Episode 15. John Belushi

Title: SNL Hall of Fame: Celebrating the Life and Laughs of John Belushi

Introduction:

Join us as we take an unforgettable journey through the life and career of legendary comedian John Belushi. With our insightful guest, Justin Renwick, we explore Belushi's early beginnings, his rise to fame with Second City and the National Lampoon, and his undeniable charisma that made him one of the most iconic comedians of all time.

Chapters:

- (0:00:08) SNL Hall of Fame Podcast: Introduction and overview of the episode, including John Belushi's early beginnings and his rise to fame.

- (0:12:44) John Belushi's Career and Charisma: Exploring Belushi's journey to Second City, his success with the National Lampoon, and his charismatic stage presence.

- (0:17:12) The Brilliance of John Belushi: Examining Belushi's confidence, his ability to immerse himself in characters, and his incredible comedic timing.

- (0:24:37) Belushi's Impact on SNL and Comedy: Reflecting on Belushi's unforgettable performances, including his iconic Samurai character and the chemistry he shared with fellow castmates.

- (0:34:24) Remembering John Belushi's SNL Sketches: Diving into Belushi's memorable sketches, his impersonations, and the impact of his comedic skills.

- (0:46:42) John Belushi's Legacy: Discussing Belushi's influence on future comedians and whether he is the greatest SNL actor of all time.

Keywords:

- John Belushi

- SNL

- Second City

- National Lampoon

- Comedy

- Chevy Chase

- Samurai character

- Animal House

Transcript

0:00:08 - Announcer

It's the SNL Hall of Fame podcast with your host, jamie Dube, chief Librarian Thomas Senna, and featuring Matt Bardille And now Curator of the Hall, jamie Dube. 

0:00:42 - jD

All right, thank you so much, doug Denats. It's JD here, and welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. It's a weekly affair where each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest or writer and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Once the nominees have all been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity inside these hallowed halls. You won in and I can let you in, but not until you wipe your goddamn feet. That's right. Wipe your feet at the door, you filthy animal. How are you doing today? I am, i'm actually really great. Thanks for asking. We've got a barn burner of a show today. It is Justin Renwick joining Thomas Senna in conversation about the very intriguing John Belushi. This should be a good one. I can tell you that the conversations I've had on Reddit, this is probably the most anticipated episode of the season, based on feedback that I've been getting about who we haven't seen nominated in the hall. 

Now, in case you're curious the way things work, we work together with a committee and choose who will be nominated each year from a pool based on the parameters that have been outlined by the SNL Hall of Fame. Once those selections are made, we sort of piece them together and produce a podcast and we make that show and we put them out every week and you get to listen And that's great. But the real key here is the voting, and the voting is coming up real soon. In fact, next week we are nominating Amy Poehler on the show and then Tuesday, the 23rd of May, voting will begin and it will run through to June 17th. So you will have from May 23rd to June 17th to cast your votes, to cast 15 votes, 15 votes up to 15 votes, i should say, for the SNL Hall of Fame. It's exciting. After Amy Poehler we'll do a few roundtables and then we'll do the reveal, and the reveal is quite exciting. 

I'm really curious to see if any of our legacy holdovers make it this year. There's Dave Grohl is really close. Lonely Island is super close and Lonely Island should be on. It should have been, you know, a first ballot Hall of Famer as far as I'm concerned, but I don't control the vote. So there's that If you're looking to register to vote, what you want to do is you want to go to SNLHofcom and click on the voting tab and click register to vote. You can do that right there and you will get a ballot on the 23rd emailed to you and Bob's, your uncle, from there. So there's that. Let's go over and talk to our friend Matt in his minutiae minute corner and learn a little bit more about Mr John Belushi. Oh, matthew, hey, hi, jimmy, how are you doing? 

0:04:21 - Matt

I'm great. How about you, matt? I'm good. Thanks, i'm good. 

Really excited to talk about one of the classic cast members here today, john Belushi, the one and only five. Five foot eight, born January 24th 1949. He credit his grandmother, his Albanian grandmother, for getting him into show business. She didn't understand English, so she would have him act things out for her which made her laugh, and thus a career was born. He actually had very humble beginnings in the start of his career, which was as a youth instructor at a theater camp, the Shawnee Summer Theater of Green County. But from there he went on to become a member of the West Compass Trio, second city in the National Lampoon Lemmings. Prior to joining SNL, he attended the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, which is where he actually got the college shirt, as seen in Animal House. There's a gift shop there in an area known as the Strip, which is still operating today if you wanted to go and get one for yourself. So while living in New York, he was next door neighbor to SNL fixture Elliot Gould, who we've talked about in the past. 

He is a huge nerd, or he was a huge nerd. He was a fan of many things, from Lucille Ball, whose entire career he committed to memory And this is something that actually seems to come up a bit. He had a razor sharp memory. He was also a Star Trek fan and with Kirk in particular, to the point Shatner said he preferred Belushi's take on Kirk And he was a big Marvel fan. On one visit to their offices in New York He could summarize any specific issue. Just by looking at the cover. He could people say, well, that's this one. He's like oh, this is the issue where Spider-Man is fighting the Green Goblin and so on and so dies, which must have made him really happy when he and the not ready for primetime players were featured in a Spider-Man comic And he ends up having stolen the Silver Samurai sword and used it in the sketch, so that my wife got that for me, actually that issue. It was shockingly inexpensive for a double memorabilia whammy, but she got that for me from our anniversary last year. That's very cool. 

