The original Not Ready For Prime Time Players included comedians Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin and John Belushi, who even then was known as a comic genius but one with a volatile, unpredictable personality. The other two cast members were fellow Canucks Gilda Radner, who was the first person hired by Michaels, and a then mostly unknown writer-performer named Dan Aykroyd.
That Aykroyd would become one the performance voice most respected by the players and writers alike. And, it wasn't suprising, because as anyone who knew him could attest, Aykroyd doesn't so much as come into a room as command it with his exuberant gusto.
Aykroyd was born in Ottawa Ontario, on July 1, 1952. Despite both of his parents having political--his father, Samuel, was a government official and his mother Lorraine at one time worked as an executive secretary for C.D. Howe, the one time Liberal minister--Aykroyd grew up a more free spirit.
An important turning point in his life came in 1967, when his family visited Expo '67 in Montreal. "Sam and Dave performed live and I was blown away by what was the most exciting, vibrant, intoxicating music I'd ever heard."
After that, Aykroyd spent much of his time listening to radio stations devoted to the blues and R&B and became a student of the genre. As he got older, he would go to concerts of blues legends such as Muddy Waters and be mesmerized by the experience.
When Aykroyd was 17, he got a job as a surveyor in Canada's Northwest Territories. To help pass the time, he taught himself to play the harmonica and would imagine himself on stage jamming with other musicians in front of a rapt audience. However, away from his mind's stage, Aykroyd was involved in more traditional pursuits.
He briefly attended a Catholic seminary--until being expelled. From there he enrolled at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he studied psychology, political science and criminology sociology.
But college also gave Aykroyd his first opportunity to perform and he became active in the Carleton's Sock and Buskin Drama Guild, where he also developed his talent for writing comedy sketches. By the time he graduated, he knew that he wanted to pursue it as a full-time career and slowly made a local name for himself as a stqand-up comedian at various nightclubs around Ontario.
In 1972, Aykroyd produced, co-wrote and starred in A Change for a Quarter, a series of 15-minute comedy shows which aired on a private cable company. A short time later he was accepted into the famed Second City Comedy Troupe, performing with them in both Chicago and Toronto for the next two years. That was when he first incorporated his love of music with his performing skills.
"I would get up on stage and sing the blues about things like bus transfers," he says.
One of his Second City castmates was a talented young performer named John Belushi, with whom Aykroyd had developed an immediate bond. On the first day they met, Aykroyd took Belushi to an after-hours club. While listening to the house music, Belushi suggested that he and Aykroyd should form a band. Aykroyd loved the idea and although they didn't act on it immediately, it was never far from their minds.
In 1974, Aykroyd appeared in Love at First Sight. (It would be the last Canadian production he would work on for 22 years, until accepting a role in the CBC miniseries, Arrow, which told the story of Crawford Gordon, whose company built the ill-fated Avro Arrow jet fighter of the 1950s.)
Then came Saturday Night Live and suddenlty, John and Dan were together again in a venue that allowed them nearly absolute creative freedom. During his five year tenure on the show, Aykroyd became associated with a variety of characters that became pop culture sign-posts, including the Coneheads, an Earth-bound family of pointy-headed aliens hailing from the planet Remulak and the "wild and crazy" Czechoslovakian guys, Jorge and Yortuk Festrunk which he created with Steve Martin.
But his most successful character by far was that of Elwood, who along with Joliet Jake, played by John Belushi, would become known as the Blues Brothers. Their rousing rendition of Sam and Dave's Soul Man became the basis for two albums (Briefcase Full of Blues and Made in America), as successful 10-city tour, and a 1980 feature film written by Aykroyd.
"I think the thrust of the Blues Brothers' popularity is their coolness," muses Aykroyd. "They're a little on the shady side, but they aren't materialistic. Their only goal is to play and sing their music at any cost."
But the music stopped abruptly in 1982 when John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont hotel. At the funeral, Dan eulogized his soul mate as "a good man, but a bad boy."
Belushi's death blind-sided Aykroyd and he admits it took him years to recover and even affected his desire to have children.
A year after John's overdose, Aykroyd quietly married actress Donna Dixon and although he loved his wife, he was afraid to spread his affections too far. "I was afraid to get attached and for a while, I didn't think I wanted kids. I didn't want to feel love for anyone other than my wife. But then we got a dog and I became attached to the dog," he jokes, now the proud father of two daughters, Danielle and Belle.
"But that's why we got started late in having a family. Now, of course, once you have children, it's a beautiful thing. Warren Beatty once told me that God has a veil that he won't let you see through until you have children and it's true."
So perhaps it's no coincidence that Aykroyd chose to play a parent in his series, Soul Man (Tuesdays at 10:00 on NTV), which allows him to mine the understanding he's gotten from peeking through the veil for a new motherlode of comedic possibilities.
In the series Dan plays Reverend Mike Weber, an unconventional widowed Episcopalian minister with a love for blues music, a checkered past and four high-spirited children who always seem to be in the middle of a crisis, whether it be eight-year-old Meredith torturing her little brother Fred, 11-year-old Andy attempting a crude, weird experiment or trying to communicate with his 14-year old Kenny.
After a successful mid-season run last season, Soul Man was given a choice Tuesday night slot and added former Bostom Common star Anthony Clark to the cast. Although the show revolves around a minister, it's not particularly religious. When asked about his own spiritual view, the one-time seminary student comes up with a typically Aykroydian answer.
"I don't have a traditional view of the Surpreme Being. I call him the Cosmic Engineer."
Many were surprised that Aykroyd would want to come back to the weekly grind of series TV--not to mention his hosting duties on the paranormally-skewed syndicated show Psi Factor--since he has a solid feature film career, with roles in Trading Places, Ghostbuster I and II and Dragnet. And in 1990, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Driving Miss Daisy.
But he says that television gives him an outlet movies can't. "I'm always thinking up ideas for comedy situations and a series lets me develop one every week."
Although Aykroyd has been a longtime resident of Los Angeles, he still maintains his ties with his Canadian roots, spending most Summers in his Kingston, Ontario home.
Although he may spend most of his time State-side, there's no question about where his national loyalty lies.
"I love the American people. I have an American wife and the Star Spangled Banner brings a tear to my eye, but ultimatetly, if it came down to a cross-border conflict, you'd find me at Vimy barracks operating a word processor.
I'd work for peace first, but if that didn't work out, count on me to be that motorcycle messenger," then he adds with a hint of comic menace, "Also, I'm a pretty good shot."