Only if you’re old enough to have been snorting coke to make yourself think that Saturday Night Live was funny, while you were sitting at home, either married, alone, or both, while cool people were out on the town, getting sex.
shareWhen Aykroyd was on SNL, it was funny, and he was funny. In the late '70s, my girlfriend and I spent many a Saturday night cuddled together watching SNL, always followed by sex. I hope your youth was just as much fun.
shareTHAT IS A TERRIBLE OPINION.
shareYou obviously didn't experience the 70's. It was a blast, and SNL and Aykroyd were a part of it. Sorry you missed out.
shareI've never got SNL. They've showed it on UK TV occasionally but I don't think it's found an audience over here and it didn't work for me. Having said that it's produced some serious talent and Aykroyd is one of my favourites.
shareAmerican humor has always been simple-minded from the earliest days of TV. Probably because it had to appeal to the whole country half of whom are living in the last century. I thought SNL was funny at the time simply because it was the only new thing on. It was the lame American reaction to Monty Python which was just imported from the UK and playing on Public TV ... pretty much the funniest thing on TV ... although there were a lot of remakes of British TV over here too, like All In The Family and Sanford and Son.
Over time I've gotten the impression that all the SNL male comedians were pretty much a-holes. Over time I look for stories and directors and ignore actors, though some, like Ackroyd, I will avoid.
I don't think we had it here in Australia also.
I saw the early SNL stuff through home video release 'The Best of John Belushi' from 1985 and it had a lot of Aykroyd in it, along with Chevy Chase and the ladies. All funny stuff. I watched it so many times when I was younger.
Always thought he was overrated. I only liked a few of his early bits and Weekend Update. I was never entertained by him beyond those few SNL instances.
shareHonestly, that is a pretty dumb comment ... "cool people were out on the town, getting sex". Dumb.
Instead of a sub-mental comment why not just give a critique of what you think was not funny?
My dad actually introduced me to the 70s SNL back in the mid-2010s when they briefly had it on Netflix. Dan Akroyd was actually one of the more creative types on the show, and wrote some of the weirdest, silliest material. It was also he who created the Coneheads. It was fun watching him and Jane Curtin doing "Point/Counter-Point" on their version of the news. They had great on-screen chemistry together :D I don't think he was a comedic genius like Gilda Radner, but he most certainly earned his place as an SNL Alum. It's just kinda sad how he faded away after the early 90s.
I'd say two of his best skills were being able to deliver really funny lines with a straight face, and being able to talk really fast without screwing up his lines.
So he would have made a great
Johnny Cochran. Just not a great comic actor. I met him, once, at the groundbreaking of the Boston Hard Rock Cafe, which was owned by mobsters.
I love Aykroyd. Even if i didn't have sex with him
sharePretty much all of the first and second season SNL cast were considered for movies, and five of them got the ticket right away: Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, and Bill Murray. (Gilda Radner was a special case, she got a "one woman show" movie and not too many movies before marrying Gene Wilder.)
Ackroyd's movie career was a shock: he'd been really funny on SNL with his impressions and his "scientific motormouth" ability to talk real fast and precisely(like those guys who read off warnings at the end of bank loan commercials.) But "at the movies," its like Dan Ackroyd just wasn't very funny at all. He could have called it himself: Dan Ackroyd AS Dan Ackroyd just wasn't a very funny guy. Look no further than Ghostbusters, where Bill Murray is the superstar lead, but the comedy chops next from Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, and even Ernie Hudson before Ackroyd registers as funny.
And yet, when the 80's were over, Dan Ackroyd was the second highest grossing movie star behind Harrison Ford.
Here's the history if you want it:
https://moviechat.org/nm0000101/Dan-Aykroyd/618809f31d22bd2c3b9f7b7c/Dan-Aykroyds-Lucky-1980s-And-Comfortable-Decline-Thereafter
PS. Way out in the 90s (1997) Dan Ackroyd was, miraculously funny again, in John Cusack's hit man high school reunion movie, Grosse Pointe Blank. Ackroyd's motormouth skills were served well by great dialogue and a great character to play: an ostensibly sane assassin who breaks down rapidly into the psychopath that the really is. Recommended.
"Dan Ackroyd was the second highest grossing movie star behind Harrison Ford."
Say what???