Now he was well known for being very judgmental. One of the ways he would evaluate people is by borrowing $20 and seeing how they reacted, so you know if they're kind of a jerk about it. You knew, oh, they were a jerk, but he just gauged how they behaved, that's a good trick. 

Yeah, yeah, it was an interesting one. I have to remember that Now he was a heavy metal fan, which I did not realize. But when he met Dan Ackroyd, having performed together, dan tried to entice him onto the SNL cast At a Speak Easy, because of course, with those two is at a Speak Easy. Dan put on a blues album which stirred a fascination in John that became career defining, because he had never listened to blues before that meeting and then went on to create the Blues Brothers together. Now he was such a huge star. 

There were a bunch of roles that he was supposed to be a part of in films. Peter Venkman was originally written for him. He was replaced by James Woods in Once Upon a Time in America on his passing and was to appear in an adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Ackroyd. Many more projects, but one of the more interesting, given it kind of ties back to his time on SNL. Harold Ramis was guest hosting an episode of Siskel and Ebert and discussed how it was John's dream to play Ludwig von Beethoven in a film, which is a weird one, but given he played him on the show, i guess that could have been a technically SNL spin-off. 

Now, sorry, go ahead. So he had the nickname of America's guest, as he had a habit of knocking on strangers' doors, entering their homes and eating things from their refrigerator and then crashing out on their couch. This never resulted in any problems because he was so well known, but speaks to how different the 70s were from today. Now he required an income of between $500,000 and a million dollars a year to maintain his lifestyle and his entourage. Now, while he would often make use of strangers' generosity, he himself was also very generous, lending large sums of money to friends and family Towards the end of his life. His manager pushed him to start collecting on these debts, but John refused. Now he is buried in Martha's Vineyard, where his epitaph reads he made us laugh and now he can make us think, but his grave was so popular with visitors, they moved his casket to an unmarked grave in a quiet corner of the cemetery, after which his fans posted a new epitaph based on his catchphrase. He could have given us a lot more laughs, but no, that is John Belushi. 

0:10:21 - jD

That's great. Take it away, Thomas. 

0:10:48 - Thomas

Alright, Justin Renwick is joining me today. Thank you so much for joining me here on the SNL Hall of Fame. 

0:10:54 - Justin

It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

0:10:56 - Thomas

Yeah, so this one is a big one to me. This is probably to a lot of people The legendary John Belushi will be talking about. So he was on SNL 1975 to 1980, part of the original cast. He seemed to be made for sketch comedy and had a lot of reps before he started at Saturday Night Live. So you talk about his path to SNL and his prior work in sketch comedy. 

0:11:23 - Justin

So we could go way back to high school, which is where he caught the acting bug. He was a very accomplished athlete. He was a football player, he was a drummer, he was in a band that actually released a single believe it or not And to show what a small world Chicago and the greater Chicago area is, because he grew up. He was born in Chicago but he grew up in Wheaton, illinois. He knew Dick Lesucci, who was somebody he would also work with at Second City, and Dick Lesucci went on to SCTV as a writer, which I think he formed an alliance with Joe Flaherty at some point, which is how that came about, but we're getting a little bit off topic. 

So yeah, john, when he was in high school, did drama and his drama teacher noticed something. He's like there's something special about this kid And if anyone's read the book Wired this is where I know this story from. Apparently, this teacher took him to. If I'm remembering correctly, he took him to. I know it was Indiana, but I don't know if he went and auditioned somewhere else, but basically he got into summer stock in Indiana a year before most people were eligible when he was 17. Like that's how preternaturally talented he was And they did a whole series of plays there That went very well. He enrolled in when he graduated from high school, enrolled at the University of Wisconsin And I was doing drama there, but left after a year and then wound up going to the College of DuPage in West Chicago. 

Somewhere along that period he went to see Second City and had an epiphany, just realized this is what I was put on earth to do and formed the West Compass Players, which was a reference to the pre-Second City Compass Players, with his friends Tino Insana and Steve Bachecas who people that watch John Belushi on Saturday Night Live will be very familiar with that name because he brought it up a lot in his vits. 

So the three of them were able to audition en masse for Second City And I think it was Bernie Salons that auditioned them And he saw John's potential right away, saw something in Tino Insana. Well, i think Tino was put in the touring company or asked to take some more classes, but he wound up joining as well. But yeah, john went into Second City. I believe he went right into the main stage cast, which at the time had Brian Doyle, murray, harold Ramis, joe Flaherty, so he was punching well above his weight. I don't know if that's the right term to use, because that sounds more like he was not very good, but was somehow anyway he did very well, but he was young at the time. 

0:13:51 - Thomas

So, like you know, being able to be in that company at his age says a lot about it. I think, it's fair to say, at that time punching up above his weight. 

0:14:00 - Justin

Yeah, you're right. Yeah, he wouldn't have been around 22. Joe Flaherty was. I think he was in his late 20s at that point. He was a good 10 years older than the STTV cast, but anyway, that obviously went very well. He made a real reputation for himself there And through that got involved with the national ampoon, so much so that he moved to New York after he'd been in the Lemmings review with Chevy Chase and Christopher Gast, which is one of my favorite comedy albums of all time National Ampoon's Lemmings, which was a takeoff on Woodstock and was where he did Joe Cocker among. he also played the, the MC. But then, yeah, through that world of national ampoon and then writing, producing and performing for the radio hour, that's what brought him to the attention of Lauren Michaels through Chevy Chase and Michael O'Donoghue when they were putting Saturday Night Live together. 

