John Candy

John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 - March 4, 1994) was a Canadian comedian and actor. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Candy was a member of Toronto's The Second City comedy troupe and gained widespread North American popularity when, in 1977, he became a cast member on the influential Toronto-based TV comedy-variety show, SCTV (Second City Television).
 
From there he went on to star in such Hollywood movies as Splash, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Spaceballs, Brewster's Millions and Uncle Buck. He typically played characters who, while they lived somewhat seedy lives, often had their hearts in the right place. Candy was lauded by some as a true comic genius and this lay in his ability to portray an "everyman" that the audience could identify with. Candy was also a dramatic actor and appeared in films like JFK and The Silent Partner.
 
In the 1980s Candy also appeared in an HBO spoof documentary titled The Canadian Conspiracy about the supposed subversion of the United States by Canadian-born media personalities.
 
In the early 1990s, Candy recorded a voice for the movie The Magic 7. However, this movie stayed in production for a very long time, due to animation difficulties and production delays. It was shelved for quite some time, but is now due to be released in 2005, more than ten years after the actor's death.
 
John Candy died at the young age of 43 of a heart attack while filming on location in Durango, Mexico, for the movie Wagons East. He had been warned several times by his doctors to cut his weight due to his genetic predisposition to heart disease from which his father had died but he refused, stating that his portly frame was what gave him his film roles.
 
His funeral, held at St. Michael's Cathedral, was broadcast live on television across Canada. He is interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California.
 
He is an inductee of Canada's Walk of Fame.
 
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British TV comedy series about a Mancunian pot dealer called "Ideal"

One of my favorite British TV comedy series -- and I'll be blogging about several during my tenure here at Boing Boing -- is a show about a Mancunian pot dealer called "Ideal" (geddit?). It's consistently well-written, extremely well-acted and provides comic genius Johnny Vegas with a role worthy of his almost Shakespearean-level verbal talents. Vegas, the funniest fat man since John Candy, is "Moz" a small-time weed merchant who may or may not be agoraphobic. But "Ideal", which has so far aired for four seasons on BBC3 and is scheduled for a fifth beginning in early 2009, isn't a comedy about drugs per se, it's more about the dramatic device of Moz's bohemian line of work bringing whimsical (and psychotic) characters in and out of his flat all day long. "Ideal" is truly one of the best things on television anywhere in the world right now and thanks to the wonders of technology, should you decide it's something you would want to watch, there is surely a way for you to see it, too. Just get your hands on it, trust me, you'll love it!...
Published: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:10:33 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article

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