Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, two Canadian performers who first gained notice as part of the SCTV ensemble, invented the comic characters Bob and Doug McKenzie. The brothers made their debut in an SCTV sketch as the hosts of the fictional Canadian program The Great White North. In the segment Moranis and Thomas played them as beer-swilling imbeciles whose affectionate mockery of national stereotypes featured parkas, touques, praise for back bacon and donuts, and signature exclamations such as “You hoser!,” “Take off!” and the ever-present “Eh,” thereby crystallizing the drunken, dim-witted Canadian image that many Americans took for fact.
The sketch’s popularity among SCTV audiences prompted Moranis and Thomas to release the 1982 album The Great White North, which earned a Grammy nomination and climbed into the Top Ten on the strength of the novelty single “Take Off,” a duet featuring Rush vocalist Geddy Lee. A movie offer followed, resulting in Strange Brew, the 1984 feature written and directed by the pair; the surreal Hamlet update, largely set inside an imaginary Canadian brewery, underperformed during its initial theatrical run yet later achieved lasting cult status. Its early commercial disappointment ended the McKenzie brothers’ run, after which Moranis appeared in pictures such as Little Shop of Horrors and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids while Thomas maintained a lower profile that included a recurring role on the sitcom Grace Under Fire. In 1997 the two unexpectedly revived their old costumes for a Molson beer television commercial.