0:14:47 - Thomas

Even at the National Ampoon's radio hour. that's where he came across with Bill Murray, gilda Radner, some of his future SNL cohorts, just a who's who working on that show at the time. Richard Belzer was even part of that. So it was just a really, really talented cast And, would you say I know a lot of them had their gifts and talents, but there was something magnetic about Belushi that even stood out amongst that type of talent. 

0:15:14 - Justin

Belushi has that thing like. The charisma is just unbelievable. But he has that mischievous glint. Jimmy Fallon has it as well. Many other people do where you're even if you know not only his stage presence. Right Just the minute John Belushi walked on to stage, eyes were drawn to him. John Candy had the same thing. Anyone that's tall I mean, john Belushi wasn't tall, but anyone that has a big presence and can exude that kind of charisma right away stills focused. But he always wanted to see what he was going to do next. Same thing with Jimmy Fallon When he was fucking around in a sketch and messing up. You wanted to know, oh, you know what's. He got up his sleeve What's going to happen next? And that was very much John Belushi too. This electric performer is the word that comes to mind. 

0:15:53 - Thomas

That's why a lot of us watch live sketch and SNL in particular is because there's I mean there's that element of you don't know it's going to be a live show, you don't know what's going to happen. There's almost that danger involved in. Belushi really did personify. He did bring that energy to the show. Yeah. 

0:16:11 - Justin

And he has like Kate McKinnon is the same Melissa McCarthy just fearless performers that you can throw anything at them And they'll. You know, like even something as simple. I'm sure the tomato was cut beforehand, but like the samurai deli, when he throws the tomato up in the air and chops it with no-transcript, there's a million ways that can go wrong on a live TV show. But I don't think it bothered him at all, he just knew. 

0:16:35 - Thomas

So he, like I said, he started with. You know he was an original cast member at SNL. They started in 1975. Where did you become familiar with Belushi's work and kind of what stood out to you? 

0:16:46 - Justin

Not to get too deep into the archives, but my introduction to Saturday Night Live was a friend's Mr Bill t-shirt in 1979. I'm like what's Mr Bill? Oh it's this thing that's on Saturday Night Live. It's really funny. Oh, it's this show, it's on Saturday nights, it's live, ha ha. Anyway, i asked my mom about it. She knew she was a big Second City fan so she'd been watching Saturday Night Live since day one And yeah, they let me stay up and Mr Bill was the gateway. 

But then in between the sketches I'm trying to think the first thing that really stood out with me, stood out for me with John Belushi, was probably I'm going to say the Bs, because this was 1979. So they were still back then. The reruns weren't just shows from the current season, they were showing shows from the first season on. So I got to sort of catch up over that season. That's probably the first thing that stood out. But it's just, it's that confidence. He was so confident. It's really magnetic, like it really draws you in. I mean, to be a performer on Saturday Night Live you have to have a certain degree of confidence. But there's different levels. Like if you look at somebody like Dan Ackroyd, who was incredibly talented, really funny and just able to like rattle off details. You know, at a moment's notice there's a difference between sort of him and Belushi, which I think is why they complimented each other so well. Dan Ackroyd is more of a technical actor, whereas to me anyway, john Belushi is a little more instinctive. 

0:18:06 - Thomas

Yeah, what stood out to me a lot, when you know rewatching a lot of his sketches and everything, was just how he would dissolve into a character And then he just gave off this. Really, the audience knew that they were in good hands with him up there because he exuded just like you know, i'm supposed to be here, i'm doing Don Corleone impression and I'm the one who's supposed to be doing this and I'm good enough. And he did have that confidence, definitely, and his relationship with some of his castmates, from what I've read, really played into that, especially his relationship with Chevy Chase. 

0:18:42 - Speaker 1

Yeah, And how he viewed. 

0:18:43 - Thomas

Chevy Chase, getting attention early on. 

0:18:46 - Justin

It's funny that they weren't. you know, they didn't get along very well, even in the lampoon days, And when Chevy was still smart enough and got over his own ego, it was him and Michael O'Donoghue that suggested him. I think I mentioned that before to Lauren. But yeah, that of course, when Chevy took off in the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live, yeah, John Belushi was not happy about it. 

0:19:07 - Thomas

No, i think maybe John looked at Chevy is getting you know, maybe I don't know if it's cheap laughs, but he's certainly got a lot of mileage off falling prat falls. And I think what Belushi felt that he did was maybe more elevated than what Chevy did. So I think each Belushi thought, from what I've read, belushi thought that he was supposed he was the star of the of the cast. Yeah, not Absolutely. 

0:19:30 - Justin

Chevy Chase is. That's a whole lot of problems to unpack that that guy has, but let's just suffice it to say I he is, is incredible at what he does. You know what I mean? Like to you were saying the falling, the falling down, like the mimicking people behind their back, just the, the sort of boyish humor and the looks. The looks helped as well, the dimple chin and the sort of he had a glint in his eye as well. But yeah, he's miles away And I'm pretty sure Chevy Chase will be the first one to tell you that in the acting realm from John Belushi. 

0:20:02 - Thomas

When Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford, he didn't sink into Gerald Ford. That was Chevy Chase just calling himself Gerald. 

0:20:09 - Justin

Ford, which made it even funnier for some reason. 

0:20:12 - Thomas

Yeah, it definitely worked for sure, but then, if you know, belushi played a character, belushi just really transformed into that character And I think that that was a lot of acting chops, like you mentioned. 

