Rick Moranis Filmography

A filmography of Slick Rick and my opinions.
On
April 09, 2012
What can we say about Rick Moranis? Well, in my case, he is to me as what Jerry Lewis was to the French. What Don Bluth was to Marzgurl of Channel Awesome. What... okay, you get the idea.

Also, he was there in our childhood. Whether it was being possessed by a demon dog, coerced into feeding a plant monster blood, or most famously, shrinking his kids, we all loved him.

I've seen just about every movie that he was in, but I'm only listing those from the 80's and 90's that have him in a starring or supporting role (the latter having a significant amount of screentime).



Strange Brew (1983)

Strange Brew focuses on the SCTV characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, who plan to get free beer by working at Elsinore Brewery, where Pamela Elsinore (played by Lynne Griffin), is troubled over the owner, her father John's death. Meanwhile, the sinister Brewmeister Smith (played by veteran actor Max von Sydow) wants to unleash a hostile takeover to release a hypnosis-laced beer to the world.

Like I said before, I burst out laughing every time I watch this movie.



Streets of Fire (1984)

Streets of Fire is an action movie from 1984. It features Rick as Billy Fish, who is portrayed as snarky and a bit sexist, but the character was still amusing. The movie itself, on the other hand, is a real mixed bag. The first half is really exciting, but the second half, aside from the hero Tom Cody (played by Michael Pare) and Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) realizing how much they love each other and the final battle between Cody and the villain Raven (Willem Defoe), is surprisingly weak, and the ending is no exception. In fact, Rick himself hated doing this movie and how it turned out.



Ghostbusters (1984)

Exactly 1 whole week after the release of Streets of Fire, Ghostbusters, one of the greatest comedies to come out of the 1980's, and one of my top 5 movies personally, was released and dominated the Box Office with its rival, Gremlins in 2nd place for 6 weeks.

Fact: his character, Louis Tully, was originally to be played by John Candy, but Ivan Reitman thought that John's ideas for the character sucked, and Rick did a better job.

The first time I saw this movie was back in the mid-to-late 90's. The most memorable part for me was the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. This movie was basically the seed that bloomed into intrigue.



Head Office (1986)

Okay, I'm kind of cheating with this one. Rick only had about 3 minutes of screen-time in this movie, as a minor character named Howard Gross, a gifted, but highly stressed-out, business mind, who we don't see until roughly about 1/4 of an hour into the movie. What happens to him? He gets a heart attack and dies. And that kinda sucks because he's the funniest and most memorable part of this rather forgetful movie.

2 years later, Howard Gross re-appears in a promotional movie for A&M Records NARM 1988, under the name David Steffen.



Club Paradise (1986)

Ever since the colossal success of Ghostbusters, Rick became one of the biggest stars in the world, but like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he would also have his share of bad movies among some good ones. 1986's Club Paradise was considered bad despite being in the Box Office's Top 5 on its opening weekend. It's about a firefighter named Jack Moniker (played by Robin Williams) who retires and helps out at a resort on a Carribean island called St. Nicholas. Hilarity ensues as the tourists end up in crazy situations.

Basically, this movie is just a bunch of big stars on vacation, but with all honesty, I've seen far worse movies than this. In fact, I find this movie to be a guilty pleasure.



Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Later that year, one of my favorite movies of all time, Little Shop of Horrors was released, around the same time as another favorite of mine from that year, Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg's An American Tail.

This movie did pretty well both financially and critically. It's funny, emotional, and when I first saw it, I thought that just about everything in it felt perfect, even with the ending they went with instead of the original ending.

Sadly, the next year in 1987, it was overshadowed by its darker and more mean-spirited rival, Platoon. And it's ironic because on the opening weekend of both of these movies, LSoH was a whopping 10 spots above and $3,619,704 ahead of it.



Spaceballs (1987)

In the summer of 1987, Mel Brooks' Star Wars parody Spaceballs was released. Rick plays Dark Helmet, who is based off of Darth Vader, except wackier.

Also, while Vader needed a mask to breathe, Helmet needed it to look intimidating, even though it makes it hard for him to breathe.

