John Belushi

He was the favorite funny fat guy for that time period

Think Abbott Costello doing my mother’s era and Zach Galifalakus ( sp) now.

I don't get it either, OP. I read "Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi". He comes across as a narcissistic prick.

He was never funny

He definitely took full advantage of his 'fat guy of the week' moments but he wasn't funny. He was manic. The best thing he ever did was "The Blues Brothers" and Dan Aykroyd and the cameo musicians carried that movie.

I am old enough to remember when Saturday Night Live first aired on NBC. Chevy Chase was insufferable. John Belushi just yelled a lot and I didn't consider him the least bit funny. Case in point: the oft-repeated sketch during which he, as a short order cook, would simply yell, "Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!" The sketches were deemed ground-breaking, even though "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" did it first.

I heard that James Belushi met the writer of Wired and punched him in the face because of how he presented his brother. Watch out biographers.

His death is what he was famous for.

Funny he was considered so fat. Today's standards would deem him husky.

[quote] Think Abbott Costello doing my mother’s era and Zach Galifalakus ( sp) now.

“Abbott Costello?” Really?

John Belushi was funny only because we were so high when we watched SNL in its early days.

Never thought SNL was funny, but Belushi radiated "malevolent, maladjusted prick".

He was effective in Animal House, where I suspect he was essentially playing himself.

SNL in the beginning seemed like an inside joke for white straight people who were from NYC or wished they were

I don’t get it either, OP.

Never found him to be funny at all.

[quote] Case in point: the oft-repeated sketch during which he, as a short order cook, would simply yell, "Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!"

That was based on a real restaurant in their Chicago neighborhood and they thought it was funny that the guy barely spoke English and would just shout “cheeseburger!”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find it funny, but that was the basis for it.

Wasn't funny when people thought he was funny. American audiences like performers who work hard and show it, who are manic, who break out a sweat,

Actors are awarded when they "bravely" play hicks and the handicapped and the deformed and persons with developmental disorders. Odd accents and affected physical tics win awards, as do actors made up with masks and pounds of make-up and wigs to impersonate famous figures (Meryl Streep, Meryl Streep, Meryl Streep.) Or they just act as if trying purposefully to fail an acting audition, by overacting instead of acting (Johnny Depp, Robert Downey) or they show the effort and exertion on their faces as if they were shitting out a school bus (Leo diCaprio, Matt Damon.)

Comedians like Robin Williams, Carrot Top (net worth $75M - someone likes him), Andrew Dice Clay, and Belushi are not remotely funny, they're just fucking relentless and sweaty and suck all the air out of a room. People laugh from expectation or from having paid too much for a ticket.

Definitely not funny whatsoever.

he was gross funny in animal house

Too young to remember much of him alive, but I assume he appealed strongly to the straight white male demographic.

Have seen some of his work, but never thought he was a comedic genius. Ackroyd was far funnier, and Murray has evolved nicely.

As far as fat, funny guys, I thought Farley, who is often compared to Belushi, was much funnier.

Um, thanks, r15?

🙄

I loved early SNL and a lot of Belushi's routine was slapstick. Physical comedy. It's not to everyone's taste. He was never subtle. But I thought he was hilarious most of the time. I was a child (12)and I stayed up on Saturday nights to watch it with my father.

Never found him funny.

Funny, but I'm older and remember when what he did was fresh. He's been imitated by guys who don't have his sense of surreal humor and are just loud and crass.

I never thought John Belushi was funny or interesting until his Samurai Hotel skit with Richard Pryor. That was great.

I’ve never seen anything he did that was funny.

I loved Animal House. If you haven't see in, you should.

On the other hand, I was quite a bit younger when I saw it.

[quote]"Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!"

Cheeseburger, cheeseburger. No fries. Chips. No Coke. Pepsi. Belushi was the counterman. Ackroyd was the cook.

I think he's sexy as hell.

R15 knows his way around comics and comedians. Spot on. A lot of them aren’t funny in the least but they work at it and build their loyal following. That’s who follows them from gig to gig. As well, once standups are at a certain level, they hire a team of writers like any other sitcom. Charlie Murphy and Paul Mooney wrote most of Dave Chappelle’s and Eddie Murphy’s material.

The old episodes of SNL are horrible to watch. It got funny in the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler era. It’s okay now. It seems like the cast doesn’t give a shit if they’re there or not, and Colin Jost’s cunty little sneer makes me want to punch him in the forehead.

I hated him. Especially in that "Blues Brothers" unfunny garbage.

Was glad he died.

N E V E R L I K E D H I M.

Not funny, creepy, loud, over the top, boisterous.

John Belushi was a bit before my time, so maybe it's a generational thing but I've never found him funny. He was an obnoxious slob.

The Samurai stuff would have him cancelled today.

The Samurai Hotel sketches were in the 1970s. Who cares if they would be canceled today?

45 plus years ago, in the rude & crude, unenlightened time of the mid-seventies, they were unique and interesting, as well as considered funny by many viewers.

It's just an observation r33. The original SNL was before my time, and much of it was very funny but it's interesting to see how much of it would be unacceptable today.

I'm thinking about the sketch with Buck Henry as the pedophile babysitter with Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman, who were playing children. Can you imagine the shitstorm that sketch would cause today?

He was a great singer and proponent for classic rock musicians. He made a lot of black, R&B singers who invented rock n' roll known to white people.

I agree that Chris Farley was funnier. But then I'm a 90s kid, so I have fond memories of watching him and Sandler and Myers on SNL. Perhaps it's the same for the 70s kids.

a LOT of early SNL would not fly now, but it was funny at the time

I've never bound obnoxious comedians funny. John Belushi is way at the top of the list.

I was 14 when Animal House came out and I really enjoyed the movie. It was a novelty seeing such irreverence, smart-ass humor, and nudity! But that said, Belushi was the least funny part of it to me. And his and Ackroyd's Blues Brothers routine was always very smug and douchy to me.

He was a piece of shit. I love how Jane Curtain speaks ill of the dead and says he told her "women aren't funny" and was a total chauvinistic prick in other ways. She also caught him trying to steal money out of her purse. I imagine it was even worse than she's admitted, considering how lionized this asshole was after he OD'd.

Well, we were all pretty wasted back then...

What do you think of JIM Belushi?

The cheeseburger sketch was based on his father.

Chevy Chase may have been a prick but he was also handsome, talented and funny.

Bill Murray is too smarmy for me. Only liked him in Ed Wood.

He was considered very funny back in the day. I still find some of the Saturday Night Live skits he did amusing. He was good in Animal House. He did a legendary impersonation of Joe Cocker. And I really liked the short film he was in on SNL called "Don't Look Back In Anger." But he got stuck in his schtick, that wild, boozing, druggie, argumentative character. Had he lived I think his career really would have gone downhill.

People wondered why he was so self destructive. He was always popular even in high school, but he seemed to hate himself. Some people think he hated the fact that he was a fat, funny looking guy and that was the cause of his self loathing. That might be the case. Anyway, he seemed hell bent on destroying himself.

His friends adored him. They were really pissed off at Bob Woodward's book about him, which they said just made him look like an asshole jerk and made no effort to capture his "humanity."

He was only 33 when he died but looked closer to 50. He died alone, in a messy, cluttered bungalow, dead of an overdose. What a pitiful ending.

It was actually the women that were really funny on early SNL.

[quote] Jane Curtain

Oh, [italic]dear.[/italic]

[quote] He died alone, in a messy, cluttered bungalow, dead of an overdose.

God, I love how prissy Dataloungers are: as if the mess and the clutter somehow made the early death even [italic]worse.[/italic]

I doubt as he OD'ed on coke and heroin he looked around and thought, "Why, this place is a sty! If only I were dying somewhere neat and clean!"

Agree with most everyone else -- he was never funny but his sweaty, in-your-face humor really appealed to straight guys who thought, wow, it's possible to be a fat fuck and get away with it! Too many guys in the late 70s took their cues from JB and thought that by being sloppy and mean they were somehow being funny.

The original Incel.

A lot of SNL humor is frat humor, which is why the most obnoxious of the guys--John Belushi, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler--were the most popular. They all loved either acting like loud idiots and doing crude humor.

[quote]It was actually the women that were really funny on early SNL.

Gilda Radner's stuff is still very funny.

Straight white man humor that everyone was forced to laugh with. No one cares about it now.

Straight douchebag Boomer white guys worshipped John Belushi and the Blues Brothers.