0:20:25 - Justin

I think the other amazing thing about Belushi and another reason, a big reason that would put him in the the Hall of Fame is not only could he, he's an incredible mimic, He has a great comic timing, like Jackie Gleason is one of his heroes, and it really shows. And, yeah, he can sink into a character and become somebody else, But at the same time you put him on update as himself and it's unbelievable, Like he's still amazing Just playing. You know, as a comedian's play slightly heightened versions of themselves. He was comfortable playing himself as well as playing other characters which we're going to. We'll use the same analogy. Dan Ackroyd was more comfortable sinking into characters. You saw his season on Weekend Update with Jane Curtin. He never looked very comfortable playing himself. 

0:21:09 - Thomas

Belushi on those update pieces. It was incredible He would. He would start off, just, you know, even kill. I think that was the most Belushi, the most human, for lack of a better term that I would see Belushi on the show. But then he would go from zero to a hundred and like two seconds The whole. The luck of the Irish rant, the famous one that he had on Weekend. 

0:21:29 - Speaker 3

Update. 

0:21:30 - Thomas

And you know it starts off level headed. 

0:21:33 - Speaker 8

Well, it's that time again. St Patrick's Day has come and gone, and well, the sons of Ireland are basking in the globe. You know, when I think of Ireland I think of a lot of colorful Irish expressions like top of the morning to you, kiss the Blarney stone. May the road rise to meet you. May you be in heaven. An hour before the devil knows you're dead, i'd like to smash you in the face with my shillelie Danny boy begora. Whale of the banshee. Whiskey for the leprechauns, whiskey for the leprechauns. But the expression I think most people identify with the Irish is, of course, the luck of the Irish. 

0:22:09 - Thomas

And Beluce, he's just kind of this nice guy just saying what he has to say and then he just, he just is like a bull in a china shop. 

0:22:15 - Speaker 9

I said bye man. I said hey man. I never even seen $5,000 in my life. 

So don't ask me for it Now watch, ask your mother which is a dumb thing for me to say, because his mother just died. Now I got, right now I got this drunken Irish junkie who wants to kill me because of what I said about his mother being in terminal dreamland. You know, one thing would just get me out One thing They love their mothers, boy. Oh, they love their mothers. It's Mama Diff and Mama Dan. Oh, my Irish mother. I really must be heaven because my mother comes up there. Ah, ah, ah. 

0:23:01 - Thomas

He would do like a, like an army, roll off the desk and then you would never see him after that, until the next sketch. Yeah, yeah. 

0:23:10 - Justin

And again that's on. That's on live TV again. There's so many ways that could go wrong. 

0:23:14 - Thomas

Just don't no fear no fear, yeah, totally fearless, i think. I think that's such a great way to put it. An element of Belushi that I love too was that he reminded me of like a Charlie Chaplin or a Buster Keaton in a lot of ways, and one of the examples, one of, yeah, just a very expressive face and he didn't have to have any lines necessarily to convey something to do really great sketch work. And one of the things that really pops out to me, his most famous character, the samurai, is like the perfect example. John reminded me of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Like I said, in those sketches It just really was striking, just like the physical ability of him to convey something. 

0:23:56 - Speaker 3

All I know is that the third quarter net of Kentucky Mines was up 6.2%. 

0:24:00 - Speaker 1

Look at this graph. 

0:24:02 - Speaker 3

Look, it went right up here And what happened September, October, November into the well-known toilet. 

0:24:09 - Speaker 9

I love her over there. 

0:24:10 - Speaker 10

Who's here? Who? Who Did Who Who? I don't know what you mean, but I need security. 

0:24:23 - Speaker 9

That's the point. 

0:24:23 - Justin

I'm sure you're aware of this, and other listeners maybe as well that that was based on Toshiro Mifuni, his character in Yojimbo, and they called his name with samurai futaba And that was his audition piece for Saturday Night Live. The Samurai Pool Hustler I don't know if it was his, probably his wife and it remembers was saying that yeah right, he was in the apartment messing around with that character for a while with a bathrobe and he'd grab the dowel from the like the clothes rod, from the closet, use it as a sword And, if I'm not mistaken in the audition he used that obviously as a pool cue. 

0:24:55 - Thomas

Well, i could see why he got the job then. I mean, that's such a Got the gig. yeah, i think I underestimated how much I enjoyed the Samurai until I took a deep dive into Belushi over the last few weeks And I could see why it was held in such high regard. I mean those facial expressions, the interplay he had, mostly with Buck Henry but with a few other hosts. it was just incredible to watch. I couldn't take my eyes off of Belushi during those sketches. 

0:25:23 - Justin

I just read today. apparently it was Buck Henry who turned it into a recurring character because he first played the Samurai with Richard Pryor. Apparently, when Buck Henry came in, it was his request to be in a sketch with the Samurai, And it went so well that every time Buck came back they would bust out another Samurai sketch with Buck playing the same character. 

0:25:42 - Thomas

They had such good chemistry. I think, belushi, he had good chemistry with some of the other, the hosts that did the Samurai with him. Oh, samurai Hotel, that's what it was. It was the Samurai Hotel, okay. 

0:25:54 - Justin

Yo. 

0:25:54 - Thomas

Mama-san. Yes, he and Richard Pryor. Yeah, that was awesome. Another example that I had just about Belushi being a great silent actor like just he didn't have to speak one word was he and Gilda had this sketch where they met in the laundromat and they share a washer at the laundromat and they begin to flirt, and that was just all the no dialogue. They share a cigarette at the end They share a cigarette at Belushi's pouring champagne. At one point That was just such great comedic acting without having to say one word. 

