Bob and Doug McKenzie - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bob and Doug McKenzie are a pair of fictional Canadian brothers who hosted "Great White North", a sketch

Sketch comedy

A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...

which was introduced on SCTV
Second City Television
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...

for the show's third season when it moved to CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

in 1980

1980 in television

The year 1980 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1980.For the American TV schedule, see: 1980-81 American network television schedule.-Events:...

. Bob is played by Rick Moranis

Rick Moranis

Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis is a Canadian comedian, actor, musician, and a magician. Moranis came to prominence in the late 1970s on the sketch comedy show Second City Television, and later appeared in several Hollywood films including Strange Brew; Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of...

and Doug is played by Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas (actor)

David "Dave" Thomas is a Canadian comedian and actor. He was born in St. Catharines, Ontario, but moved to Durham, North Carolina where his father, John E. Thomas, attended Duke University and earned a PhD in Philosophy. Thomas attended George Watts and Moorehead elementary schools...

. The duo became a pop culture phenomenon in both the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Canada.

The characters were later revived for an animated series, Bob & Doug
Bob & Doug (2009 TV series)
Bob and Doug is a Canadian animated sitcom, which premiered on Global on April 19, 2009. The series is a revival of the SCTV sketch characters Bob and Doug McKenzie....

, which premiered on Global

Global Television Network

Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...

in 2009.

History

"Great White North" (originally known as "Kanadian Korner") was a panel show that played upon Canadian stereotypes. Bob and Doug, two dim-witted beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

-swilling brothers wearing heavy winter clothing and tuque

Tuque

A – variously known as a knit hat or stocking cap among other names – is a knitted cap, originally of wool though now often of synthetic fibers, that is designed to provide warmth in winter...

s, would comment on various elements of Canadian life and culture

Culture of Canada

Canadian culture is a term that explains the artistic, musical, literary, culinary, political and social elements that are representative of Canada and Canadians, not only to its own population, but people all over the world. Canada's culture has historically been influenced by European culture and...

, frequently employing the interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

"Eh

Eh is a spoken interjection in English, Armenian, Japanese, French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan that is similar in meaning to "Excuse me," "Please repeat that" or "huh?" It is also commonly used as a method for inciting an answer, as in "It's nice here, eh?" It is occasionally...

?" and derisively calling each other "hoser

Hoser

Hoser is both a slang term and a stereotype, originating from and used primarily in Canada. It is not often used by Canadians, but it is sometimes used as "typical" Canadian slang by those imitating Canadians, similar to the expression "eh?" The term "hoser" gained popularity from the comedic skits...

." Among the topics discussed were snow routes, the Canadian-built robot arm on the Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

, the inappropriateness of bedtime stories about dog fights, flat tires, and "why there aren't enough parking spaces at take-out doughnut shops

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons Inc. is a Canadian fast casual restaurant known for its coffee and doughnuts. It is also Canada's largest fast food service with over 3000 stores nationwide. It was founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, by Canadian hockey player Tim Horton and Jim Charade, after an initial venture in...

."

The sketch was conceived when SCTV moved to the CBC television network. Due to the difference in the amount of time allocated for commercials, each episode to be broadcast on that network was two minutes longer than those syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

to the United States. The CBC network heads asked the show's producers to add specifically and identifiably Canadian content

Canadian content

Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...

for those two minutes. Rick Moranis

Rick Moranis

and Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas (actor)

thought that this was a ridiculous request, since the show had been taped in Canada, with a mostly Canadian cast and crew, for two years. The request inspired them to create a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

that would incorporate every aspect of the humorous stereotype of Canadians.

The segments were videotaped at the end of a day's shooting, with just Thomas and Moranis and a single camera operator. The sketches were for the most part improvised on the set, after which they would select the best ones for use on the program.

Moranis recalled, "We went on the stage with no preparation, and did 15 [sketches]. Two of them were lousy, in three we cracked up and fell apart... maybe six were keepers." Added Dave Thomas in a 2000 interview, "Rick and I used to sit in the studio, by ourselves –- almost like happy hour –- drink real beers, cook back-bacon, literally make hot snack food for ourselves while we improvised and just talked. It was all very low key and stupid, and we thought, 'Well, they get what they deserve. This is their Canadian content. I hope they like it.'"