I never understood the adoration for him. He was a sexist, homophobic prick - but his frat boy humor was all the rage with the boomers.

It was good for his career that he died young - I don't see how it would have lasted that much longer.

[quote] I love how Jane Curtain speaks ill of the dead

Why shouldn’t she? She shouldn’t be truthful?

He had such a sordid death. The lady who injected him with the speedball and then went to jail (can't remember her name) died recently.

Belushi's body was disinterred several months after his death and moved to another plot in the cemetery. The casket collapsed and his remains went tumbling out, his head was separated from his body. They picked up all the pieces of him, put him in another casket, and reburied him.

really?

Damn, R58.

I get the feeling Belushi would have found the casket business hilarious.

[quote]The casket collapsed and his remains went tumbling out, his head was separated from his body.

The sequel to Animal House was Pet Semetary.

Danny Aykroyd was platonically in love with him, in his own words. John's death broke his heart. It's hard to forget those famous photos of Aykroyd, acting as pallbearer in his bike leathers, staring down with a look of betrayal and disbelief at the coffin.

He gave this quote to the Daily Mail, only a few years ago.

[quote] (in answer to the general question , 'about whom or what or who do you dream?') John [...] his death was a terrible shock. I dream about him – he’s still alive to me. I interact with him just like I used to. It’s always a joy to meet up with him again.

Just a theory, but part of the reason Dan loved Carrie Fisher seems to be that she instantly clicked with John and was so much like him, including but not limited to the addiction and the penchant for extremes.

[quote] “John and Carrie had become very close right away,” says Judy Belushi of her husband’s platonic friend. “He didn’t suffer fools. Carrie was very feisty.” This would be an important but, ultimately, sadly significant friendship for Fisher. John liked Carrie immediately because she made him laugh....John, in one moment alone with Carrie, stared at her and said, “You’re like me. We’re not like them.” In 2009, she remembered John’s words as if they’d been uttered yesterday, she told Vanity Fair.

Where the hell did you hear this?

Sorry, r63, r64 was meant for r58.

Carrie's ashes were buried in a container that looked like a giant Prozac pill (per her wishes), so she definitely had a dark sense of humor.

John Belushi's head slipping out of a casket and rolling around on the ground would have made a great Tic Tok.

Pretty sure I'm the only person to ever exist who does, but I admired Michael Chiklis' portrayal of John in the panned biopic WIRED (1989).

The movie is awful and fairly offensive, hence the burial of it, but even so I felt Chiklis perfectly captured Belushi's physical energy and spirit for the project. It is also an entertaining and unflinching film, if too honest and earnest and sophomoric. The dark narrative frame of a spectral Belushi having to look back on the circumstances and fallout of his ghoulish, wasteful, early death feels morbid but nonetheless apt.

I liked the movie too R68 and I was a Belushi fan.

"God, I love how prissy Dataloungers are: as if the mess and the clutter somehow made the early death even worse."

Actually, it IS jarring when a rich, famous person is found dead in squalid circumstances. Think River Phoenix dying on a sidewalk outside a sleazy club. Think Marilyn Monroe dying in a sadly unitidy, unfurnished bedroom. And of course, Belushi. Bill Wallace, a physical trainer who tried to help Belushi get in shape, found his body. He noted ""the mess and squalor were John's...that particular resoluteness behind the disorder." His surroundings were indicative of the disorder in his mind.

Addicts are known for having messy and dirty living spaces.

He was a typical absent-minded Aquarius. We all live in dishevelment, it's the gimmick.

The cheeseburger routine was based on the Billy Goat Tavern, a hangout for newspaper people.

He did fratboy humor and it wasn't funny. Ackroyd was funny and then he wasn't.

What R10 said.

Jane has actually spoken in depth about John in recent years, and she was adamant that they got along in the beginning and she actually liked him and he her. But she says that either the fame or drugs got to him and made him very difficult, almost impossible at times to work with.

Most of the SNL crowd were screwed up by the shows huge initial success. Gilda and Laraine battled bulimia. Jane said Gilda would wear wigs and masks to go out in public. Laraine and Garrett developed huge drug problems. Chevy immediately bought into his own hype and became an insufferable asshole. Jane was probably the most stable one at the time because she never let the fame get to her head, as she had just gotten married and wanted to have normalcy outside of appearing on TV. But even she admits that she had to stop eating out for a while, because people would just be so over the top and sometimes confrontational in approaching her.

[quote]Most of the SNL crowd were screwed up by the shows huge initial success.

It must've been overwhelming. They were all unknowns and then overnight they were these huge stars on the hottest show on tv. And back then tv fame was HUGE fame, not like it is now. There were only three channels and tens of millions of people watched the same shows. It must've been crazy for them to suddenly be so famous and get so much attention. And then when you factor in all the drugs and insanity of the mid/late 70s, my god!

So did Dan and John every fool around?

He seemed like a colossal asshole and selfish prick.

Str8 guys loved him. The End.

R58 - the woman was Cathy Smith.

R6, the author of Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi was Bob Woodward.

I doubt Jim Belushi ever got near him.

R77 ‘Homoromantic’ is the best descriptor of their dynamic. Given Dan’s high-functioning autism and John’s faithfulness to Judy, it seems unlikely they ever had sex; however, the love between them was there and so was the euphoria, so it’s not an impossible notion.

[quote] “...like love at first sight,” Aykroyd remembers. “Clearly here was someone who understood me and someone whom I understood. I made sure that he didn’t leave my side.”

[quote] “We just connected immediately and knew that we were kindred spirits,” Aykroyd says. “I’m not a homo and neither was John, but when I saw him come into a room, I always got the jump you get when you see a beautiful girl. It was that kind of feeling, that adrenaline, that pit-of-the-stomach rush. Being with him was electric.”

[quote] Aykroyd and Belushi understood that romance was the secret of friendship. In Aykroyd’s words, “a full friendship. There was no dimension of it unexplored except the sexual one. We really succeeded and thrived in an interlocking sense.”

[quote] They expressed their affection for each other just as openly. In front of their mutual friends and colleagues, Aykroyd broadcast his devotion. SNL writer Jim Downey: “John was twenty percent a comedy prop to Dan and eighty percent a genuine god. Danny had more fun being Belushi’s biggest fan than in being a celebrity himself.” Aykroyd was a source of tender equilibrium, by which Belushi felt protected. “John would talk about our friendship,” Aykroyd recalls. “He talked me up all the time—how much he depended on me and my support, and how we were partners. He always said we were...and this just made me glow.”

[quote] Aykroyd would come back to his multiview home, where he’d find Belushi napping on the couch in his living room. It was a ritual: whenever Belushi was crashed out, Aykroyd would put a blanket over him. (“I loved to see him sleep. I knew he couldn’t get into trouble. I knew he was in peace when he was asleep.”) Aykroyd would watch Belushi’s slumbering form, listen to his breathing—the heavy rise and fall of three-packs-a-day.

[quote] Peter Aykroyd, Dan’s younger brother, recalls a conversation overheard on a train shortly after Belushi’s death: “There were these two black guys talking real loud about this and that. They started talking about movies and one guy said, ‘Man, you know, I’m really bummed out about John Belushi. Shit, I really miss him, man. I miss him. You know what I loved about him? Him and his buddy, man, they were so tight. Really tight.’”

Adorably, they built a shared bedroom/office at 30 Rock, would take a single bed on road trips, and Dan used to sleep at the foot of John & Judy’s bed with an unusual frequency. So there’s that.

[quote] Like campfires and candles, the lights of the nighttime road have a mesmerizing effect, providing the kind of intimacy in which life stories unravel. Aykroyd: “We talked about women, we talked about our pasts....” Late at night they headed for off-road motels, choosing the scariest, Psycho-type motels and always taking just one pastry-soft king-size bed.

[quote] Aykroyd commuted between the set of a motion picture in Canada and the NBC studios, sleeping, when he was in New York, on a foam slab at the foot of the bed in the small Bleecker Street apartment that Belushi was sharing with his girlfriend, Judy Jacklin. Danny was welcome at the foot of John and Judy’s bed indefinitely. Although Belushi wasn’t always fond of Aykroyd’s girlfriends (“which wasn’t really a problem,” says Aykroyd, “because I just told him, ‘John, I’m sorry, I’m with this woman—there’s nothing you can do’”), Aykroyd was—and is—intensely fond of Judy: “She was sort of a surrogate wife-mother to me as well. That’s one of the gifts John gave me.”

[quote] I’m not a homo and neither was John

Lovely.

