fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Frederick Allan Moranis (/məˈrænɪs/; born April 18, 1953) is a Canadian actor, comedian, musician, songwriter, writer and producer. He appeared in the sketch comedy series Second City Television (SCTV) in the 1980s and several Hollywood films, including Strange Brew (1983), Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Spaceballs (1987), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989, and its 1992 and 1997 sequels), Parenthood (1989), My Blue Heaven (1990), and The Flintstones (1994).

Rick Moranis
Moranis in March 1990
Born	Frederick Allan Moranis (1953-04-18) April 18, 1953 (age 69) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Actor comedian musician songwriter writer producer
Years active	1976–present
Spouse	Ann Belsky ​ ​ (m. 1986; died 1991)​
Children	2

In 1997, Moranis began a long break from acting to dedicate his time to his two children as a widower.[1] He did not appear in a live-action film for over 20 years, although he provided voice-over work for a few animated films, including Disney's Brother Bear (2003). He also released comedy albums and made appearances at fan conventions.

In 2020, after a hiatus of nearly 23 years from live-action films, Moranis signed to appear in a new sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, called Shrunk.

Early life

Moranis was born in Toronto, Ontario, to a Jewish family.[2] He went to elementary school with Geddy Lee, frontman of the rock band Rush.[3]

Career

His career as an entertainer began as a radio disc jockey in the mid-1970s, using the on-air name "Rick Allan" at three Toronto radio stations.[3]

In the mid-1970s, Rick and comedy partner Rob Cowan, also a budding young radio announcer, performed on CBC-TV. Their spoof of Hockey Night in Canada was popular, and they periodically performed it on the road, including a charity sports dinner in Sarnia, Ontario.^{[citation needed]}

In 1977, he teamed up with Winnipeg-born writer/director and performer Ken Finkleman on a series of live performances on CBC's 90 Minutes Live; comedy radio specials; and television comedy pilots, including one called Midweek and another called 1980 (produced at CBC Toronto in 1979). Both pilots starred Finkleman and Moranis in a series of irreverent sketches, including an early mockumentary sketch featuring Moranis as a Canadian movie producer, and another featuring the dubbed-in voiceovers of Nazi war criminals as they appear to be discussing their Hollywood agents and the money one can earn being interviewed on major documentary series like The World at War.^{[citation needed]}

In 1980 Moranis was persuaded to join the third-season cast of Second City Television (SCTV) by friend and SCTV writer/performer Dave Thomas.[4] At the time, Moranis was the only cast member not to have come from a Second City stage troupe. He is known for such impressions as Woody Allen, Merv Griffin, and David Brinkley.^{[citation needed]}

With SCTV moving to CBC in 1980 (and syndicated to the United States), Moranis and Thomas were challenged to fill two additional minutes with "identifiable Canadian content," and created a sketch called The Great White North featuring the characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, a couple of Canadian buffoons. By the time NBC ordered 90-minute programs for the U.S. in 1981 (the fourth season of SCTV overall), there had been such favourable feedback from affiliates on the McKenzies that the network requested the duo have a sketch in every show.[5]

Bob and Doug became a pop-culture phenomenon, which led to a top-selling and Grammy-nominated album, Great White North,[6] and the 1983 movie Strange Brew, Moranis's first major film role.

Another notable Moranis character on SCTV was Gerry Todd, a disc jockey who presented music clips on television. The sketch aired before the debut of MTV in the United States, leading both Sound & Vision and Martin Short to dub Moranis as the creator of the video jockey. "There had been no such thing" up until that point, recalled Short, so "the joke was that there would be such a thing."[7][8]

Feature films

After his SCTV work and the Strange Brew movie, Moranis had a busy career in feature films that lasted over a decade, most notably Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of Horrors; and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels. He also did the voice-over for a short-lived cartoon series on NBC called Gravedale High (1990).

Moranis was also slated to appear (as the janitor) in the 1985 film The Breakfast Club, but was released by director John Hughes, because his interpretation of the role was not what Hughes was seeking.[9]

Moranis's last film roles were Barney Rubble in The Flintstones (1994) and the box-office flop Big Bully (1996). Other than the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids sequels, by the mid-1990s his only appearance in that genre was a 1993 music video, "Tomorrow's Girls" by Donald Fagen, in which he played a man married to an extraterrestrial woman. Disney's final film in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise is 1997's direct-to-video film Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, in which Moranis is the final remaining original cast member. The series Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show also launched in 1997 but without Moranis; it concluded in 2000. He worked for Disney twice more (with his fellow SCTV alumnus Dave Thomas), voicing Rutt the moose in the 2003 animated film Brother Bear and its direct-to-video sequel.