To their shock, the comedians found that this filler material had become the most popular part of the show. Though initially intended for Canadian TV only, some of the two-minute "Great White North" segments would find their way into U.S. versions of the 30-minute shows due to a shortage of content that week. When NBC ordered the 90-minute shows for the 1981 season, they specifically cited good affiliate feedback on the "two dumb Canadian characters" and requested that the characters be included in every program.

They rode the crest of a fad, peaking in 1982-83, that produced one comedy album and a movie, Strange Brew
Strange Brew
The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew is a 1983 Canadian comedy film starring the popular SCTV characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, played by Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, who also served as co-directors. Max von Sydow co-stars....

. The album, The Great White North, released by Polygram Records, went platinum in sales, won a Grammy nomination and broke the top ten on Billboard's Top LPs and Tapes list in March, 1982. It is noted for the song "Take Off" which featured fellow Canadian Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee

Gary Lee Weinrib, OC, better known as Geddy Lee , is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush...

of the rock group Rush

Rush (band)

Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...

chorusing between the McKenzies' banter. On this album, they also sing their own improvised version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol that enumerates a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Although first published in England in 1780, textual evidence may indicate the song is French in origin...

", which is frequently played on the radio around the holidays in both Canada and the United States. While hugely popular in the U.S., the album was also #1 in Canada for six weeks, suggesting that Canadians appreciated the duo as an affectionate self-parody.

The Strange Brew movie was released by MGM in 1983. While receiving only minimal praise from critics, it performed fairly well at the box office, earning $8.5 million in the U.S. alone to easily cover its skinny $5 million budget. Subsequent to its initial theatrical release in 1983 Strange Brew was released by MGM in both Beta and VHS formats and subsequently re-packaged and re-released on VHS and Laser disc by Turner

Turner

Turner is a common surname of English 12th Century origin, meaning "one who works with a lathe". Turner is the 28th-most common surname in the United Kingdom.-List of people with surname Turner:...

which acquired the MGM library in 1985, then also several times on VHS and DVD by Warner Brothers which acquired the library from Turner in 1993. Strange Brew

Strange Brew

The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew is a 1983 Canadian comedy film starring the popular SCTV characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, played by Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, who also served as co-directors. Max von Sydow co-stars....

continued to perform for Warner Brothers as a DVD title most likely because of the strong college cult following for this movie.

A second album, a "soundtrack" to their movie Strange Brew, was released in 1983. The album featured dialogue and music from the film, as well as new skits made specifically for the album that centered around the movie. The lead off track was appropriately entitled "This Isn't Our Second Album". The album sold poorly and was out-of-print soon after.

The sketch's signature "Coo coo coo roo coo coo coo coo" theme, according to Dave Thomas in an interview on CBC News: The Hour
CBC News: The Hour
George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight is a Canadian television talk show broadcast on CBC Television and hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos. Originally known as The Hour from 2005 to 2010, it first aired on January 17, 2005. The program is currently initially broadcast on CBC Television at 11:05 p.m....

, is an exaggeration of the flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

music used in 60-second Canadian television nature vignettes, such as Hinterland Who's Who
Hinterland Who's Who
Hinterland Who's Who is best known as a series of 60-second public service announcements profiling Canadian animals and birds, produced by Environment Canada Wildlife Service and the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s and 70s, and re-launched by the Canadian Wildlife Federation in the 2000s...

.

Bob and Doug McKenzie continue to maintain a strong cult following for 25 years as evidenced by Internet activity on YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

and Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

searches of the name.

Legacy

The duo revived the act in two award-winning television commercials for Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....

in 1984 and 1986 and a two-year campaign for the Molson

Molson

Molson-Coors Canada Inc. is the Canadian division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Molson Coors Brewing Company. It is the second oldest company in Canada after the Hudson's Bay Company. Molson's first brewery was located on the St...