He and that Michael O'Donoghue would try to intimidate Lily Tomlin when she hosted and she would burst out laughing in their faces. .

Belushi would then mutter 'cunt' and talk about how 'ugly' she was.

How funny he called Lily ugly like he was a connoisseur of female beauty and the woman he chose to marry was plain plain plain.

R83 context, dear.

That interview quote was published as part of a long-sit down discussion conducts in 1982 - mere months after John’s death in March - between journalist David Michaelis & various subjects including Dan, and was published at Christmas of that year. It’s certain that John’s passing would have been fresh in Dan’s mind, and that emotion would provoke him to use strong language.

Writing and talking about homosexuality in culturally-sensitive terms was not a consideration back in the early 1980s, either. A publication such as Esquire would not have thought to refrain from printing the word “homo”, and even as a considerate Canadian man in showbusiness Dan would have thought nothing of saying it. This doesn’t imply specific personal homophobic sentiments, more a general social milieu based on a lack of understanding and care.

It’s not right and it’s not fair, but it’s the way it was, and no amount of sneering and cancellation will change that history.

Reporting John’s death, the New York Times first speculated that he had choked on food or suffered a coronary, filed under ‘natural causes’. They also outright stated that there was no indication drugs were involved, and the death was not being treated as suspicious by the cops.

They also lead their article calling him ‘manic and rotund’.

Funny that John’s body was discovered by a ‘personal trainer’, whatever that means.

[quote] It’s not right and it’s not fair, but it’s the way it was, and no amount of sneering and cancellation will change that history.

Bullshit. You think I wasn’t around then?

Calling someone a “homo,” even back then wasn’t even a remotely polite term. Back then you would say “so-and-so is gay.”

Next you’ll tell us we should be grateful he didn’t say “I’m not a fag, and neither was John,” because, you know context and the times.

FOH.

Aykroyd said what he said 38 years ago, and it’s in black & white forever. We can’t change it. You can rail if you want to, but what good will it do? We don’t know and probably will never know in what spirit or frame of mind he said that.

Not knowing the man personally, it’s hard to say whether he’d retract that statement now, or regrets using offensive language. It’s nice to think he does. Maybe someone with social media can tweet him and ask.

Wondering if having a 12th House Moon in Sagittarius doomed John from the get. Any 12th House natal chart activity is difficult, but to be born with a firey outgoing free heart held under in a watery introverted pool of dark inner doubt must be torture.

For most Sagittarians, performing, travelling, making friend, having fun and pushing boundaries are a sport; for 12th House Sagittarians, these are an addiction.

[quote] With a 12th House Moon ruled by Jupiter, you will be perceptive, empathetic, and exceedingly generous. You may come across as someone blasé who doesn’t care much for the deep intangible side of life, but when comfortable you’re very philosophical and interested in people’s beliefs and inner lives. Alone with those you’re close to, you’re funny, warm, loving, and accepting. Unfortunately, you know how to have a too good a time with everyone else, including those who do not have your best interests in mind. You have an emotional porosity and an ability to red any room; the flipside of this is poor boundaries, hypersensitivity, and a need to please. Most having the Moon in 12th are not very aware of how they’re feeling, even if their level of perception is very high. It’s normal for their own emotions to overwhelm them, and it’s often that they have no idea how to express what’s in their heart and mind. It’s like they simply can’t say what they need from an emotional point of view, and somehow can’t or won’t fully avail their enormous hearts to others. Natives having Moon in 12th House see themselves as victims, the underdogs who always want to care for others and to play the hero. An adverse aspect for the Moon makes them depressed, emotionally isolated and terrified of everything. No matter whom they may be spending their time with, you can be sure they’ll merge their feelings with those of others. Their emotions are going with the flow, just like the sea’s tides and they can’t control them because of this. All the Moon in 12th House individuals dream of succumbing into an existence where they no longer need to stress about anything. The inner energy that characterizes them is defined by a lack of limits, and an amazing escapist imagination. Moon in Sagittarius in the 12th daringly explores the soul, venturing into nature, experimenting with substances, then burning out. Too external a life will run you hard into the buffers at some point. The persona (image) that 12th house types project isn’t the real self. Some will have a problem being truly themselves when out in the world which is why they need to retreat from time to time into seclusion – to stop performing for others and be themselves. Where 12th house personalities have lost the connection to their inner Self, they develop a hyper-active restlessness, a desperate drive to react to the demands of the external reality, while remaining uncomfortable with themselves. And often others get a sense of ‘no one at home’ because what you see on the outside with a 12th house Moon isn’t what’s there deep inside. 12th house planets do not support the ego, so your life has to be lived for the sake of doing what feels right whether or not there is glory attached to it.

I’m not “railinging,” I said one word “lovely.” That was the extent of it, until you mentioned time and context. My only point was, even in that time and context it was not the right thing to say.

Could he have changed his ways over the years? Of course. People do change. I don’t think he should be hanged in the town square or anything.

R90

🙄

Gilda Radner was FAR funnier in HER skits on SNL than Belushi.

COMIC GENUIS- these media people are so FULL OF SHIT.

I just want someone who's funny. I don't need them to be a genius.

R84. I would lever think of Lily Tomlin as ugly. She looks like Lily Tomlin. If she didn't, that would be a disappointment.

Anyway, she was always far more talented than Belushi. His gift was simply for being crass and having no limits about it.

His funniest moment was the zit gag in Animal House, and that was funny chiefly because we were suddenly in sympathy with the insufferable snobs he just blew his mouthful all over.

R26 The 'cheeseburgah, cheeseburgah' bit was his homage to a Chicago diner and it's Greek fry cook. 'Cheesebuggah, Peps, chips' was all the guy could say in English so it's the only food order he'd accept.

r85 Belushi calling someone else 'ugly' is probably one of the funniest things he's said given that he was a grotesque, ugly-ass cunt himself.

Does JIM need his own thread or is he a non entity.

[quote]I love how Jane Curtain speaks ill of the dead

I'll fix it for you:

Jon Belushi is dead. Good.

I was a teenager in his heyday and never really thought he was funny. And I thought the whole Blues Brothers thing was so annoying. "Oh look how cool we are ! Paying tribute to our blues heroes!"

I actually live in John’s hometown. There is a diner here that is run by I think his relatives, they still have pictures of him on the walls. The owners have incredible, immigrant work ethic (and accents), but it is a shit hole. The inside was decorated in the 70’s, it’s dirty and greasy, and the servers like all live in motels. I won’t eat there, but they are good people. John’s just a druggie who made it big, nothing more nothing less. Sure, he could be funny, but he was highly overrated. Chicago used to be a bigger deal, so when John died, this city really felt like they lost one of their own — which added to the national reaction.

From the sound of that interview at R82, Ackroyd was absolutely in love with Belushi but didn't have the balls to consummate it.

Or maybe Belushi wasn't into the thought of having sex with Ackroyd?

Just because you're absolutely in love with someone who considers you a very good friend - a lifemate, even - doesn't mean they wish to reciprocate physically.

True, true. My point is that Ackroyd can present as 'no homo' all he likes, but no straight man watches his buddy sleep and takes delight in the sound of his breathing.

What R82 just posted is one reason why John Candy distanced himself from Aykroyd in the 1970s. Dan convinced John Candy, or rather tricked him, into auditioning for SCTV. He later did everything he could to convince Candy to leave Canada and work on SNL, but Candy balked at the idea. He'd later say that he loved Dan Aykroyd but that he was far too clingy. I guess he found in Belushi what he originally found in Candy.

So Aykroyd was a chubby chaser, huh?

Maybe R105. He was definitely one of those guys who only came out of his shell when he was with someone who could be unapologetically outrageous.

[quote]Does JIM need his own thread or is he a non entity.

Nonentity. If his name were not Belushi, he would not have an acting career.

Michael O'Donoghue was mean and strange but a funny writer. He and Belushi were a good match.

Is this even remotely funny?

Yes, you'd have to have been there, though. It was the media alarm about killer bees that made a comedy sketch so funny. I've seen some funny screeds written more recently to ridicule the media firestorm about the Jade Helm exercises.

In the 70s Americans were so obsessed with killer bees, movies were made about them. Here's one with DL fave Kate Jackson and Gloria Fucking Swanson.

I'm convinced he would be an angry right winger by now, with weekly appearances on fox news, ranting about how unfair it is that he couldn't tell the same jokes he did in 1975.

John Belushi's style of humor was very much of his era, and a lot of it doesn't translate to modern audiences.

