LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Rick Moranis
built 641 days ago
Synopsis: Erstwhile inventor Rick Moranis has been experimenting with an electro-magnetic shrinking machine. He leaves the device unattended in his attic; shortly afterward, it is accidentally activated. Alas, the demon machine is aimed at Moranis' children, as well as the son of neighbor Matt Frewer. TheRead More
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A diminutive, rumpled comic actor, Rick Moranis has specialized in playing gawky, maladroit characters. A veteran of the Toronto cabaret circuit and a member of the Canadian branch of the famed Second City improvisational comedy troupe, he demonstrated his versatility and talent for mimicry on the frenetic Canadian comedy show, "SCTV" (syndicated, 1977-81), on which he teamed with Dave Thomas to create Bob and Doug McKenzie, the beer-sloshed woodsmen hosts of "The Great White North". Moranis' only other TV series was the animated "Rick Moranis in Gravedale High" (NBC, 1990), though he has appeared on such series and specials as "Twilight Theater" (NBC, 1982), "The Last Polka" (HBO, 1985), "Hockey Night" (PBS, 1987) and "Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories" (Showtime, 1992). With "SCTV" cohort Thomas, Moranis co-directed, co-wrote and co-starred as the fictional McKenzies in his film debut, "Strange Brew" (1983). After one teen flick ("The Wild Life", 1984), he gained wider recognition for his role as Sigourney Weaver's wimpy neighbor in "Ghostbusters" (1984). Although Moranis has appeared in several misfires ("Brewster's Millions" 1985; "Spaceballs" 1987), he scored as the florist Seymour in the 1986 musical remake of "Little Shop of Horrors" and particularly as the befuddled tinkerer in the surprise family hit, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989).
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After spending the past few years out of the public eye, actor/comedian Rick Moranis has re-emerged in the guise of a country singer on a new album, The Agoraphobic Cowboy (out on Warner, Feb. 7). Although his retreat from mainstream films was a combination of bad scripts, and the need to raise his kids following the loss of his wife to cancer, Moranis never abandoned his love of making music, an aspect of his performing talents that was occasionally featured on SCTV. He says the songs grew out of his homelife in post-9/11 New York City, hence the title, but only came to fruition when producer Tony Scherr offered to make the album, enlisting other Toronto ex-pats like Chris Brown and Jason Mercer to help out.
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From All Movie Guide: While still attending high school in Toronto, Rick Moranis held down a part-time job as a radio engineer. After working as a solo nightclub comic and radio deejay, Moranis joined the Second City comedy troupe, which lead to his television bow in 1980 on the syndicated weekly Second City TV. Like his SCTV colleagues, Moranis' strong suit was his versatility, though his early fame rested on a single characterization. Grudgingly honoring a Canadian regulatory requirement that Second City TV include a sequence of "identifiable Canadian content" in each episode, Moranis and Dave Thomas created the characters of Bob and Doug McKenzie, a pair of beer-guzzling, back-bacon-chewing "hosers" who allegedly represented certain Canadians. The largely improvised McKenzie brothers segments scored an immediate hit, spawning a 1983 feature film Strange Brew, which Moranis and Thomas starred in, co-wrote and co-directed. Since leaving Second City TV, Moranis has pursued a successful film career, usually playing clueless or self-involved nerds.
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Born in Toronto, Ontario, Rick Moranis worked as a DJ in the early Seventies on a Toronto Top 40 radio station using Rick Allen as his on-air name. His television debut was in 1976 as a regular on the CBC-TV comedy series 90 Minutes Live, but it wasn?t until he joined the cast of the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV in 1980 that he became a household name, not only in Canada, but in the States, where it played on the NBC network. He and fellow cast member Dave Thomas developed characters called Bob and Doug McKenzie, brothers who were meant to represent stereotypical Canadian men. Dressed in toques and lumberjack shirts, tongues firmly planted in cheeks, they swilled beer, devoured Canadian back bacon and opened each segment by singing the catch phrase ?Coo-loo-coo-coo, Coo-loo-coo-coo.? Other (spoken) catch phrases included peppering their speech with ?eh,? calling each other ?hosers?
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Rick Moranis was born on April 18, 1953 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Moranis started working for radio stations and television while he was in high school. He was a deejay for a Toronto radio station, CHUM-FM in the seventies.
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Rick Moranis