In a 2004 interview, Moranis talked about his favourite kinds of films:

On the last couple of movies I made—big-budget Hollywood movies—I really missed being able to create my own material. In the early movies I did, I was brought in to basically rewrite my stuff, whether it was Ghostbusters or Spaceballs. By the time I got to the point where I was "starring" in movies, and I had executives telling me what lines to say, that wasn't for me. I'm really not an actor. I'm a guy who comes out of comedy, and my impetus was always to rewrite the line to make it funnier, not to try to make somebody's precious words work.[7]

Acting hiatus

In 1997, Moranis took a hiatus from working in the film industry. He later explained, "I'm a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage to raise my kids and to do the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it."[10]

After having declined an invitation to make a cameo appearance in 2016's Ghostbusters, Moranis clarified in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that despite his hiatus he had not, in fact, retired from acting in films, but instead had become selective about future roles.[11]

Later work

In 2001, Moranis received his first film credit since 1997 when he provided voice work in the animated film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys.

As of 2004^[update], Moranis was on the Advisory Committee for the comedy program at Humber College.[12]

In 2005, Moranis released an album titled The Agoraphobic Cowboy, featuring country songs with lyrics that Moranis says follow in the comic tradition of songwriters/singers such as Roger Miller, Kinky Friedman, and Jim Stafford. The album was produced by Tony Scherr and is distributed through ArtistShare, as well as Moranis's official website. Commenting on the origins of the songs, he said that in 2003, "Out of the blue, I just wrote a bunch of songs. For lack of a better explanation, they're more country than anything. And I actually demoed four or five of them, and I'm not sure at this point what I'm going to do with them — whether I'm going to fold them into a full-length video or a movie. But, boy, I had a good time doing that."[7]

On December 8, 2005, The Agoraphobic Cowboy was nominated for the 2006 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. On February 3, 2006, Moranis performed "Press Pound" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and discussed the development of his music career.

In November 2007, Moranis reunited with Dave Thomas for a 24th anniversary special of Bob and Doug McKenzie, titled Bob and Doug McKenzie's 2–4 Anniversary. The duo shot new footage for this special. Thomas subsequently created a new animated Bob and Doug McKenzie series, Bob & Doug, for his company Animax Entertainment. Moranis declined to voice the role of Bob, which was taken over by Dave Coulier, but remained involved in the series as an executive producer.[13]

On June 18, 2013, Moranis released the comedy album titled My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs, his first album in eight years.[14] Moranis said of the release, "When I first began writing jokes and sketches with various Jewish partners one of us would inevitably stop at some point and announce, 'Too Jewish!' Too Jewish for the star, the show, the network, or the audience. The songs on this album are all in that category. I grew up hearing the Allan Sherman and the You Don't Have to Be Jewish albums in the '60s. Now I am in my 60s."[15]

In a June 2013 interview, Moranis talked about reprising his role as Louis Tully in a third Ghostbusters film and his disappointment with the sequel. Moranis said, "I haven't talked to Dan Aykroyd about it. Somebody he's associated with called me and I said, 'I wouldn't not do it, but it's got to be good.' You know, I'm not interested in doing anything I've already done, and I thought the second one was a disappointment. But I guess I'm interested in where that guy is now. I sort of see him as being Bernie Madoff's cellmate in jail. Both of them being so orderly that they race to get up and make their beds."[16] In 2015, regarding an offer for a brief appearance in the 2016 film, he concluded, "Ghostbusters didn't appeal to me. I wish them well, but it just makes no sense to me."[1]

In July 2017, Moranis and Dave Thomas reprised their Bob and Doug characters at a benefit concert in Toronto. Proceeds from the benefit went toward caring for Jake Thomas, Dave's nephew, who suffered a spinal cord injury that has left him paralyzed from the waist down.[17]

On May 9, 2018, Moranis returned as the character Dark Helmet from Spaceballs in an episode of The Goldbergs, albeit as a voice.[18]He also appeared in an episode of Prop Culture discussing the film.[19]

Moranis appears in the Martin Scorsese–directed Second City TV reunion documentary, titled An Afternoon with SCTV, set to premiere on Netflix in 2021.[20]

In 2020, Moranis signed on to reprise his role as Wayne Szalinski in Shrunk, a new sequel in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids series. When completed, it will mark a return to live-action films for Moranis after a hiatus of over two decades.[21] Later the same year he appeared in a commercial for Mint Mobile alongside Ryan Reynolds.[22][23]

Personal life

Moranis married costume designer Ann Belsky in 1986; together they had two children, a son and a daughter.[24] Belsky died of cancer in February 1991.[24][25] Moranis then slowly left public life to become a full-time single father.[24][11]