[quote] John Candy distanced himself from Aykroyd in the 1970s.

R104 well, Candy got over his distaste pretty quickly, then, given that he starred in THE BLUES BROTHERS, shot in the summer of 1979.

On that subject, this thread flags a lot of misconceptions about TBB, and what it meant. The best way to look at the film, and indeed the general lore and premise, is that it's a jukebox musical adventure written and made just for straight blue-collar American men. No idea if these still happen, but throughout the 1990s there even used to be showings of the movie where audiences would come to the theater in costume, get up and sing or dance during the song sections, loudly yell lines of the movie in unison - all very ROCKY HORROR, no?

The movie rhapsodises an urban playground, replete with things that the driftless yet conventionally workaday men of the world adore - cars, guitars, explosions, swaggering through a squalid existence thumbing the nose at authority and fucking with cowboys & cops. It's a vision of a what would happen if two down-and-out buddies and brothers just cut loose and abandoned all responsibility in single-minded and chaotic albeit golden-hearted pursuit, i.e. the dream of most hetero men. What red-blooded streetwise American male doesn't want to see a hundred cop-car pile-up, a flamethrower collapsing a building, or a stick up in City Hall? There's no angst or compunction about any of the destruction that the plot entails, and that is a huge part of the attraction. It's controlled carnage, a ballet of crunching metal and fire. It's the seductive idea that audacity, Rule of Cool, and not giving a fuck about rules can make you a hero, and that you don't need money or a white collar or a clean rap sheet to do it.

It's also a paean to male fraternity, particularly of the underclass and the marginalised, and the world of men who have freedom from women. Notice that the three main female characters - the Penguin, Aretha, Carrie, and Twiggy - are portrayed as unreasonable or hopeless, get barely any screen-time and no resolution, and are quickly dispensed of within the story (admittedly, Carrie does have a business of her own and gets some badass scenes). Again, this gives the film an appealing level of escapist fantasy to an audience of disenchanted men who only feel truly understood by their buddies at the jobsite, men who at heart are still boys who long to play and create havoc again, but who have fallen into a life where scraping by seems to be the only option.

There is much about TBB one can criticise, but one thing for which it is laudable is the general message of diversity, visibility for the poor, and the power of radical unity. The movie celebrates the ingenuity, power, creativity and intelligence of the poor, and sides firmly with them in their quest. The film was conceived and written at a time when racial uncertainties still divided a nation where segregation had only recently been ended, yet the movie has integral black characters in pivotal scenes throughout, some even having respectable or professional jobs on the 'right' side of the law (the statie played by Steven Williams, Rvd. Cletus, Elwood's manager at the glue factory, Matt & Aretha).

There is also the more serious subtext of the schism of wealth. When the movie was released, urbanised America was about to sink unbeknownst into a sanitised, gleaming, dog-eat-dog yuppie Hell where people like Jake & Elwood, Curtis, Aretha, Matt 'Guitar' Murphy, Rvd. Cletus, Franz Oz the Corrections Officer, John Lee Hooker, the hobos at Elwood's flophouse, and the ladies working at the glue factory had no place to legitimately exist and thrive; it's rather poignant and telling that, at the end of the film, the brothers end up back in the joint indefinitely. The only definitively wealthy characters, Maury Sline the agent & Carrie, are shown to be sleazy and psychotic, respectively.

It's not a movie meant to speak to gays, particularly not the upper-middle classes, and that's ok.

Just made me miss coke. 11 months clean and can’t go down that path again. if you can modulate (I cannot), it is amazing.

R114 John Candy didn't have a "distaste" for Dan Ackroyd. He just wasn't interested in having a fawning Dan hanging on him 24 hours a day like he did during their Old Fire Hall days in the 1970s.

And he didn't star in the Blues Brothers either. In actuality many of his scenes were left on the cutting room floor which really pissed Candy off. It was four years before he agreed to work with Ackroyd again and that was for Ghost Busters. Candy backed out and suggested his friend Rick Moranis for the part who didn't exactly have people clamoring for him to be in their movies.

Blues Brothers movie trivia:

-Aykroyd's original script & treatment ran to 324 pages -Judy Belushi played a cocktail waitress at the Holiday Inn -The Triple Rock Baptist Church is Hungarian--the crooked cross gives it away -In 2018 one of the Illinois Nazis ran for a GOP congressional seat in a Chicago district -Joe Walsh did a cameo as one of the prisoners on Jake & Elwood's unit at the end of the movie -Certain theaters nationwide, especially in California, refused to show the movie because it was seen as "too black" -Dan proposed to Carrie on the set of the film, after John had avidly set the pair up on dates (which went disastrously) -During the shoot Landis once got in a physical fight with John after flushing his cocaine in frustration with the actor's habit -the Route 59 motel Elwood invited Twiggy to meet him actually exists, and is still in operation 40 years on - it's called the West Wind on Roosevelt Road -a young James Avery (Uncle Phil!) makes his first-ever screen appearance, as one of the dancers outside Ray's Music Exchange during the 'Shake A Tail Feather' number -103 cars were destroyed during filming, as was a legit gas station going out of business on the left-side of Route 59 and a real mall in Harvey, IL that had been closed due to gang activity and criminal damage -Belushi got double the pay for the film than Aykroyd did (John got $50k, Dan got $25k), despite the fact that Dan was the one who first wrote and conceptualised the movie in the mid-70s with little initial concrete input from John beyond encouragement -When called in to record 'Minnie the Moocher' for the film, Cab Calloway assumed that Landis wanted the disco version of the song, and got irritated when Landis asked him to re-record it in the original blues style (of course, he changed his tune seeing the success of the film) -real-life Chicago PD officers loved John so much that, regardless of his character's misdemeanours and humiliation of cops, would give him rides home or get him a drink whenever they saw him in the city, and Danny used to tease John about it by calling him the "unofficial Mayor of Chicago" -Production constantly fell behind, because John went missing or didn't show up for filming more or less every other day. He would sometimes be found crashed on the couch in the homes of total strangers, who had taken in a delirious high and sleep-deprived John when he knocked on their door in a daze (which earned him the nickname 'America's Guest') -Right before shooting the climactic concert scene at the Palace Hotel Ballroom (actually, the Hollywood Palladium), in which Jake is meant to perform some very acrobatic and vigorous dance moves, John injured himself because he was horsing around on a kids' skateboard. An orthopedist was called to set to help John move freely as he could, but if you watch the scene closely you can see that John is limping and favouring one leg over the other

I think he was a big fat jerk.

But some people think he’s the height of funny.

John Belushi’s humor doesn’t play well with women or gay men. Like the 3 Stooges or Jackass.

R96 John's behaviour made him seem ugly, and his lifestyle ran roughshod over his appearance, but he wasn't naturally ugly of face or body.

In his teens & early-mid twenties he was actually very handsome. Of course, being clean-cut, sober, and physically fit then helped enormously.

R114 is the reason tl:dr was invented.

Believe that, r121!

R114, are you writing a fucking thesis?

R116 so much of what was shot for THE BLUES BROTHERS was left on the cutting room floor, not just Candy's material.

The first preview cut was over150 minutes long with an intermission, and completely lost people. The audiences didn't like it, the studio didn't like it and said "cut it", so John Landis did cut it and judiciously so for the general theatrical release. He ended up cutting and re-editing the movie again three more times after the first run, unhappy with its length, flow, and continuity while also trying to wrangle Aykroyd's inflated and meandering screenplay (it was Dan's first time writing a movie).

When Landis came to restore and release the roadshow version in the early 90s, he found out that several years prior Universal Studios had swept out their archives and discarded almost all of the movie's deleted footage, negatives, and trims. Surely they later kicked themselves for doing that, because by 1985 the film was already a very popular cult classic. Then again, DVDs/VHS weren't around or ubiquitous back then so they probably figured they would never have any use for unused footage. Now studios save everything to put it on Blu-ray.

Several 'lost' TBB scenes were restored to the DVD release within the last decade, and only because a surviving preview print of the second cut of the movie (there were four different cuts of this film) was found in the home of one of the movie's producer's son, who had stolen it in 1981 because he loved that version of the movie and didn't want it destroyed. The 'extended version' of the film we have today was Landis' second cut clocking in at 2 hrs 28 minutes. A few short the cuts from the original uncut test version can still be seen in the original trailer and in a musical sequence of 'Sink The Bismarck' sung at Bob's Country Bunker (these can be found on Youtube).