0:26:26 - Justin

I don't have any proof of this, but that kind of strikes me as what's known as a trunk piece. I would imagine and again, i could be very wrong. I would imagine either Gilda or John may have brought that from Second City, so there was a few of those in the first season. like there's a Dan Aykroyd Gilda Radner sketch where Dan Aykroyd plays a mechanic and he's putting his daughter to bed and she wants to hear a story and he's tired and wants her to go to bed, so he just makes up a story that involves all these car parts or whatever. That was definitely something that two of them had done in Toronto. But yeah, i'm getting a little ahead of myself here. It's speculation. 

0:27:00 - Thomas

Yeah, no, that definitely makes sense. I think when they were doing Second City stuff and it's a lot like SNL in that they have to come up with idea after idea after idea, And a lot of it tends to be slice of life kind of things, Like you find the funny bits in these seemingly ordinary slice of life kind of things. So in this example they were at the laundromat and they want to both use the same washer, the work. Can we go from there? That does strike me as an idea that they would have used at Second. 

0:27:26 - Justin

City. It feels very much like, yeah, it feels a lot like a Second City or a Groundling sketch. I mean they still do that today Not, i doubt, as often. but I know Melissa McCarthy the first time she hosted when they did the Focus Group on the Hidden Valley Ranch. I didn't know it at the time. I only learned this about a year ago that that was a sketch she was doing every night at the Groundlings that she'd written. So shout out to Melissa. 

0:27:47 - Thomas

This isn't about Melissa. Yeah, she finds it. She finds it, though I think there's a lot of Belushi spirit in Melissa as a performer. 

0:27:55 - Justin

Oh, 100%, yeah, definitely She's also fearless and she's also a really good actor. Yeah, And that's John. like John Belushi's secret sauce is what a great actor he was. Being funny is one thing, but being a good actor is like 70, 80% of it. 

0:28:10 - Thomas

He was an animal house and he wasn't the lead. I think hindsight tells people that Belushi was the lead in that film but he wasn't. 

0:28:18 - Justin

Oh yeah, But he totally commanded attention in that movie, even the first scene when he's holding the beer and he pisses on Thomas Hulse's leg. It's like I want to know what this guy's doing next. I know the food scene in Animal House where he's stealing all the stuff out of the cafeteria. John Landis has said he was off camera like guiding him and saying, like I want you to be Cookie Monster, basically. 

0:28:43 - Thomas

When you're watching that movie. You got excited when Belushi would get on the screen. I mean when the hippie guy was kind of playing the guitar on the stairwell and Belushi just takes the guitar Poor Steve Ambition, Yeah. He takes the guitar and smashes it against the wall And then he just kind of looks at him and goes, sorry, And then walks away. 

0:29:03 - Justin

I mean, He doesn't even say it like, it's not even snide, it's like sorry, it's like it's this thing I had to do. It's not personal, yeah. 

0:29:12 - Thomas

Yeah, nothing against you, It was just I had to do this. Yeah, yeah. So people I think, looking back at Animal House, think that that was a Belushi vehicle And it kind of wasn't. I mean, it was very much an ensemble but there were definitely leads that weren't Belushi in the movie, but that just speaks to the presence that he had about him. 

0:29:29 - Justin

Well, to speak again to the Chevy, John Dilemma, let's call it. You probably know they wanted Chevy Chase to play Eric Stratton, which was Tim, Tim, what's his last name? Anyway, the guy that played Eric Stratton, it was Otter and, yeah, Otter was the character's nickname, I think. Anyway, that was supposed to be Chevy And he didn't want to be second fiddle to John Belushi again, even though technically, yeah, he would have been. I guess you'd say he was the lead and they wanted Dan Ackroyd as D-Day, but Dan apparently was not ready. He felt he wasn't ready to make movies yet, which is weird because he'd made them in Canada. 

0:30:04 - Thomas

but be that as it may, Yeah, that would have been such a perfect role for Ackroyd too. He would have just slid right in. 

0:30:11 - Justin

Well, the guy that I can't remember the actor's name, but the guy that played D-Day did a great job, bruce, yeah. 

0:30:15 - Thomas

Bruce McGill. Yeah, he was really good in that. Belushi set a template too for we were talking about. I see a lot of him in Melissa McCarthy. I see a lot of him, of course, the comparison when Chris Farley got on the show that comparison was just out there for the taking and Chris Farley idolized John Belushi as well. He wanted to be Belushi We'll get to this but unfortunately he was like Belushi in a lot of ways good and bad, but Belushi, yeah, but Belushi, just he definitely set a template for a lot of performers as far as how they performed and as far as also what SNL was looking for in cast members going forward. I think a lot of times they were trying to find a Belushi sort of role when they were trying to feel a cast going forward. 

0:31:00 - Justin

Well, there's a through line with John Belushi and a lot of the other similar actors. I mean Bill Murray sort of has that kamikaze kind of go for it, fearless attitude as well. John Candy and Bill Murray and John Candy are also both incredible actors, and even Chris Farley, the through line. There is a guy named Del Close who was in the Compass Players. I think he was in the St Louis. There was an offshoot in St Louis And then eventually everything morphed into Second City And Del also worked with Second City for quite some time And then years later, when often started in Provolympic with so Sharna Halpern, they all received the tutelage of Del Close And I think he helped. I mean, stuff is there, but I think he helped bring that out in them as well. 

0:31:44 - Thomas

Yeah, for sure, del Close, like a lot of people look at him as the godfather of improv, especially he worked with so many great improv and sketch actors. So a lot of these conversations point back to Del Close in a lot of ways, for sure. And I think you know, when they hired Farley, of course everybody said you know, they found their Belushi When the Horatio Sands started on the show. I think people made a lot of those comparisons And even Bobby Moynihan they said, oh, that's the Belushi or Farley archetype. 

