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The Rise & Fall & Rise & Fall of Dan AykroydThings were proceeding in lovely fashion, as I enjoyed boat drinks on the beach with a scantily clad Rene Russo, when suddenly, without warning, I felt a stabbing pain in my right calf muscle. I woke up to a charleyhorse the size of Montego Bay, throbbing and biting its way up my leg. (For our international audience, a charleyhorse is a euphemism for "muscle cramp".) Anyway, the cramp subsided in less than a minute, but I was now wide awake and hopped up on pain. Knowing that my blissful snooze was history, I resorted to a bit of channel surfing in an attempt to relax. Only three clicks and I saw it: a promo for Dan Aykroyd's new television series, "Soul Man", debuting soon on ABC. Like Michael J. Fox and Burt Reynolds before him, ol' Dan was scurrying back to the friendly confines of the boob tube, evidently bereft of a rewarding movie career and looking for better days. It started me thinking, what went wrong with Dan Aykroyd? If you'd asked me twenty years ago to pick someone from the original "Saturday Night Live" cast who I thought had the goods to really leave a lasting wake of accomplished film work behind his rudder, without hesitation I would've said Dan Aykroyd. I mean, his dead-on impressions of Richard Nixon, Tom Snyder and Rod Serling were without peer, and his original creations were equally astonishing, including Leonard Pinth-Garnell, Erwin Mainway, of course, Fred Garvin...male prostitute. His comedic range and writing skills suggested a bright, talented guy with tons to offer the entertainment world. He left the show at the peak of his popularity, to transform his small-screen blues harpist into a big-screen icon alongside partner and foil John Belushi. The Blues Brothers Movie became a hit, and we all thought the duo was in for the superstar haul. Of course, the history is well-read from here. Belushi coked his way to an early grave, leaving a grieving Aykroyd to fend for himself in Hollywood, sans his best friend. He stumbled through the solo effort Dr. Detroit and then appeared to do a worthy job as an uppity stockbroker in Trading Places, alongside a red hot Eddie Murphy. He made a strange flop called Nothing Lasts Forever, and then hit Hollywood paydirt alongside Bill Murray in 1984's megahit Ghostbusters. You'd think the writer/star of one of the all-time box office champs would be able to transform this achievement into something special. Aykroyd followed up with Spies Like Us, a limp dishrag gagfest opposite cardboard cut-out Chevy Chase. A flat Dragnet remake followed, and we saw Dan's talent shrivel as his weight blossomed. Now a husky character actor struggling to fit into his leading man slacks, Dan limped through a string of legendary stinkers: My Stepmother is an Alien, The Couch Trip, The Great Outdoors, and lifeless sequels to Caddyshack and Ghostbusters. Then, surprising us all, he scored an Oscar-nominated supporting actor ringer as Boolie in 1989's Best Picture winner Driving Miss Daisy. At this point, we thought he'd play his "art" card, and finally do the kind of top-quality work that we'd all been waiting for from our man Dan -- make the transition from funny man to serious contributor -- not unlike Robin Williams and Tom Hanks. By now, he certainly didn't need to churn out more cheesy slapstick for the bucks. He'd become a wealthy land developer and owner of a string of Hard Rock Cafes and his first House of Blues. So, what does he do? He makes the smelly mess Loose Cannons and the unwatchable disaster Nothing But Trouble. Aykroyd phoned in a fatherly role in My Girl and flashed bit parts at us in Chaplin and Sneakers. Then, we heard the news: a Coneheads movie! At last, Dan would be able to tap back into the brilliance of his early career. Then, we saw the movie: another weak effort with predictable plotlines and stale jokes. The filmography gets more cracked and dusty over the last three years, reading like a shopping list of cinematic dump-buckets. North, My Girl 2, Exit to Eden, Rainbow, Getting Away With Murder, Sgt. Bilko, Celtic Pride, Feeling Minnesota, and My Fellow Americans. Now he's a desperate man, announcing not only the new TV series, about a priest who rides a Harley, but also trotting out the stale franchises yet again, on course to cash checks with The Blues Brothers 2000 and Ghostbusters III. A big part of me wants to see these sequels crash and burn to the lowest possible point below sea level. Not because I'm mean, and not because I wish Dan any ill will, but maybe in hopes that he'll have nowhere to go but up.
Dr. V. B. Daniel
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Black & White World
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The Cowboy Way | A Sporting Chance | In Praise of the VCR
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The Rise and Fall...of Dan Aykroyd |
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