A Tribute to john Belushi

Hi, i'm Nathan aka Monstermaster13 here with another one of my tributes. This is one about one of the funniest, most underrated performers ever - of course i'm talking about Belushi.

No....not James Belushi. I'm talking about his more talented older bro John Belushi. For those who didn't grow up with the retro era of SNL - John Belushi was one of the original cast members - back then, they were called The-Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players.

So get ready to put on your Blues Brothers hat and shades and practice your impersonation of a common blemish - it's time for the lowdown on the Albanian Oak himself mr John Adam Belushi.

Words cannot describe how awesome this man was, John Belushi was like what would happen if you crossed Taz and Yosemite Sam together.

A master of physical comedy and not to mention the man who perfected the eyebrow raise way before Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson even became famous or way before Dreamworks started to try and imitate it with their posters (see tvtropes entry for Dreamworks Face) and BEFORE Stephen Colbert came onto the scene.

Belushi made his start as part of the Second City troupe along with numerous others including Gilda Radner, Dan Akyroyd, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle Murray, Chevy Chase, and more. He was also one of the many friends of fellow big guy comedian John Candy.

His breakout performances were on SNL as Samurai Futaba, Captain Ned, Jake Blues, Lorell Brock and the King Bee of the Bee band (a skit which he hated doing).

But his first appearance was in Goin South with Jack Nicholson, this is where he got noticed by John Landis who cast him as John "Bluto" Blutarsky in National Lampoon's Animal House.

According to some sources...if he were to turn the part down, the part would have played by played by Meat Loaf (real name: Marvin Lee Adday).

The movie became a huge success and the one college movie every college based comedy tries to be like but fails miserably at.

He also tried his hand out at dramatic roles, including the movie Old Boyfriends with Talia Shire (who played Adrian in the Rocky series) and a voice role in the American dub of Tarzoon: Shame Of The Jungle.

He appeared in the underrated screwball comedy 1941 as the completely crazy "Wild" Bill Kelso. Even though the movie was a flop it's still pretty funny and severely underrated.

But most notably, he played Jake in the movie based on the classic Blues Brothers characters of SNL, proving that he and Akyroyd had great comedic chemistry.

His next to last movies were Contiental Divide (a romantic comedy) and Neighbours. Neighbours was a dark comedy with a role reversal.

Normally he played the crazy one and Dan Akyroyd was the straight man, but in this one he was the straight man and Akyroyd was the crazy one.

Unfortunately at the age of 33 he died of a drug overdose but the person who admistered the drugs was charged for murder/manslaughter.

According to Akyroyd, he was originally going to be the role of Dr Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters but his death got in the way of this.

So the went part went to Bill Murray instead. But the character "Slimer" is often refered to as the "Ghost of John Belushi" by cast members as a tribute to him as this ghost shares similiar traits to "Bluto" from Animal House.

Judith Jacklin Belushi-Piscano's book Belushi is an excellent read if you want to learn more about this great comedic powerhouse.

But avoid Wired as it portrays Belushi in a negative light as does the movie adaptation.

I do heavily recommend Belushi: A Biography and Samurai Widow as both of these actually do a better job of portraying John than Wired does.

It is also worth noting that Chris Farley idolized him to the point of trying to imitate him, even in death as Farley died at the same age and of the same cause as John did.

Another thing these two have in common as well as being SNL performers and both being chubby but amazingly agile (like Po in Kung Fu Panda) is that they were both victims of what was known as the Atuk curse.

The Atuk curse is mainly a hollywood superstition involving a supposedly cursed movie script based on a book about an eskimo warrior moving to the big city and trying to fit in with the inhabitants.

Other victims of this curse included John Candy and Sam Kinnison. Damn, it makes you kind of wonder...perhaps the script really was cursed.

In short, John Belushi is, was and always will be a truly memorable and hillarious classic comedian who will always be remembered in the hearts of fans and those who admire good old school comedy.

This has been Monstermaster13 and now if you excuse...(voice: Food fight!) Alright, who's the idiot who threw that?