The Best John Candy Story That Isn’t in Ryan Reynolds’ Documentary
While a lot of streaming documentaries these days seem to be about serial killers and feces-filled cruise ships, this weekend sees the release of a new doc about the beloved star of Uncle Buck, Spaceballs and Planes, Trains and Automobiles: John Candy: I Like Me.
While the movie, directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, features new interviews with Candy’s family, and stars like Mel Brooks, Steve Martin and Catherine O’Hara, one of the best Candy anecdotes of all-time isn’t in the movie. Instead, it’s in the biography Searching for Candy by Tracey J. Morgan.
In the book, writer Chris Cluess recounted a legendary writing session he spent with Candy, aka “Johnny Toronto” the day before he was to fly from Toronto to Edmonton to shoot SCTV. But Candy, who was staying at the Four Seasons, had “no material” beyond a loose idea for a sketch called “FBI Jockey.”
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“I thought it was a terrible idea,” Cluess noted. “But you loved him so much you just wanted to encourage him.” It wasn’t long before the hotel bar cart arrived and Candy, Cluess and another writer got “loaded,” despite the fact that it was only 4:30 in the afternoon. “John thought this would be good to break the creative ice,” Cluess explained.
Before long they were all having martinis with dinner at a “very Canadian steak house” and “FBI Jockey” became way less funny than using the word “fuck” in “every possible way in the English language.” The server had to ask them to keep their “questionable” language down, as there was a family dining nearby. Candy felt “terrible” and went over to the family’s table and apologized to the dad. Then he rejoined his friends and yelled “Fuck him!” as a joke. Then he felt bad again and ended up paying for the family’s meal.
Instead of working on “FBI Jockey,” Candy suggested that they all visit a bar, which turned out to be a “nasty” and seemingly “dangerous” strip club. As one dancer was finishing, Candy, who was considered “Canadian royalty” at the time, randomly hopped on the stage. After asking the woman for her name, he announced, “Hi everybody, put your hands together for Helen! Yeah, Helen was great!” The star-struck crowd began throwing money on the stage, and Candy was there “helping her pick it up.”
“Next minute people have got their arms around each other, they are not strangling each other, they are laughing and John buys a beer for everyone in the place,” Cluess recalled. “The three stooges who are standing by the bar can’t believe what they are seeing.”
After leaving the sketchy dive “transformed,” Candy and the two writers drunkenly made their way back to the hotel in order to finally hammer out “FBI Jockey.” But along the way, they encountered two bikers being frisked by the police. “Excuse me officers, what did these fellas do?” Candy inquired.
“Oh my god, it’s John Candy!” one of the bikers exclaimed. When the officer informed the comedy star that they were guilty of a noise violation, Candy responded, “Aw come on, let them go.” And the cops actually listened to him! As the bikers rode off, one of them threw Candy a bag of weed and shouted, “Thanks, Johnny!”
“I got home at five o’clock in the morning. It was one of the greatest moments of my life,” Cluess said. “Everything was so funny — except for FBI Jockey.”
Incidentally, “FBI Jockey” did eventually make it onto SCTV.
But the sketch wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the anecdote about the time Candy avoided writing it.
