I Love Candy!

We're all familiar with SCTV for who didn't watch them in their heyday in the late 70s? It's impossible to choose a favourite, so I'll just pick John Candy because, pound for pound, he is one funny guy.

(Tangent time:) Back in High School, one of my duties in the Nerd elite (Chess Club, Bridge Club, Classics Club) was as a Prefect. As our main responsibility, we'd patrol the Cafeteria during lunch. I was there during the great rainfall of frogs when our dissected buddies were liberated (though still dead) with frogs showing up in unsuspecting sandwiches, the Coke machine and being pelted back & forth across the room. I was not exactly authoritarian that day for I recall tossing a few amphibians myself. I also remember wearing less than traditional garb on a few occasions; at least twice I wore a toga while promoting the Classics Club's annual Roman orgy festival--remember this was in the early 70s long before Belushi made toga parties popular. And in '77, I paraded around in full pirate garb, stabbing apple cores with my sword and making a complete fool of myself when I became a lifesize billboard for my role as Squire Simon Cataract in The Secret of the Spyglass!

Why the trip down memory lane? Because in gratitude for all our hard work as Prefects, we all were treated to the big city of Toronto for dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory and a show of Second City at the Firehall Theatre. At that time, among the cast were Peter & Dan Ackroyd, Dave Thomas, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Gilda Radner, Catherine O'Hara, Andrea Martin and the immortal John Candy. So years before he entertained the masses as Johnny LaRue I saw him on stage with the rest of the gang!



Apart from making people laugh and eating, John also had a passion for Football (not that super-bowl crap or soccer...CFL) and he even went so far as to buy a part of the Toronto Argonauts with Bruce McNall and Wayne Gretzky! Back in '91, I got to see Toronto kick Hamilton's collective ass and watch the Blues Brothers/Elwood Revue Show play at half-time!!

From the CFL archive page...
July 18, 1991 – The Argos open the season against Hamilton in front of more than 41,000 people. The day featured the debut of Raghib “Rocket” Ismail and a stellar halftime show featuring the famous Blues Brothers.





Those are my personal encounters with JC, if you click the SCTV or SNL label below, you can read about my further encounters with various members of those elite comedy teams.