Keep in mind too, this was the late '70s, the age of the out-of-control director and runaway productions like APOCALYPSE NOW, 1941 (Belushi and Aykroyd's previous movie, which bombed), and the upcoming HEAVEN'S GATE (which really bombed). The suits at Universal rued those debacles, and were probably afraid that they had another ridiculously expensive Grade A turkey on their plate as well. Some perspective: the first cut of HEAVEN'S GATE was over 5 hours long, and a more expensive production. By the time it reached theaters (after a disastrous premiere and further cuts) the studio had chopped out fully half of the movie and audiences hated what was left. It made something like $1.5 million against a $40 million budget (in 1980 dollars). RIP, United Artists Pictures. Cutting 20 minutes out of TBB, a movie that hit big in an abridged theatre release and then ran as a cult classic forever after, seems kind of prudent by comparison.

Has anyone ever told you you’re very verbose?

R121/R122, nope, just that Blues Bros., and by extension the joint career of Aykroyd & Belushi, is one of my fifty special interests. I know a lot about this, having done a lot of reading and thinking about it over the years.

Kind of ironic, given Dan Aykroyd has obsessive special interests he rambles about at length, in just the same way. It's the autism talking, don't take it personal. I don't take neurotypicals personally, anymore, because I realise they just don't get it, and what I want to discuss seems weird or boring to them. Live and let live, different strokes, and all that.

I'll happily shut up and leave the thread if more than a couple people express that the material I'm posting isn't at all interesting to any other poster wanting to discuss Belushi and his life. It's all good. Have a great night.

I loved the SNL John Belishi years, but I never thought Belushi himself was very funny.

No one is saying you should leave the thread, but do you remember the story of Dan’s initial script for TBB? And how long it was. And then when it was screened, the audience didn’t like it because it was too long?

See what I’m saying?

R127 lmao, yes, thank you, message received. I'll take this off watch and let you all talk, maybe come back another time if I remember, or not.

Despite knowing my tics and stims, sometimes my brain and my typing fingers just get carried away automatically (like Tourette's, it can't often be controlled). Thanks for being somewhat cool about it - you could have gone in harder and been way more condescending, I guess.

The real question is would Belushi have sustained his career?

Ghostbusters was written for him, and Bill Murray stepped in so they could make it.

He also wanted to branch out into more dramatic type roles.

And where would Jim Belushi fit into all of this?

His Liz Taylor impersonation is hysterical. It used to be on YouTube, but no more.

I'm confused about his relationship with his wife, who is very brooding and sullen-looking in every photo - you never see her smile. Was she also an addict? The book "Wired' paints an odd picture of her.

I preferred Belushi as Joe Cocker, r130.

More on Judy Belushi pls.

I enjoy “ Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers, “ but most of the SNL stuff just doesn’t work anymore. 40-45 year old sketch comedy rarely plays well. Look at Carol Burnett, outside of the “ family” sketches, most of the comedy doesn’t play now.

[quote]but most of the SNL stuff just doesn’t work anymore.

Don't tell the Boomers that! It's sacrilege!

Amazing how different fame was back then. How much of the general public is familiar with the current SNL cast? The original cast were household names.

R125, I understand the TL,DR mentality, but I also loved your posts!

Some of us don't mind well thought out post that might be a little long...

Yeah, there's no reason to attack someone for writing a couple of long posts. Easy to scroll on by if you don't want to read them.

I was enjoying the long posts, myself.

I was enjoying the in depth posts! Come back, our film obsessive! Tell us more! You have your fans!

I want to compliment those two posters. One called out a posters style (which is indeed verbose), but he did it in a relatively respectful way, and the recipient returned the respect. See???? We are NOT like Trump! We still have good people! You are both dignified human beings for keeping your cool, it is delightful and refreshing. Peace.

r120 I see your point, and you're right about his ugly behavior. However, I do think 'very handsome' is a stretch. I'm willing to knock off grotesque and ugly-ass from my comment, but I still regard him as an very unattractive man -- outside and in.

There were two schools of thought about comedy back then, the Lampoon style where rich kids pretended to be everyday schmoes who said offensive things and delved into stereotypes, and the more working class styles of Second City, which also used stereotypes but in a way that skewered the status quo rather than upheld it.

You can kind of see these two styles of comedy play out in the movie Caddyshack, though I don't know if it was intentional. The snobs versus the slobs thing is kind of an accidental metaphor.

There was a lot of overlap between the two schools, they were similar in a lot of ways and only some interpersonal beefs like Murray versus Chase, etc. really highlight how it all played out. The thing with Belushi, though, is that he was enough of a bigoted jerk in real life that he ended up accidentally bridging the gap between the snobby Lampoon types and the more down-to-earth types. He was this gross slapstick dunderhead who had the appearance of a working class yutz, but was conniving and grasping, and very literally planned to use the black music of soul and R&B legends to boost his own career -- he has been reported as saying as much more than once, in various biographies.

The idea that The Blues Brothers "lauds" a "general message of diversity" is revisionist claptrap. The musicians who appear have dignity and won't let Landis or Belushi or the studio or anyone take that away, and that's the only reason the movie works, that and the savvy editor who saw that the musical performances were the real gold in the film.

The whole original joke of the movie was that these two guys think they're black, which is HIGH-larious, why would whites want to be black?!?! Oh, it is a laugh riot! And then on top of that, the Brothers were meant to out-soul the soul kings and queens, out-black the black R&B musicians. Whatta hoot!

Thank the gods most of that was wiped out of the movie when it was edited down to size.

Didn't Farley, Belushi and Philip Seymour Hoffman all die of a speedball overdose.

The best part of TBB is the gospel choir scene and idiot John Landis cuts away from it.

R88, for whatever reason, I just downloaded a truly awful movie the other day called Partners from 1982 with Ryan O'Neal and John Hurt playing undercover cops in a "Cruising" type scenario played for non-existent laughs. O'Neal was of course, straight; Hurt was playing gay again. It featured liberal use of the word "faggot" in an albeit crude scenario; nobody apparently thought it would make O'Neal unlikeable to use the term repeatedly. (I gave up after 50 minutes, my curiosity completely satisfied.)

I'm not sure the late '70s/early '80s were as polite as you remember.

R103, he means because when he was sleeping he couldn't cause trouble or harm himself. That's not sexual. Addicts terrorise those around them.

Bump - can someone please share any info about Judy Belushi?

Someone who had something to do with that awful "Nemesis" said that Brent Spiner refused to do the movie unless the character of Data was killed off. Spiner is a real dick.

The comment at R149 belongs in the Star Trek thread. Don't know how it ended up here. Another Datalounge glitch, I guess.

Judy remarried. John was her high school sweetheart. He seemed kind of asexual to me. Possibly gay and not okay with it

[quote] He comes across as a narcissistic prick.

Pretty much describes all men in show business.

[quote] He seemed kind of asexual to me. Possibly gay and not okay with it

Massive, gigantic fucking eyeroll.

He didn't fuck groupies and he didn't fuck Judy much after Second City. He hated women except for Carrie Fischer and his grandma.

Judy Belushi was a druggie. Not as bad as her husband, but she did like the coke. She's also kind of weird. She entitled her memoir about her life with Belushi "Samurai Widow."

R154 that’s something that intrigues me about John.

Here’s someone outgoing, who grew up a popular jock from a well-liked family, became a sports star at a good university, then became a wildly successful performing artist with hit movies and his name on the marquee. He had strong family bonds, money, clout, social skills - things women appreciate.

Regardless of his weight, his addiction, and his comedy stylings, on paper he should have been wading in fresh pussy. Yet he barely seemed interested. Dan Aykroyd was picking up more women, women who as noted above were not to John’s liking.

It’s conspicuous for a straight man of John’s profile that his misogyny went beyond the usual flippant annoyance, and tipped into outright vehemence and avoidance.

[quote] He hated women except for Carrie Fischer and his grandma.

He also adored Gilda Radner, and obviously connected with Cathy Smith.

R120 he’s still no oil painting in that photo. He’s just clean and groomed.

Holy shit r125, shut the hell up.

R6 You mean Bob Woodward?

I have never understood the hype about him.

But he didn't have good family connections - his father ignored the family to work 24/7 at his restaurants. His family life was bad, so he fled to Judy. Just the same, the self-loathing is interesting, since he was popular, homecoming king, football star, etc - he never suffered failure or exclusion like so many comics.

There was mental illness in the family. His father was a dry drunk and his mother was bi-polar.

[quote]I have never understood the hype about him.