So that's just, you know, john Belushi setting a template and just an example for the show, as far as what works on the show and what Lorne was trying to find. So what are some other characters or sketches or performances on SNL that you think our listeners should familiarize themselves with when discussing Belushi? 

0:32:37 - Justin

So, getting back to the bees, i mean the bees weren't a great sketch, they were just stupid. But it was just funny seeing everybody dressed up in bees costumes. But the good thing that I think that came out of the bees was King Bee, john Belushi and Dan Ackroyd is a. You know, it was kind of a proto-Bloose brothers. They're dressed up in the bees costumes. They got the shades on Dan's playing the harmonica. They're playing with the Howard Shore band It was a Saturday Night Live band at the time And they do Slim Harpo's King Bee, and you know, john in the middle starts doing cartwheels and all kinds of other acrobatics And then it ends with him doing that when your man is doomed, when you're about to do Getting crazier and crazier and then getting up and falling off the stool. 

0:33:30 - Speaker 10

Want you to be my queen. 

0:33:35 - Speaker 8

We are together, we can make honey baby, but we'll never see. Okay, let's buzz a while. 

0:33:54 - Justin

Yes, that's the place to start. I think there's there's other sketches that are that are worth mentioning, where he would try to show off his acting, you know, in the early days of Saturday Night Live and even further along, but they don't really do them anymore. There were always these little almost one-act plays, you know. Some of them were dramatic, didn't even have any any comedy in them, and John seemed to be featured in a lot of those. He was. There's one he did on the Sissy's basic show, which I think was in the third season. That's worth watching when that didn't work, that didn't help you find your manly powers. 

0:34:24 - Speaker 9

I started thinking about dead people and And if dead people secretly watched to see if you go to their funeral, you looking at certain parts of my body and You thinking the word dead. 

0:34:38 - Speaker 8

Well, no wonder. If you're wondering why there is no wonder, well, there is no wonder. You know I have been with if you know what I mean a semi-professional singer. I've had adult relations with a semi-professional singer, not to mention many others. Only mention the one that proves to a man who has been to Houston and left behind a satisfied semi-professional. 

0:35:11 - Justin

He goes toe-to-toe with with Sissy and they both come out looking very good. 

0:35:15 - Thomas

You get the sense that John, you know, relished being able to play opposite those great actors. I'm reminded of the dueling Brando's one that he did with Peter Boyle, where they traded Brando impressions. 

0:35:30 - Sketch

I could have been a contender, could have been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let's face it, charlie. 

0:35:40 - Sketch

I got him a son of the callion governor. 

0:35:46 - Thomas

And you can tell Belushi was probably just having such a good time trading those with Peter Boyle, peter. 

0:35:51 - Justin

Boyle, another second city, chicago, alum, yeah they're probably super comfortable working with each other and there's that, and Joe Cocker, of course, and especially the Joe Cocker he did to Joe Cocker. 

0:36:04 - Thomas

That's right. Yeah, one of the first kind of celebrities who gets impersonated walk-ons In SNL. Yeah, that that kind of became a thing a lot in the 90s. Yeah, that Joe Cocker was great. He did that really early too. You said that he had auditioned with it. He did that first in the third episode of season one, yeah, the Rob Reiner episode. 

0:36:24 - Justin

And there's another thing I was just gonna bring up That's also from the Rob Reiner episode when they They're dressed up as the bees and Rob has to tell them the bee sketch has been cut. 

0:36:32 - Sketch

I'm sorry if you think we're ruining your show, mr Reiner, but See, you don't understand. We didn't ask the Beebees, you see, you, you've got Norman Lear and a first-rate riding staff, but this is all they came up with for us. 

0:37:01 - Sketch

Do you think we like this? 

0:37:04 - Sketch

No, no, mr Reiner, but we don't have any choice. 

0:37:15 - Justin

That's one of the first time he did one of those. I don't. I don't think there was a but, no, in it, but there could have been. That was leading, you know, laying the groundwork for those care, for those bits that he would do where he'd become increasingly frustrated with somebody. I could have gone out and done this, but Yeah, oh my gosh. 

0:37:34 - Thomas

And there's also in season three, The Olympia Cafe. I think that's another one that one of his famous ones from SNL that we should probably hit it was him. Bill Murray Played a great role in that. What do you remember what watching him in the Olympia Cafe sketches? 

0:37:51 - Justin

I love the history of those sketches. I think it was not. Novello had come in as a writer in season three and he brought that idea because he and John were both Familiar with the, the tavern in Chicago that was based on I think it was the Billy Goat Tavern. That's basically what happened. You know, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, no, no, fries, chips, no, coke, pepsi, all that kind of stuff, and John could also draw on his Background because his father was a restaurant owner, so I'm sure a lot of it came from that as well. 

But even the, the decision to make the owner Greek, and he appeared in a season two sketch as That character on one of those Jane Curtin talk shows. Even before they did those sketches and, yeah, i know in the history of the family they were Albanian and apparently in you know, chicago in the 40s or 50s That was still considered too ethnic, so they would often poses Greek to avoid, to avoid trouble. Yeah, i didn't know that. Guess that's where that comes from. Yeah, yeah, the only sketches were very, very ambitious, like to have a working grill and that you've ever been a studio 8h like it's? it's not huge, no no, it's not. 

0:38:56 - Thomas

Yeah, rewatching those because I was fortunate enough to be able to, in the spring of 2022, go see SNL in person for the first time, and so it's kind of you? 

0:39:05 - Justin

did you dress for the or the or the? 

