Rick Moranis Bio Info

Moranis was born in Toronto in 1953. While still in high school he wrote comedy material for CBS radio and television. After working as a part-time radio engineer and DJ and moonlighting as a stand-up comic in local clubs, he joined the cast of the Toronto branch of Second City, the improvisational comedy collective originally founded in Chicago in the late 1950s by the likes of Del Close, Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
In 1980, friend Dave Thomas asked Moranis to replace Harold Ramis, who had just left the cast of the popular TV series SCTV. Shortly afterwards the show was picked up by the CBC network, whose executives surprised everyone in the cast when they insisted the show include two minutes of specifically Canadian content. Moranis and Thomas retaliated against this specious nationalism by creating Bob and Doug McKenzie, and giving them their own regular segment, Great White North. The ultimate Canadian stereotypes, Bob and Doug sat in front of a map of Canada, cooked back-bacon, swigged beer, and introduced American viewers to the concepts of Take off, Beauty, eh? and Hoser. Decked out in tuques and parkas, the two actors improvised their segments, which were timed out to exactly two minutes. Contrary to their expectations, the skits became the most popular on the program.