Part of it is the timing. He was a new comedy type, the stoner jock. Before SNL and Belushi, in comedy, those were usually mutually exclusive types. Jacks were ultrastraight, and stoners hated them. He had been a popular jock and was now a stoner performing anarchical comedy. SNL threw many things together in new ways. I don't mean that to seem "reverential." It's just that I was a teenager then, and the show had something original every week.

And a lot of the comedy was topical. They responded to the then hot topics and issues. Much just won't be funny to someone who didn't live through those times.

TV comedy at the time was Carol Burnett doing commercial spoofs and Tarzan yells.

Yeah, our experience of sketch comedy was from Carol Burnett and other variety shows, the Mighty Carson Art Players, plus we'd seen old-school stand-up routines. George Carlin and Richard Pryor had broken away from the stand-up style of the 50s a few years before SNL. I don't think it's any surprise that they both hosted in the early years.

Belushi led that SNL sketch about gay seamen, on episode 4.18 (with guests Michael Palin & James Taylor).

[quote] “So dangerously flaccid did that night become, thus Captain Ned remained in my cabin to reassure me until dawn, when we were aroused by a shout from Mr. Spunk....”

The original SNL was groundbreaking for the reasons cited above. It ushered in a new style of comedy on television, which has been the standard for fortysomething years now, but they were the first. That's why it was so popular. Before SNL, it was Bob Fucking Hope and variety shows.

r166 that sketch was hilarious. The name of the ship was The Raging Queen.

I never liked him and I thought the Blues Brothers was an embarrassing minstrel act. But he was really, really popular and being a mainlining junkie gave him that extra cachet that certain long haul fans love.

From the Rolling Stone article 'Son of Samurai' by Charles M. Young, published in August 1978:

John only agreed to SNL because Michael O'Donoghue was writing it, and because he convinced Danny Aykroyd to audition for Lorne as well.

[quote] John gives director Del Close much credit for refining his technique. “Del made us explore and work with the other actors,” he says.” He wanted us to take chances and not go for cheap laughs. I even took notes when he talked, It’s very hard to be a good actor, you know. It’s easy to be cute.” In 1973, John got a call from New York to join the National Lampoon’s Lemmings, a musical production parodying the Woodstock culture, for which he perfected Joe Cocker and created the role of the announcer exhorting the chant for rain. “I chose him because he projected the feeling of a homicidal maniac.” says director Tony Hendra. “Watching him act, you were always glad he hadn’t taken up something more dangerous. During rehearsals, he went into a blue funk every third day and I would have to talk him out of going home to Chicago, but once he hit the stage, you knew he was in his element. He was always threatening to go over the edge, and the more dangerous the situation, the funnier.” A good example of how evenly balanced are his desires for success and destruction is how he got picked for Saturday Night Live. He and Aykroyd were the last hired for the cast – Aykroyd because of a reputation for not showing up at gigs, and Belushi because “I had a big chip on my shoulder. I thought all television was shit, and I let Lorne [Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live] know it. My own set at home was often covered with spit. The only reason I wanted to be on it was because Michael O’Donoghue was writing and it had a chance to be good.”

....yet Mr. Mike was not terribly complimentary of his friend John, in turn.

[quote] "The same violent urge that makes John great will also ultimately destroy him....I don’t see John ever becoming that stable. He’s one-hundred percent Albanian, you know, the only one you’re ever likely to meet. I tell him Albanians are gypsies whose wagons broke down. I have this vision of him with a goose under his arm, trying to sneak out of the room. Yes, that is John: an Albanian goose thief. He’s one of those hysterical personalities that will never be complete. I look for him to end up floating dead after the party. Comedy is a baby seal hunt.”

It seems John was teased and beat up on a lot in his youth for being either delinquent, stupid, or lazy. The Repuglican suburb he grew up in sounds like a white-bread hetero Hell - teetotal, College football-obsessed, and full of anxious middle-class PTA members.

[quote] He seems to have been a nightmare to his schoolteachers. In the sixth grade, they demoted him to second grade. Also in the sixth grade, his gym teacher announced in front of his class that he was the worst of her 400 students and kicked him in the balls. “They crushed the spirit out of me by the time I left,” he insists. Bored by his classes, Belushi expended most of his energies playing drums in rock bands, acting in school shows and being captain of the football team. “I must have been the laziest captain they ever had,” he says. “I was kicked off the team every year for loafing. The coach used to yell at us to do something or turn in our uniforms. If I felt I’d already done my best, I’d just run to the locker room and turn in my uniform. But I was always back the next day. I never missed a practice. It was a very valuable experience. After two-a-day practices at the end of summer, you feel there’s nothing you can’t do. I probably wouldn’t have made it in New York if it hadn’t been for that. As the coach used to say, ‘No pain, no gain.'”

Judy wanted to John to segue straight into serious dramatic film roles after his SNL contract expired.

[quote] “In college I saw him play Danforth in The Crucible, and he was so intense that the other actors thought he was going to hurt them. When he does get a straight role, he will blow people away.”

[quote]He’s one-hundred percent Albanian, you know, the only one you’re ever likely to meet. I tell him Albanians are gypsies whose wagons broke down. I have this vision of him with a goose under his arm, trying to sneak out of the room. Yes, that is John: an Albanian goose thief.

That's pretty accurate. Albanians do tend to be shady AF.

Ultimately, the stress of fame in NYC and the workload of live topical television combined with John's social-life habits and his preference for partying with showbiz types out in the desert put paid to his SNL tenure.

[quote] Belushi went out with the Rolling Stones on the night before a Feb. 24, 1979 episode, and then struggled to recover in time for the broadcast with Kate Jackson from Charlie's Angels as host. Producer Lorne Michaels said a doctor advised Belushi not to go on because his lungs were filling up with fluid. Belushi somehow pulled it together, although he gave a subpar performance. "During that last year, he really didn't want to be on Saturday Night Live anymore," fellow comedian Richard Belzer said. "He kind of resented being in New York. He was getting huge, and he'd rather have stayed out in L.A. being a Hollywood star." John's wife Judy adds, "he knew that trying to do movies and SNL was too much. One time he looked at me and said, 'I don't know if I'm coming or going. Sometimes I can't even remember what day of the week it is.'"

The cast of SNL understood and supported John's departure, but became angry with him when it was revealed last minute that he was taking Dan with him. It's hard to imagine why they expected any other outcome when they knew how close and inseparable the pair were, and how they only came to the show in the first place on the understanding they were a duo before they were Players.

[quote] The prospect of a movie built around the Blues Brothers characters Aykroyd had developed with Belushi convinced his friend to leave, as well. "We knew John was leaving," SNL writer Jim Downey said, "but the real shock was Danny. We didn't find out until the last minute that he was going, and people were a little angry with Belushi for luring him away. Billy [Murray] especially, because he felt like he was really left out there to fend for himself." Belushi said goodbye on the last episode with two of his best-loved recurring bits: Samurai Futaba (the character that helped him pass his SNL audition) and Pete Dionasopoulos of the Olympia Cafe ("Cheeburger cheeburger!"). Aykroyd's only major sketch saw him break out his Richard Nixon impression for the final time. The musical guest that night was Bette Midler, who sang her rendition of Tom Waits' "Martha" and “Married Men.”

Jesus, why don’t you just copy and paste the fucking book?

Why is THE BLUES BROTHERS Rated-R? There’s no sex, no nudity (unless you count the sauna scene), no on-camera drug use, no gore or fight scenes, and not even that much profanity beyond the occasional "shit" or "damn" or "hell" (iirc "fucking" is only said once: 'ELWOOD: You can't lie to a nun. We gotta go in and visit the penguin. JAKE: No. Fucking. Way.')

The worst things in the movie are destruction (property & vehicles, for the most part), heavy artillery (Carrie's arsenal, mainly), and some glamorisation or hand-waving of felonies such as theft, speeding/reckless driving or resisting arrest. Oh, and the Nazis. These are all cartoonish and played for laughs, however.

R173 so you're illiterate, AND a Christian? Poor baby. I'd say I'll pray for you, but I wouldn't want to step on your only gimmick.

If you have a fixed abode with an address, we could organise a little DL-drive to send you some 1st grade learner material to practise your reading over the holidays. And I'll even donate a few bucks to any GoFundMe or KoFi account you have, given you'll almost certainly need a little assistance to help you cope being a limited individual all alone over the festive season. We're here for you, Doll!

[quote]There was mental illness in the family. His father was a dry drunk and his mother was bi-polar.

