In Random Praise of Rick Moranis

Gene Hackman. Jack Nicholson. Sean Connery. These are all giants of cinematic acting, legends in their own time. Yet they all retired years ago, so quietly that no one noticed that one day they simply stopped making movies.

Rick Moranis also retired years ago, also quietly. But people noticed.

Offers for comedy films continue to pour in to Moranis's inbox. Fans still clamor for the next Moranis film years after it should have become obvious that he doesn't do that anymore. And when Columbia Pictures reunited the original Ghostbusters cast to make cameos in the remake, Moranis was the one hold-out -- despite a reportedly hefty financial offer.

Moranis first made his mark as a new addition to the cast of SCTV. He was the only cast member to not first rise through the ranks of the live Second City stage show. (He did later make one guest appearance in Second City, appearing alongside his SCTV cast mates.) As Dave Thomas and others explain in Thomas's book The Making of "SCTV," Moranis was a breath of fresh air to his cast mates. Whereas they had been suffering from creative fatigue towards the end of the previous season, the addition of Moranis motivated everyone to up their game.

Moranis's best known work with SCTV is by far his role as Bob McKenzie, one half of the famous McKenzie Brothers. As Bob and Doug McKenzie, Moranis and Thomas released music albums, guest-starred in other shows, made commercials, and even acted in other roles. (The animated Brother Bear includes characters allegedly voiced by Bob and Doug McKenzie -- fictional characters played by Moranis and Thomas!) The McKenzie Brothers even starred in their own movie, the modern-day cult classic Strange Brew -- which was directed and written by Moranis and Thomas themselves.

But if the McKenzie Brothers is Moranis's best known and best loved legacy from SCTV, it's not actually his best work. Like his co-stars, Moranis excelled at both creating his own original characters, and mimicking well-known celebrities. In the latter category, Moranis's best work is as Woody Allen. Many people do impressions of Woody Allen, of course, and to be honest, almost all of those impressions are pretty good. Heck, even I do a decent Woody Allen impression. But when he wants to be, Moranis is astoundingly like Woody Allen. His impression is so good that he even convinces you that he looks like Woody Allen, when in actuality, their faces are very different. But Moranis's impression is so amazing that, with nothing more than mussed hair, Allenesque glasses, and a plaid shirt, he makes you feel like he's indistinguishable from the real thing. If Moranis ever does come out of retirement (and look, here I am, falling into the same trap as so many of his other fans do), I hope it's to play Woody Allen in a comical biopic.

Moranis's movie work, like pretty much everyone else's, has admittedly been hit or miss. He is best known as the bumbling, nerdy accountant and lawyer Louis Tully in Ghostbusters and the bumbling, nerdy villain Lord Dark Helmet in Spaceballs. He is, in fact, so good in these roles that someone familiar only with his best known work might assume he's only good as bumbling, nerdy characters, although the rest of his work, especially SCTV, proves that his range is actually quite astounding. Personally, my favorite Moranis performance in the movies is his role as Seymour Krellborn, a floral assistant best described as . . . . well, okay, as bumbling and nerdy. But hey, Moranis sings his own songs in the movie, and they're real show-stoppers. Moranis has always been an exceptional talent. He may not be dead, but he's been absent from the public eye for quite a while now. He is missed.