The Canadian actor (often the straight man of a comedy duo) and writer was born -- appropriate enough -- on Canada Day, July 1, 1952... in Ottawa, which is the nation's capital.
In 1974 -- the year before he rocketed to fame during the first season of Saturday Night Live -- he voiced Goodly, Rotten and Maple in the Christmas TV special The Gift of Winter. Marking Aykroyd's screen debut, the cartoon program also featured the voice of fellow future SNL star Gilda Radner.
His SNL stint led to other involvement in cartoons. He created the characters for the 1986-91 series The Real Ghost Busters as well as 1997's Extreme Ghostbusters.
Aykroyd was also involved in the Film Roman Productions' ill-fated The Blues Brothers Animated Series. It was budgeted at an estimated $500,000. In 1997, UPN gave Film Roman Productions the go-ahead to produce an animated version of the Blues Brothers and ordered 13 episodes of the series. Film Roman had optioned the rights to the series as part of a plan to produce proprietary programming. That fall, two months after David Pritchard was appointed as UPN's new president and CEO, the network canceled its order. Elwood was voiced by Peter Aykroyd, the actual brother of original Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd ("Elwood Blues"). Dan himself served as a creative consultant.
In addition, he was a creative consultant for the 1983 Rankin-Bass The Coneheads, which aired on NBC. Repeating his live-action role, he voiced Beldar. This was originally planned as a series. However, the series never left the launching pad.
Aykroyd guested as himself in the 1999 Family Guy episode "Spies Reminiscent of Us."
The voice of Chip in 1998's Antz, he voiced the title character in the partly computer-animated 2010 movie Yogi Bear.
Next year, he'll voice the Scarecrow in the animated movie musical Dorothy of Oz. Now in post-production, it's budgeted at an estimated $60 million.
Fun fact: Aykroyd worked as a mail sorter for Canada's national postal service before he became an actor. He also, as a federal civil servant, wrote a manual for penitentiary guards.
"My attitude has always been, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny if ...' If this makes me laugh, maybe somebody else will laugh at it, too. That's really where I've always come from." -- Dan Aykroyd
Re: Happy 60th birthday, Dan Aykroyd!
[In reply to]
He also revived his Ghostbusters character Ray Stantz in the live-action/CGI movie "Casper", as hired by Carrigan Crittenden to rid Whipstaff Manor of the ghosts.
He runs out of the mansion, after being scared by the Ghostly Trio, saying, "Who ya gonna call? Somebody else!"
(This post was edited by PatrickRsGhost on Aug 19, 2012, 4:55 PM)
