy as well. Guitar was a key part of his act. One bit was a cover of Boz Scaggs’ Lowdown, except sung to a repeated single note on guitar. Another gag involved Moranis calling for a volunteer from the audience. He’d pick someone tall, and start singing and playing Sounds Of Silence. After the first few lines, he’d turn to the volunteer, address them as “Art” and chastise them for not doing enough. He’d escalate this into a mock fight, then break up the band.
By the late ’70s, Moranis started making regular appearances on CBC radio and TV pilots before he was convinced to join SCTV for their third season in 1980 by his friend Dave Thomas, with whom he would soon develop The Hosers (Bob & Doug). He was the only member of that cast who didn’t come from The Second City stage troupe. He, Rosato and Robin Duke were recruited to replace the departing Candy, Ramis and O’Hara.
Much of his comedy on SCTV was music-related. Thomas used to do fake K-Tel commercials for mail-order records. One of them featured Moranis as Gordon Lightfoot singing “every song ever written.” They hired an Edmonton country group to record the bits of songs Moranis wanted to sing as Lightfoot.
He and Thomas teamed up again for a skit previewing a Liberace Christmas special which featured Thomas as Liberace and Moranis as a very convincing Elton John, having a piano battle.
I’m not sure if Elton or Lightfoot ever saw his sendups, but Doobie Brothers member and session vocalist extraordinaire Michael McDonald certainly did. Moranis had a regular feature on SCTV as the turtleneck-clad VJ Gerry Todd, who would play music videos or short features. One video showed Moranis as McDonald recording backing vocals for Christopher Cross. McDonald says he saw the bit on TV while he was on tour with The Doobie Brothers. He’d just got back to his hotel room to lie down after smoking some potent weed with bandmate Pat Simmons. He’d left the TV on, as was his habit, and the Moranis skit happened to be on.
“This guy looked really familiar,” recalls McDonald, of seeing Moranis dressed and made up as him and doing backing vocal takes in-studio on the track Ride Like The Wind. “I thought — I’m losing it. I’m having a hallucination. But as it played out, I realized it was SCTV and this was a skit. Thank God for that. It was hilarious.” Cross himself has shared the clip on his YouTube channel.
Also seen on Gerry Todd were occasional videos by Moranis’s lounge singer character Tom Monroe — including his interpretation of Turning Japanese by The Vapors.
Crooning was something Moranis did well, and was in a league of his own when it came to parodying Mel Torme singing the American national anthem to end SCTV‘s broadcast day.
SCTV fans will also recall Moranis as the terminally ill rock star Clay Collins on Days Of The Week, their recurring parody of soap opera Days Of Our Lives. Moranis, along with Levy, Flaherty, Thomas and Candy, also repeatedly parodied The Four Freshmen vocal group as The 5 Neat Guys. But instead of songs like Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring and It Never Occurred To Me, The 5 Neat Guys sang I’ve Got A Hickey On My Shoulder, She Does It, Nancy Has The Largest Breasts In Town and Who Made The Egg Salad Sandwiches?
Another memorable Moranis musical send-up was part of a bit where Thomas portrayed automotive executive Lee Iacocca, hosting his own version of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, called Lee A. Iacocca’s Rock Concert — during which he appealed for $1.5 million in government assistance while playing music clips. One featured performance was Ringo Starr (Moranis) performing Because I Know That You’ll Always Be True by Starr’s new band Rings. It demonstrates Moranis knows his way around a drum set a little bit.
Of course, Moranis’ most popular character on SCTV was Bob McKenzie. The Hosers became Canadian icons. This led to merchandise, and the classic Great White North album in 1981. The single from that album, Take Off, features Geddy Lee of Rush on vocals, who was an elementary schoolmate of Moranis. It got to No. 16 on the Billboard 100, higher than any Rush song. This was followed up by a feature film (Strange Brew, 1983) and soundtrack album which featured Thomas’s musician brother Ian performing the main theme. Flaherty’s Count Floyd character also had a breakout album, but it wasn’t anywhere near as popular as the McKenzie brothers — or even Candy and Levy’s Happy Wanderers, Yosh & Stan Schmenge. The polka entertainers from the fictional country of Leutonia became popular with fans. There was never a feature film, but a mockumentary called The Last Polka — based on The Band’s Last Waltz. In it, we learn about Linsk Minyak (Moranis) — a former member of The Happy Wanderers. Minyak does a medley which manages to include both Led Zeppelin and The Monkees — played left-handed on a right-handed guitar.
A favourite of mine was The Recess Monkeys, a teen-pop band featuring Moranis, Candy and Levy who occasionally turned up on Mel’s Rockpile, which was like Dance Fever meets Top Of The Pops. They also appeared in a telethon to support the SCTV show Pre-Teen World.
Post-SCTV, Moranis’ most high-profile music moment came when he starred as Seymour in the1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors. He also has three albums under his own name — You, Me, the Music And Me (1989), The Agoraphobic Cowboy (2005), and My Mother’s Brisket & Other Love Songs (2013).
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.