0:39:07 - Thomas

We saw a dress rehearsal, getting a perspective of actually how small that studio is and then going back to watch sketches and, like you said, with the Olympia cafe, for example, they've put a working grill, they had, you know, it seems like elaborate for how small that studio is for sure. And John, in those sketches He seemed to me like he was the run, the one who was anchoring the sketch and kind of running things and taking it. Oh for sure, you're to there, you know, and he would interact with maybe Jane Curtin as an annoyed customer or Bill Murray is the sheepish Worker, but it was John sketch that he was just controlling. 

0:39:43 - Thomas

I'm sure he's playing a version of his father there. 

0:39:46 - Justin

Oh yeah, Absolutely you can tell that's, that's just effortless. 

0:40:11 - Thomas

Another sketch that it's a pre-tape. That's just lived in my brain since I was a kid. Inside that sort of showed Belushi's more kind of human relatable side was the little chocolate donuts. 

0:40:30 - Sketch

A lot of miles training for that day and I'm down a lot of donuts. It tastes good and they've got the sugar I need to get me going in the morning. That's why a little chocolate don'ts have been on my training table since I was a kid. 

0:40:48 - Sketch

Little chocolate donuts, the donuts of champions. 

0:40:55 - Thomas

And that was more so because I don't feel as a viewer and this is a compliment to Belushi because, like I said, he would sink into his characters but I never felt totally like I knew who he was as a human being in a lot of ways Contrast that with Chris Farley, whose human nature just oozed out, but with little chocolate donuts. That was one of the times where I kind of saw relatability in Belushi. 

0:41:20 - Justin

Yeah, i think my first was I think it's during the first season. They would do bits sometimes, i guess, maybe to fill time, like they'd have Gilda Radner do her You know what Gilda ate segment. Or just say, you know, hey, ma'am, you can go to bed. I'm not in the show this week, but there was one where John Belushi came out and tried to sell a bunch of his old records. 

Yes yes, but it was just him playing himself honestly with, i'm sure, albums that he owned, yeah, and that's yeah. I kind of got a better sense of him from that. 

0:41:48 - Thomas

Re-watching a lot of his stuff. I love getting those, those moments here and there of like, oh, i think that's Belushi, i think, yeah, i think that's hit, who he really is kind of coming through. But he was think he was Consciously, didn't. You know? I think he liked to play characters rather than I'm gonna play a version of myself, which is a testament to him. My gosh, like we said, he was so, so great at that. So unfortunately, after SNL he didn't have much time. He had two movies that came out after SNL that he starred in. It was continental divide and neighbors. I don't know if you've ever seen either of those. 

0:42:23 - Justin

I've seen neighbors. I've never seen continental divide. I've always wanted to but just haven't got around to it. But I only recently saw, even to go back, old boyfriends from 1978 where he plays Basically a more spiffed-up version of of Jake blues. He's just this guy that works for the local. I think it's the local flower shop that tell you Shire, who's the lead was. You know, she knew him back in high school, yeah, and he's got this band that he fronts at nights. But anyway, it's a shame that Him and Don Avello's movie noble rot didn't get made. 

0:42:54 - Thomas

Do you know what? what was the premise behind the movie with the that Don Avello was working on with him? 

0:42:59 - Justin

noble rot It had something to do with. It wasn't abscam, but it was something like that. It was a, not a Ponzi scheme, but something along those lines. Reading a fuller outline of the of the premise, it sounded like it was gonna be a really good movie. But I think the film company was forcing John to be in the national ampoune's joy of sex. But she didn't want to do and they said well, if you don't do this, you don't get to make noble rot. But unfortunately none of it came to pass anyway, sadly. Cuz cuz of a speedball. 

0:43:30 - Thomas

So yeah, march 5th 1982 he unfortunately passed away only 33 years old, gosh, i mean that I'm yeah. That must have sent shockwaves through the comedy world and through Hollywood in general. 

0:43:43 - Justin

I can't imagine. And even the people like the people that were there that day, like Robert De Niro was there, robin Williams was there. Robin Williams credits it with helping him stop taking cocaine, so at least something good came out of it But yeah, you can only imagine. And also the guilt like somebody like Lauren Michaels. How would you feel? See, i should have intervened, i should have helped. I'm just using his and him as an example. I'm not trying to put any guilt on him or anything, but yeah, like, not only is it a warning sign, maybe you should Curb your lifestyle a little bit, but also you should also try to help people that are, that are in trouble. But in the 70s, 70s and 80s, you know, people didn't really do that, we didn't have the equipment. It even happened to. You know, ten years later, with Kurt Cobain, nobody knew to just put the brakes on and say just stop for a while, go away, get your head together. See somebody talk about your feelings, whatever. 

0:44:36 - Thomas

But yeah, it was just go, go, go And it was so prevalent around that time too. There's always stories about how SNL in the late 70s, there was a lot of cocaine, everything like that. So it must have been hard to tell somebody like Belushi that they have a problem, when he could just look and say, well, i've done this with you. Like, who are you to tell me? 

0:44:57 - Justin

that I have a problem. It's a little different from the same bowl here, buddy. Yeah, so it must have been hard to intervene with somebody back then when it was just so prevalent. Nobody wants to be the parent right. 

0:45:09 - Thomas

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know what's interesting to me? He was going to be in Ghostbusters And that was so unfortunate that we didn't get to see him in that form in Ghostbusters. But the monster Slimer, I believe, was modeled after Belushi. I don't know if that's apocryphal. 

0:45:27 - Justin

Now that you say that it sure looks like him. 