Brewing Company in 1999 and 2000 consisting of more than a dozen television and radio commercials which aired nationally in the U.S. and also a series of commercials for Mr. Lube

Mr. Lube

Mr. Lube is a Canadian chain of automotive service centres, specializing in oil changes and other scheduled maintenance. It was founded in 1976 by Clifford Giese, who opened its first location in Edmonton, Alberta....

which aired in Canada in 2002. They played a variant of the act for the Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...

animated feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

Brother Bear
Brother Bear
Brother Bear is a 2003 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures, the forty-fourth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics. In the film, an Inuit boy pursues a bear in revenge for a battle that he provoked in which...

and its sequel

Brother Bear 2

The soundtrack to Brother Bear 2 was released August 15, 2006. It is available only on digital outlets such as iTunes and walmart.com. It includes the following tracks:#Dave Metzger - Opening: Brother Bear 2 – 0:34...

, with their characters being the voices of a pair of goofy moose

Moose

The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...

named Rutt and Tuke. They also recorded a commentary for the movie that is seen on the DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

.

Animax Entertainment

Animax Entertainment

Animax Entertainment is an animation and interactive production studio based in Van Nuys, California. Animax's clients include Disney, ESPN, Warner Bros., National Geographic, Sesame Workshop, WWE and many others. Animax has a particular expertise in Adobe Flash animation and has produced work...

, whose interactive division is currently headed by Dave Thomas, began producing a new animated series for the Global Television Network

Global Television Network

Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...

based on the characters debuting on April 19, 2009, simply entitled Bob & Doug
Bob & Doug (2009 TV series)
Bob and Doug is a Canadian animated sitcom, which premiered on Global on April 19, 2009. The series is a revival of the SCTV sketch characters Bob and Doug McKenzie....

. Whilst Thomas reprises the character of Doug in the new series, Moranis chose not to voice the character of Bob, which instead is voiced by Dave Coulier

Dave Coulier

David Alan "Dave" Coulier is an American stand-up comedian, impressionist, television and voice actor, and television host. He is well-known for his role as Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom Full House, which ran from 1987 to 1995....

. Moranis is, however, involved in the series as an executive producer.

McFarlane Toys

McFarlane Toys

McFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company started by Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, musicians, video games, and sport figures...

produced Bob and Doug McKenzie action figures in September 2000.

A new Two-Four Anniversary special aired on May 20, 2007, on CBC Television

CBC Television

. It was a retrospective on the history of the characters and their popularity, featuring interviews with various celebrities, classic clips, and new material featuring the pair. It includes an introduction by former Canadian Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

Paul Martin

Paul Edgar Philippe Martin, PC , also known as Paul Martin, Jr. is a Canadian politician who was the 21st Prime Minister of Canada, as well as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....

and a cameo appearance by Rush

Rush (band)

lead singer Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee

Gary Lee Weinrib, OC, better known as Geddy Lee , is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush...

. On November 20, 2007, Bob and Doug McKenzie's Two-Four Anniversary was released on DVD. The DVD, re-edited by Thomas himself, was twice as long as the broadcast and featured several classic McKenzie sketches from SCTV in their entirety, new footage filmed on the Great White North set and an hour's worth of bonus features. A Bob and Doug McKenzie bottle opener was included in every DVD.

In 2007, on Rush

Rush (band)

's Snakes & Arrows

Snakes & Arrows

Snakes & Arrows is the 18th full-length studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush. Co-produced by Nick Raskulinecz, it is Rush's first studio outing since 2004's Feedback, and their first complete studio album since Vapor Trails in 2002...

tour, a short film of Bob and Doug McKenzie was shown as an intro to the song "The Larger Bowl

The Larger Bowl (A Pantoum)

"The Larger Bowl " is the fourth track and third single from Rush's 2007 album Snakes & Arrows.-Inspiration and lyrical structure:The lyrics were written by the drummer and primary lyricist Neil Peart...

Opinions of the creators

In Dave Thomas's behind-the-scenes book on SCTV
Second City Television
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...

, he reports that he and Moranis disliked the characters because they felt the network forced the characters on them and that they, as actors, were overly identified with the dimwitted, beer drinking duo. However, in an interview accompanying the Two-Four Anniversary premiere, Thomas credited the McKenzie Brothers as a successful comedic creation of which he was quite proud.

Quotes

Doug: "How's it goin', eh?"

Doug: "Take off!"

Bob: "Hose head/hoser!"

Bob and Doug: "Beauty, eh?" (acknowledgement of something good happening)

Discography

The Great White North: Bob and Doug McKenzie, 1981.
The Great White North: Strange Brew, 1983.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Legacy

Opinions of the creators

Quotes

Discography

See also

External links