Given what's been learned about brain-injuries in recent years....Jim believes that John was suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) as a result of his years playing football. (he was a middle linebacker nicknamed "Killer" by his teammates; sounds like a guy that probably lead with his helmet a lot). Jim said John once had a seizure following a game, senior year, but it went untreated/unexplored.

There's no way to know, obviously. But CTE "tracks" as a possible explanation for (or contributing factor to) John's behavior & descent into addiction, over time. Especially, if there was already a pre-disposition to depression/mental health issues in the family?

[quote] probably lead with his helmet a lot

Oh, dear!

Lmao!

I get the impression he was the type of performer who was only happy in front of a crowd. When not working he must have felt miserable. Like Chris Farley asking the hooker not to leave him alone before he died.

Dan Broderick of Betty Broderick game was a huge fan. He and his friends liked to lip sync Soul Man and break into "the gator". And that tells you everything you need to know about John Belushi's family

Belushi was of his time, but a surprising number of his bits hold up today, I think. Early SNL was like the Sex Pistols of TV comedy— not the best nor most polished performers, but raw, manic, anarchic energy. Just about everyone was strung out on coke. Al Franken had a quote about how he would do coke so that he could stay awake to make sure everyone else wasn’t doing too much coke, which nicely captures the vibe of that time and place.

Belushi got to where he was because he had something that’s impossible to teach: charisma. YMMV on how that charisma manifested itself; I actually think it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could have done well with more dramatic roles, as Bill Murray has done. That’s assuming he kicked his hard drug habit, but his performance in “Continental Divide” hinted at unfulfilled promise.

John was undeniably a rude, addled misogynist who at times lacked professionalism and wasn't a consistent team player.

And yet, he introduced controlled anarchy to live structure that brought the corporate structure into question, and aside from that always will be leagues ahead in terms of talent, capability, and charisma than most of the amateur, mugging, giggling, line-forgetting hacks SNL hires today.

Can anyone sit with a straight face and call the likes of Charles Rocket, Denny Dillon, Terry Sweeney, Victoria Jackson, Kyle Mooney, Randy Quaid, Nora Dunn, Horatio Sans, Ann Risley, Chris Kattan, Jimmy Fallon, Finesse Mitchell, Jeff Richards, Bobby Moynihan, Leslie Jones, Pete Davidson and Colin Jost better cast members than John Belushi? Come on, now. Symbolic of this difference is John's weight - John was stocky and 'big' for the time, but having seen some of the grotesque specimens to grace NBC's floors since his body looks a lot more healthy and attractive by comparison than it did back then, doesn't it?

Watching even his least strenuous and moderated SNL cold open feels joyous and mischievous, though it's over forty years old and just one big goofy wink. YMMV, but I think he & Gilda are the only two of the original cast whose sketches still feel fresh and watchable in hindsight. He has a boyish insouciance that still sparkles and jumps off the screen, though some part of that is his well-documented attitude problem combined with the mystique effect he got from dying young.

IMO he's not as great as some say, but not as awful as others say, either.

R181 I adore CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, it's one of my secret-favourite romantic dramedies.

People forget too that John was a popular act in underground stage comedy and a minor star of gonzo radio (National Lampoon Radio Hour) before he even went on TV. He always had star power, and an ability to get laughs and hold audience attention.

Carrie said that the day on THE BLUES BROTHERS when she shot the tunnel scene kiss with John (as Jake Blues), he went around the set singing 'My Best Friend’s Girl' all day.

My first true "love" was from Chicago ,Libertyville to be exact , and reminded me so much of John Belushi . He was built like him (the young version) and was good looking but absolutely riddled with insecurity . He was also gay as a goose . Loved all gay sex of any variation,yet spent most of his life claiming to be straight .Vehemently so . Never mind he introduced me to his family , told everyone far and wide he loved me ,etc. When it came down to it he dumped my ass because he just wasnt strong enough to fly in the face of society to be with me. He never married,though he did have 2 kids ,and I recently reconnected with him via facebook . He is 350 lbs on a 5'8 frame,hasnt got a shred of his looks left,and decades of drug addiction left him a loon . He broke my heart when he dumped me,but I take no joy in what hes become . I always wished him the best . I think John Belushi,had he lived , would have ended up the same way .

[186] I’m from L’ville.

R187 how old are you ? If late 50s you might have went to school with him !

Is it weird that I find his Captain Kirk on the SNL 'Last Voyage of the Enterprise' sketch sexy? He has the right swagger.

Aykroyd as Bones McCoy forgot his lines when he came in, and John had to prompt him three times before he got it. It's kind of cute.

justa nother sloppy junkie.....pass

[quote]you might have went to school with him !

Oh, dear!

R186, apparently he hurt you bad enough to mess up your punctuation.

Every time I get to feeling like my life may be empty and sad ,along come the grammar and punctuation trolls to remind me there are much sadder people out there. Get a life you fucking sad old queens.

Oh relax and get a sense of humor. You’re on Datalounge, FFS.

And you’ve been here for years, you should know how we operate by now.

[quote] "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" did it first.

:::: ahem :::

R186 - 10 years younger.

R181 it's surprising more DLers haven't heard of 'Continental Divide', considering: Peter Jamison & Hub Braden paused work on Streisand's 'All Night Long; to work on it; leading lady and established stage actress Blair Brown was cast for her resemblance to a young Katharine Hepburn (the movie was written as a retro nod to Tracy-Hepburn flicks), and got a Golden Globes Best Actress nomination (she lost to Bernadette Peters, for 'Pennies In Heaven'); Helen Reddy sang the closing theme 'Never Say Goodbye', and; in the final ten minutes an original poster for the 1980-1 Broadway run of 'Evita' is shown.

To make it all the more charming, this is also perhaps the only mature screen appearance of John where he is completely clean & sober and at a healthy weight; he went on a diet and took up martial arts as well as training in mountain-climbing, after principal photography where medics had to keep giving him oxygen to cope in the altitude doing the climbing scenes. In the first place, he had almost lost the role to the much fitter Christopher Walken, and until shooting began and the effects of his new lifestyle became obvious he didn't see himself as the man for the part (or any romantic lead).

What a shame he'd be dead just six months after the film's release, and eighteen months after its shooting. A line of dialogue is chillingly prophetic; in one scene, Belushi's character Ernie Souchak says to Blair Brown's character Nell Porter, "all you do is kiss me, and look at me like I'm gonna die". In 1981 he was so close to pulling it back together and making something of his life and career, the real tragedy.

Also a little tragic that Mike Royko, the real life Chicago columnist on whom the Belushi character was based, turned out to be a vile homophobic Repug asshole in the bitter end. He was still very well-liked and respected journalist when the film was written.

In any event, it's still a lovely film, probably one of the last truly heartwarming and good-natured romances ever released by Hollywood. What I particularly appreciate, aside from the breathtaking scenes of wild Colorado and the loveliness of Ms. Brown, is the ending that subverts the tired cliche of many a romantic drama and looks to a more modern way of loving and living.

I love CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, too, R183 (and R197).

I was surprised when it came out in 1981. Didn't think he was Laurence Olivier or anything, but given what we'd seen in SNL/Animal House/Blues Brothers, I was surprised that he could rein it in and play an off-beat romantic lead.

What's the gist of Continental Divide?

Don't mean to sound snarky....but Google is your friend, R199. Belushi portrays a grizzled Chicago newspaper reporter, known for exposing mafia & government grift. After an attempt on his life (by mafia), his boss sends him to a remote part of Wyoming to write a story about a woman who is trying to save Bald Eagles. Romance & hilarity ensues. Written by Lawrence Kasdan.

weak fuk, justa nother rich junkie.....

Thanks R200. I was just being lazy...

For anyone who enjoys a squat hairy Balkan bear, CONTINENTAL DIVIDE has a bed scene where John is naked from the waist up with body hair on show. He has a light woolly covering on his chest and arms, and thanks to the aforementioned regimen is relatively trim around the torso.

"You want some goulash?" is surely one of the funniest most silly innuendos ever heard in a bedroom scene of a mainstream romantic film.

R198 John gave a more-than competent and appealing performance.

What interested me was his chemistry with Brown, as prior to seeing the movie I'd never seen him engage with warm focus and create rapport with a woman before. He actually comes across as credibly tender and decent in the role, as well as an attractive suitable lover to Brown's character - not what one would imagine of the crude Clown Prince of Chicago.