0:45:30 - Thomas

Yeah. I think I believe that I've read that they kind of modeled Slimer after Belushi, And when you look at Slimer you can maybe see a nod to Belushi. What kind of career do you think that Belushi could have had had he? 

0:45:44 - Justin

kept clean. I think it would have been very similar to Bill Murray's. Oh, yeah, i think he would have continued doing comedy, obviously Like who's not going to hire him to be in a comedy. But even with Continental Divide, which is sort of a again, i haven't seen it, but from what I know it's sort of a comedy drama almost. You know what I mean. It's not balls to the wall, animal house or Blues Brothers with jokes and explosions and gags and everything. But yeah, i could see him doing a lot more dramatic roles And then maybe being like what happened with Bill Murray being taken on by somebody like Sophia Coppola who would bring him in every time because she knows he can deliver. 

0:46:19 - Thomas

Or somebody like Wes Anderson. Maybe there could have been a cool partnership with someone like Wes Anderson, like, yeah, belushi was that talented He could have. I think I could have seen him in more dramatic roles like Lost in Translation or something like that, like Murray got to do for sure. That's definitely not a stretch. So what is your final case if you had to sum it up, for John Belushi to be inducted into the SNL Hall of Fame. 

0:46:42 - Justin

Total commitment. Larger than life persona, hugely talented actor, The first major star to emerge from the show post Chevy. Natural charisma, being a member of the first cast ever, I think, puts him above a lot of people, setting a template for many to follow, Best example being Chris Farley that we've discussed. But unfortunately, some of those habits also bled in The ability to upstage others with his mere presence on stage, the eyebrow cocking the one eyebrow. It's amazing what he could do with that. 

Unbelievable comic timing, preter natural talent, given that at the age of 16 or 17, a drama teacher at a high school was like there's something here That's very rare. Being a great actor and having it serve comedy, which doesn't happen, is a hard thing to do And it's more than half. The battle really is being a good actor, as we mentioned earlier, And I'd say a lot of people have come close to his level, like we said earlier Kate McKinnon on another area of the spectrum, Somebody like Dan Ackroyd, But I don't think anyone's reached that height yet. I think he is the greatest Saturday Night Live actor of all time. 

0:48:06 - jD

So there's that. I want to thank Justin Renwick, i want to thank Thomas Senna, i want to thank Matt Ardill. I want to thank you for listening, but before we go any further, i want to listen to a sketch. I want to listen to something that Belushi did that seals the deal, that makes me feel that he is a legit, absolute Hall of Famer. I think that Justin's comment that he's the greatest SNL actor of all time is a bold statement. A bold statement There have been a lot. One who joined just three years after Belushi left is Eddie Murphy, and I don't know how you get bigger than Eddie Murphy. So is Belushi a Hall of Famer? Yeah, i think so. Is he a first ballot Hall of Famer? Likely, like, very likely. Is he the greatest of all time? I don't know, maybe that's another podcast for another time, but let's listen to this sketch now and get a better sense of what Mr Belushi brought to the table. 

0:49:28 - Sketch

I guess this is my style. Well, they all thought I'd be the first to go. I was one of those live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse type, you know. Well, i guess they were wrong. There they are, all my friends. This is a not ready for prime time cemetery. Come on up. 

Well, here's Gilda Radner. She had her own show on Canadian television for years and years the Gilda Radner show. At least now I can see her on reruns. Here's a button. God bless her. Here's what Lorraine is, they say. She murdered her DJ husband and moved to the valley in California and had a pecan farm. She was this big when she died Jane Curtin. She married a stockbroker, had two children, moved upstate New York. She died of complications during cosmetic surgery. Here's Eric Morris. Eric went to the show and worked in the black theater for years And he died of an overdose of heroin. Here's Bill Murray. He lived the longest, 38 years. He was happy when he died, though He just grown his mustache back, probably still growing. Here's Chevy Chase. He died when that was first movie with Goldie Haan. Over here is Danny Ackroyd. I guess he loved his Harley too much. It clocked him at 175 miles an hour before the crash. It was a blur. I had to be called in to identify his body. I recognized him by his web toes. Well. 

Saturday Night Show was the best experience of my life. Now they're all gone. I miss every one of them. Why me? Why did I live so long? They're all dead. I'll tell you why Because I'm a dancer. 

0:53:10 - jD

That was Don't Look Back in Anger, directed by Tom Schiller. You didn't get to see it, but it features an old John Belushi. If you're listening to this podcast, you're a big enough fan of SNL that you've seen the sketch, but if you haven't check it out, it's worth watching as well. It works on an audio level but it certainly is worth watching to see Belushi's chops as he is dressed up as an old man. It's very eerie. It's a great place to see that old man come Here. He is lamenting his deceased co-workers and reminiscing that it was the best time of his life. We never got to experience that old man Belushi and get to hear that from his lips. 

Schiller created a premonition. In a sense It's a wonderful piece of art. You can check it out for sure. That, my friends, is what I have for you this week. Make sure to register to vote. S and l h o f dot com. Click on the voting tab, click register to vote and you'll be in. Voting begins the 23rd of May, wraps up the 17th of June And on the 19th of June we will induct the class of season three. So on your way out, if you do me a favor, as you're walking past the weekend update exhibit turn out the lights, because the s and l hall of fame is now closed. 

0:54:56 - Announcer

Thanks for listening to the s and l hall of fame podcast. Make sure to rate, review, share and subscribe to the show. Wherever you get your podcasts, follow us on social media at s and l h o f. This is Doug Denance saying. This is Doug Denance saying see you next week. 

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