The movie is hilarious and the characters are lovable. My favorite part would have to be the VHS scene, where the Spaceballs break the fourth wall and Dark Helmet gets very confused as a result.



Ghostbusters II (1989)

Ghostbusters II was released in 1989. Like I said before, not as good as the original, but still okay.


Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was the one movie in Rick's career that everybody knew him best from. And why wouldn't we? Wayne Szalinski is a lovable character. Smart, but scatterbrained, and yet he is quite benevolent. As for the movie itself, it's fun, exciting, and well-written for a live-action Disney movie. However, since it was released at the exact same time as Tim Burton's Batman movie, the Batman movie obviously grossed more money, but this movie was right behind it every week of their time in theaters everywhere.



Parenthood (1989)

In Parenthood, Rick plays Nathan Huffner, who is paying more attention to his young daughter Patty by educating her, but not paying enough attention to his wife Susan, who wants to have another baby.

While it's a good movie at times, to the point of dominating the Box Office for 2 weeks in August 1989, it's also stupid at times. Ironically, while this movie is less well known than Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, it had a higher Box Office gross.

My favorite character is the fun-loving Grandma. My favorite scenes are main character Gil Buckman (Steve Martin) entertaining the kids at a party as "Cowboy Gil", and Nathan serenading Susan with the song "Close to You". The ending is really heartwarming, which is pretty much a fitting reward for sitting through the whole thing.



My Blue Heaven (1990)

Thanks to the success of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Rick's popularity exploded. In 1990, My Blue Heaven was released. Rick plays FBI agent Barney Coopersmith, who is assigned to look after mobster Vinnie Antonelli (Steve Martin).

Additionally, Barney's wife leaves him for petty reasons, and a romantic relationship develops between him and divorced police officer Hannah Stubbs (Joan Cusack).

Much like Parenthood, I found this movie decent.



Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992)

In 1992, after the success of 1989's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Disney thinks that a sequel should be made, and thus, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid came out.

Even though several people disliked this movie, it was #1 at the Box Office on its opening weekend, and I thought it was really cute at times.



Splitting Heirs (1993)

In 1993, Monty Python alumni Eric Idle wrote and starred in Splitting Heirs alongside Rick.

Like I said before, it's very funny, but kind of gross and vulgar sometimes. But, what did you expect from a PG-13 comedy from the 90's?



The Flintstones (1994)

In 1994, Rick played Barney Rubble in the Flintstones movie. Some people thought it was a dumb decision, others didn't mind. I have nothing to say about this one except that it rocked the Box Office for 2 weeks, most of the money earned on Memorial Day weekend.



Little Giants (1994)

Later that year, Little Giants came out. Not only was Rick in it as Danny O'Shea, but Ed O'Neill, Al Bundy himself, was Danny's more successful older brother Kevin. When Kevin doesn't pick Becky, his niece and Danny's daughter, to be on his pee-wee football team, Danny starts his own team with Becky and challenges Kevin.

This isn't considered among the best movies out there, but it's a lot of fun.



Big Bully (1995)

The following year is where the crap really hit the fan: Big Bully. This is the lowest point in Rick's career starring-role-wise. I hated it so much that I've asked the Nostalgia Critic to review this drek on several occasions.



Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1996)

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves is the last movie Rick did before his retirement. Compared to the first two Honey movies, this is quite inferior, but to be fair, this was a direct-to-video release. Well, at least I found it better than Big Bully.



After all of those movies, he took a break, but it became longer and Rick says he doesn't miss his job. For those who don't know why he did that, this was because his wife Ann died from liver cancer in February 1991, and it's hard to do movies while raising two kids without a spouse to help you. However, while he retired from live-action movies at the moment, he did do the voice of one of the comic relief moose in the 2003 Disney film Brother Bear. There was also 2005's The Agoraphobic Cowboy, his comedy album that parodies country music. He also spends his free time playing hockey and tennis.

But one thing's for sure, we're all hoping that he reprises his role as Louis Tully for Ghostbusters III!
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