On October 1, 2020, at approximately 7:30 am ET, Moranis was the victim of an assault in New York City, in the vicinity of West 70th St, Manhattan. He suffered minor injuries to his head, back, and hip. He reported the incident to the New York Police Department (NYPD) who posted security footage from the attack.[26] The alleged perpetrator, Marquis Ventura, was arrested in New York City on November 14, 2020.[27]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Strange Brew	Bob McKenzie	Also co-writer and co-director
1984	Streets of Fire	Billy Fish
1984	Ghostbusters	Louis Tully
1984	The Wild Life	Harry
1985	Brewster's Millions	Morty King
1985	Head Office	Howard Gross
1986	Club Paradise	Barry Nye
1986	Little Shop of Horrors	Seymour Krelborn
1987	Spaceballs	Lord Dark Helmet
1989	Ghostbusters II	Louis Tully
1989	Honey, I Shrunk the Kids	Wayne Szalinski
1989	Parenthood	Nathan Huffner
1990	My Blue Heaven	Barney Coopersmith
1991	L.A. Story	Gravedigger	Uncredited cameo[28]
1992	Honey, I Blew Up the Kid	Wayne Szalinski
1993	Splitting Heirs	Henry Bullock
1994	The Flintstones	Barney Rubble
1994	Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!	Wayne Szalinski
1994	Little Giants	Danny O'Shea
1996	Big Bully	David Leary
1997	Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves	Wayne Szalinski	Direct-to-video
2001	Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys	The Toy Taker / Mr. Cuddles	Voices; Direct-to-DVD
2003	Brother Bear	Rutt	Voice
2006	Brother Bear 2		Voice; Direct-to-DVD
TBA	Shrunk	Wayne Szalinski

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1980–1981	SCTV	Various roles	25 episodes; also writer
1981–1982	SCTV Network	Various roles	26 episodes; also writer
1982	Twilight Theater		Television film
1983, 1989	Saturday Night Live	Himself/Host	2 episodes
1984	Hockey Night	Coach	Television film
1985	The Last Polka	Linsk Minyk	Television film
1988	The Best of SCTV	Various roles	Television special Also writer
1989	The Rocket Boy	Automatic Safety System	Television film
1990	Gravedale High	Max Schneider	Voice; 13 episodes
1990	The Earth Day Special	Vic's Buddy	Television special
1992	Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories	Narrator	Episode: Little Toot & the Loch Ness Monster/ Choo Choo
1997	Muppets Tonight	Himself	Guest; 1 Episode
2003	Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids	Holley	Voice; Television special
2007	Bob & Doug McKenzie's Two-Four Anniversary	Bob McKenzie	Television special
2009	Bob & Doug		Co-creator and executive producer
2018	The Goldbergs	Lord Dark Helmet	Voice; Episode: "Spaceballs"
2020	Prop Culture	Himself	Episode: "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"
TBA	An Afternoon with SCTV	Himself	Television special[20]

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	The Flintstones	Barney Rubble	Arcade game
2003	Brother Bear	Rutt	Platform game

Discography

Albums

• 1989: You, Me, the Music and Me
• 2005: The Agoraphobic Cowboy
• 2013: My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs

Bob and Doug McKenzie

• 1981: The Great White North
• 1983: Strange Brew soundtrack

Other soundtrack appearances

Year	Film	Songs	Artist(s)/Writer(s)	Role
1986	Little Shop of Horrors	"Skid Row Downtown"; "Da-Doo"; "Grow For Me"; "Feed Me (Git It!)"; "Suddenly, Seymour"; "The Meek Shall Inherit"	Howard Ashman, Alan Menken	Seymour Krelborn
1997	Muppets Tonight	"High Hopes" "Salute to the late fifties crooners, obscure British bands and Bill Withers"	Various artists	Himself

Audio/video

• 1973: "Rock Radio Scrapbook" (as Rick Allan)[29]

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Work	Result
1982	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program	SCTV (shared with other writers)	Won
1990	American Comedy Awards	Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture	Parenthood	Won
1995	Gemini Awards	Earle Grey Award for Best Cast	SCTV	Won
2006	Grammy Awards	Best Comedy Album[30]	The Agoraphobic Cowboy	Nominated

References

External links

• Rick Moranis at IMDb
• Rick Moranis discography at Discogs
• Article at thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

На других языках

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[de] Rick Moranis

Frederick Alan „Rick“ Moranis (* 18. April 1953 in Toronto, Ontario) ist ein kanadischer Schauspieler, Komödiant und Musiker.

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- [en] Rick Moranis

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[es] Rick Moranis

Frederick Allan Moranis (Toronto, 18 de abril de 1953), más conocido como Rick Moranis, es un comediante, actor y músico canadiense.

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[ru] Моранис, Рик

Рик Моранис (англ. Rick Moranis 18 апреля 1953, Торонто, Онтарио, Канада) — канадский и американский актёр, комедиант и продюсер. Полное имя — Фредерик Алан Моранис (англ. Frederic Alan Moranis).

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