Q 13

PLAYBOY: What are some of the other censorship battles you've won and lost?

Andrea Martin: Brenda Vaccaro for maxi pads. Giant pads, like diapers. "I'm Brenda Vaccaro and I like that." I walk off and I can't get through the door. They censored it.

Eugene Levy: Rick's had a problem with a character, Guy Friday, a very funny gay character who was in the syndicated show, but we can't get him on network.

Rick Moranis: It's not a fight I'm interested in, because I know the gay groups I've talked to aren't offended by the character. It's the standards-and-practices people who are afraid, because they have had pressure from gay groups in the past and they think this will cause them problems. I don't want to lend credence to their position.

Dave Thomas: Sometimes, we'll take a shot at something to see if it can get through. We can say "The silly bastard" on TV, but we can't say "You ugly bitch"--which makes a lot of sense.

Joe Flaherty: We've had a few pieces dropped, but I feel that the pressure is more a liberal pressure than a Moral Majority pressure. I don't think the Moral Majority is up at that hour, to begin with. Besides, we're not into trying to get "Fuck you" on the air.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: This is an opportunity to say all the things you can't say on TV.

John Candy: I was taught that fuck was a sacred word. If you use fuck properly, you'll always get a huge laugh. It's a good word that's wasted a lot.

Dave Thomas: What I think about the network is something I can't say on TV: It's a beast on its side heaving its last.

Andrea Martin: I got scared that I couldn't say breast feeding.

Catherine O'Hara: Turd. They won't let us say turd.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: Which television shows did you watch while you were growing up and which ones do you watch now?

Catherine O'Hara: I watched Combat, Captain Kangaroo and The Three Stooges as a kid. Now I like Lou Grant.

Eugene Levy: I don't know whether it was part of Grant Tinker's deal at NBC, but I'm glad Hill Street Blues got renewed.

Rick Moranis: When people mention Ed Sullivan, I still get a pang in my stomach, because it reminds me that I have to go to school the next day. I used to watch I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke. Nowadays, I watch Nova and Jonathan Miller's Body in Question.

Andrea Martin: I watched American Bandstand while I was growing up. Now I can't watch any television without thinking, Could I parody that?

Dave Thomas: I used to watch 50, 60 hours a week, easily. All the Westerns: Rawhide, Lawman, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, The Rebel--I can still remember most of the theme songs.

John Candy: I loved watching Jack Benny, Jack Paar, The Honeymooners, Burns and Allen, George Gobel, The Munsters, Rocky and His Friends, Howdy Doody, Rin Tin Tin, Lassie. I wasn't influenced by any one show, I was influenced by the medium.

Joe Flaherty: I tend to watch sports, movies and PBS.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Saturday Night Live, Fridays and SCTV are inevitably compared with one another. How would you characterize each show?

Eugene Levy: Saturday Night Live was innovative and contemporary with what was going down. Outside of a bad skit about Claudine Longet, you could put up with most of the stuff. It broke ground for our show's getting into syndication.

But I just have no respect for Fridays. It's a blatant rip-off of a successful show.

Andrea Martin: I've seen Fridays only twice. But when I think L.A.--where the show is made--I don't think comedy, I just think hype.

Eugene Levy: Saturday Night Live and Fridays were the brain child of one person. For example, Lorne Michaels [producer of Saturday Night Live] was very successful and deserves a lot of the credit for casting the people he did.

But we dictate what our show is. Nobody comes down and tells us what to do. We do it ourselves. I don't think we'll ever have this power again. You get an idea, you write it, you tape it, you edit it, you follow it through in post-production. This just won't happen again.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: Who should immediately be put into the comedy retirement village?

Joe Flaherty: I don't find John Ritter funny. Nor George Carlin. Obviously, I'm not even gonna mention people like Jack Carter or any of those old-line comics. They're almost funny again because they're just so unfunny. A lot of people doing TV comedy have no right to be there. The people on Fridays, for example. But they're actors; they don't create the show themselves.

John Candy: Don Rickles should definitely go away. Alan King. Jerry Lewis. The Rat Pack in its entirety. Marty Allen should just be there for a long time. And Tony Randall has lost that magic for me. I hate the Mighty Carson Art Players. I think Carson will agree with me sometimes. It makes you laugh because it bombs. He just stands there with egg on his face.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: One of your show's most popular features is the Great White North segment with Moranis and Thomas. Matter of fact, it has led to a hit album and there's talk about a movie. How did that skit start?

Rick Moranis: Doug and Bob McKenzie were conceived because of content regulations that the Canadian government imposes on media. Three out of ten records a radio station plays have to be Canadian. When our show was bought by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, we gained two additional minutes because of fewer commercials. The producer said, "OK, for those two minutes, we need Canadian content." And we said, "OK, we'll fry up back bacon and drink beer for two minutes."

Catherine O'Hara: Americans love it because they think Canadians are just like that.

Dave Thomas: Entertainment is not an issue of nationalism. That's why I hate those Canadian-content regulations and why I reacted so hostilely in the creation of Bob and Doug McKenzie. But it's turned out to be a boon.

Q 19

PLAYBOY: It's your business to pin down other people's personalities. Can you characterize yourselves in a sentence or a phrase?

Dave Thomas: I used to bill myself as "the Beaver" because I'm a workaholic. I can tell you what I think of the rest of them: John is the big, lovable lump. I've never met anybody who hated him. Rick is really an imp. Gene is one of the slowest people I've ever met in my life. Nobody moves slower or more methodically than Gene. Catherine has the nickname "the Cheezer" because of her throaty, gravelly voice and her long chin. I can't look at Andrea without thinking of her as an Armenian. Joe is one of the most complicated, richly textured individuals I've ever run across: an amazing blend of Irish and Italian. It's a pretty unusual group. Did I leave anybody out?

Eugene Levy: There's a citizenship award in grade two that reads: TO EUGENE, FOR BEING POLITE, FOR BEING KIND TO OTHERS, FOR BEING THE BEST BOY IN ROOM 15.

Rick Moranis: I received an award in Hebrew school for being runner-up in a Hebrew spelling contest and they spelled my name wrong.

Andrea Martin: Somebody described me as a hip Hobbit. I thought that wasn't funny, so please don't publish it. I think of myself as really being a conservative----

Rick Moranis: Whore.

Andrea Martin: I think we're all middle-of-the-road people.

Catherine O'Hara: I'm not middle-of-the-road. I'm just faking it because I'm with a bunch of older people.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: Do you ever fake laughter just to be nice?

Andrea Martin: Oh. that's disgusting. Are you kidding?

Catherine O'Hara: (as Lola Heatherton): Haaaa ha ha ha. Our laughter is our sexual release, so, no, we try to do it sincere as often as we can.

Andrea Martin: I like a good cigarette after I laugh.

Catherine O'Hara Yeah, let's all get naked and laugh together.