The effect was marvellous, and as you say a pleasant surprise. Not sure even John knew he had that in him! Perhaps the combination of sobriety, maturity, and getting out of NYC/L.A. to try and make it on his own steam cleared his head and sharpened up his skillset, so he could start to set himself on course. It's one of those bittersweet, 'who you could have been, and maybe really were' events. This movie is a nice counterpoint to show people who think John was all bad to the bone. It's the lightest part of his public life we have on record.

Despite favourable reviews it bombed on release and fell into relative obscurity, however. Wonder why that was? Maybe the public felt betrayed by John trying to change his image and lifestyle, or they just weren't ready to see his sweet serious and mawkishly vulnerable side.

[quote] I get the impression he was the type of performer who was only happy in front of a crowd. When not working he must have felt miserable. Like Chris Farley asking the hooker not to leave him alone before he died.

This seems a factor in why John loved Aykroyd so much, and why unlike others John didn't rebuff Dan's fixated attentions or find them annoying.

Danny was someone John could always be performing with, even when there was no stage or cameras or other people around. There are accounts of the two of them coming up with entire 100-character repertoires on road trips, just the two of them alone together on a highway, using CBB radio and messing with real-life truckers while they were at it. Friends who knew them as a twosome corroborate that they had their own special kind of language, and that even in company they would break out into routines and private in-jokes that no-one else could understand or even found funny.

As we've established Dan idolised John and found everything he did praiseworthy and entertaining and endlessly fascinating - essentially a reliable crowd of one that John could access 24/7, and a great crowd, at that - and, most importantly, Dan refused to leave John until he was repeatedly pushed away and eventually called to attend to his own independent work & family.

Their relationship makes perfect sense viewed through that lens.

It might be a myth, but I have heard John Belushi was going to play Ignatius Reilly in the planned movie of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’.

R206 yes, in 1982 Harold Ramis was in the final stages of adapting ACoD to a screenplay, with John in mind for the lead. A draft contract was drawn up for John, in the few weeks before his death.

It's a glorious missed opportunity. I mean, a gluttonous, workshy, cynical, lazy, buffoonish and politically-incorrect street-philosopher pushing a hot-dog cart for a living even though he's in his thirties? The character was basically written so one day John Belushi could play him. To this day I wonder - opposite his Ignatius, which actresses would have made a good Irene Reilly and Myrna Minkoff?

John Candy, John Goodman, Jonathan Winters, Chris Farley, Zach Galifianakis, and even Divine have all been considered for the part of Ignatius, since Belushi. John Waters, once briefly attached to potentially direct, notoriously said of the project: "it’ll never happen. How can a movie ever live up to that book? So many people have tried to do it. Some of the top directors in the world have tried to make that movie, and I don’t know if it’ll ever happen....maybe it shouldn’t." Stephen Fry was also given the reins at one point, and he also dropped them in defeat, feeling that any film or even screen adaptation of the book would inevitably come up short and render the characters unlikeable (though he said a Netflix miniseries could work).

John's 'Prison Farm' song-skit for NatLamp, skewering Watergate defenders who got off lightly, is still so funny and applies just as much to venal politicans of today.

Gilda's Patty Hearst Donation Drive is also hysterical all these years on. "You know, overthrowing the ageist, sexist, racist, Corporate pig-monster is a full-time job."

[quote]Also a little tragic that Mike Royko, the real life Chicago columnist on whom the Belushi character was based, turned out to be a vile homophobic Repug asshole in the bitter end.

Mike Royko? The guy who quit the Chicago Sun-Times after Rupert Murdoch bought it? Something about a dead fish wouldn't tolerate being wrapped in a Murdoch paper.

I think Continental Divide did badly because everyone going in was expecting to see Bluto and instead saw an adult acting like an adult. When you play a loud clown for years it's hard to get people to see you as anything else.

"In 73, it would have been, that John walked through the back door of the Second City Firehouse Theater, on Lombard Street in Toronto. And it was a snowy, blustery, wintery night....we were backstage in the green room, and the door swung open, and there was this figure. In a Lee J. Cobb-style driving cap, and a white scarf, and a big thick cable-knit sweater-cardigan, and sneakers and jeans, and a pack of cigarettes - completely underdressed for the Canadian winter that swirled around him. My first image hit me of John Belushi, silhouetted against a Toronto evening sky around midnight with a blizzard around him...well, we fell in love, of course, as you know....John & I just understood each other. We both loved music, we both loved to dance. We were Alpha Men; me from Canada, he from Illinois. He relaxed me, he made me into less of a robot - and I benefit from that, today."

Kind of cool that Belushi gave a massive chunk of his ANIMAL HOUSE salary to fund The Blues Brothers album, BRIEFCASE FULL OF BLUES. That's a pretty big gesture to make for a vanity side-project in a niche genre together with a friend you've only known for three or four years.

In the spirit of saying controversial things like our man of the thread: I like to imagine that John would secretly find the House of Blues concept at least a little embarrassing. Though he couldn't get enough of Hollywood drugs & money and the glamourous freedoms of the music/acting industry, he didn't care a whit about making money in business and he certainly wasn't about franchises and selling out. He wanted to move right on from The Blues Brothers gimmick to do a lot more challenging and diverse work with his acting career. As far as music goes, he was also way more into punk and crunching hard rock music, if it wasn't obvious from the way he sung blues covers. The common thread of everything John chose to do in his career was, "will it surprise them? Will it shock them? Will it throw 'em for a loop?"

HOB is Dan's baby, and probably would have been had John lived. But it's hard to say whether Aykroyd would have set them up with such vehemence if John hadn't died; I get the impression the venues and the foundation are a way for Dan to keep John alive in spirit. It sounds cruel to say this, but from a purely financial & creative standpoint Aykroyd has somewhat benefitted from John's death; though of course the emotional and artistic price of this benefit was far too high, and I'm sure he'd give it all up and demolish everything to have John back.

John Belushi would have made a terrible Ignatius P. Reilly. He just wasn't right for. Neither was Chris Farley. Or Divine. They were all considered for the role (they were all fat) but none of them would have been very good in it.

The only actor who could have done the part of Ignatius P. Reilly justice was John Candy. Not only was he physically right for the part he had the talent to handle the dialogue. He would have captured Ignatius's manner of speech and superior, haughty attitude perfectly.

I hope no movie ever gets made of "A Confederacy of Dunces." In a 2013 interview, Steven Soderbergh remarked "I think it's cursed. I'm not prone to superstition, but that project has got bad mojo on it." All the actors considered for it died early deaths.

I think Phillip Seymour Hoffman would have been brilliant as Ignatius . I also think the book wasnt the masterpiece it was hailed as. A good read yes,but not some timeless masterpiece.

I will always appreciate HOB (Sunset Strip) because I got to see some bands there in the late '90s that I otherwise may have never seen. Kool & The Gang, the Brothers Johnson, Charlie Wilson/Gap Band, and Ms. Etta-fucking-James on NYE! (doesn't any get better than that). I loved that it was a smaller venue, with that dance floor in front of the stage. I always left HOB slightly exhausted, from dancing so much.

This is how I remember Belushi.

By the time of Continental Divide, Belushi was wearing a wig. I’m sure that fucked with his head.

I just watched the documentary. I must say, it was very well done. The animated sequences were very cool.

Judy Belushi seemed interesting. She would freebase with him, per the Wired Book.

R217 I actually didn’t like that at all. I would have preferred much more clips/archive interviews etc (which there weren’t nearly enough of).

I also would have preferred face to face interviews with some of the “costars and friends” and not just voiceovers.

Harold Ramis is one of those celebrities I always forget is dead, btw. And then when I’m reminded I get sad.

It was a decent watch but I really didn’t learn much more than I already knew. What has always been the most curious thing to me (which others have mentioned) is that he wasn’t the classic fat kid insecure misfit who overcompensated looking for approval in all the wrong places (see Chris Farley) (He was also more stocky than fat until the last couple years of his life). He was the football captain and homecoming king so all that basic armchair psychology of comedians doesn’t work.

Was he overrated by some? Sure. But a lot of his stuff still makes me laugh. He certainly was talented. I’m skeptical he would have gone on to have any great career though — certainly not in movies which looked DOA going forward. He’s much more Jack Black vibes than Chris Farley, btw.

Whoever said Phillip Seymour Hoffman would have made a great Ignatius is SPOT ON. Man, that would have been fantastic.

Nowhere in Wired portrays Judy freebasing, R218

yes it does. when they go to ron wood's, r221

R213 please come back and tell us why DUNCES isn't great! I love hearing the opinions of literary people who know of what they speak.