A couple of years ago, while driving my daughter Cami back to Tampa for her sophomore year at USF, it took me back to the time her sister, Candis, was a sophomore at NYU.
Anyway, on this occasion, because I had to travel to New York on business, I told Candis that I made arrangements with my old friend Rick Moranis to have dinner with us.
Rick and I used to work together at CFTR in Toronto during the early ’70s, and he hadn’t seen Candis since she was just a little girl so he was anxious to see how she turned out.
Candis, who was also excited about dinner, begged me to let her boyfriend Luigi come along because, as she said, Rick was his favorite actor.
When I agreed, and she told Luigi that he’d be dining with Rick Moranis that evening, he didn’t believe her.
Then, when she told him that Rick and I were old friends, he just laughed and said, “Yeah, right, your dad knows everybody., doesn’t he?”
The weather was perfect when I arrived in New York, so when Rick met me at my hotel, we decided to walk to the restaurant.
As we strolled along catching up, Rick was so unpretentious that he never seemed to notice the folks doing double-takes when they passed us by.
Upon our arrival at the restaurant, we discovered that Candis and Luigi were already seated.
Then, when Rick gave Candis a big hug, Luigi’s jaw dropped to the floor.
Candis told me later that until the moment we walked through the door, Luigi was still trying to figure out what the prank was.
What an unforgettable evening. Rick entertained us with all the inside stories about the making of Ghost Busters, Little Shop Of Horrors, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Space Balls, My Blue Heaven, and countless others he’d been in.
He claimed that the magic of Ghost Busters came from the nervous energy that was on the set each day.
Like him, most of the folks in the movie were writers, which meant that you never knew what was about to come at you as the cameras began to roll.
During the filming of Little Shop of Horrors, Rick said it took five people pulling on ropes to make the plant look alive.
However, because they couldn’t pull them fast enough, they’d have to double the playback speed, meaning Rick would have to move his mouth at half speed.
When I asked how he managed to do that and act too, he said it was easy; they just put a guy on the other side of the camera to help me out.
“What did he do,” I asked, and Rick responded, “He held up my paycheck.”
We talked a lot about movies, but we did get to reminisce a little about when we worked together at CFTR in Toronto.
While talking about our days in Toronto, Rick graciously told Candis that I was the person responsible for him being in show business.
“When your dad put me on the radio for a weekend all niter,” he said “I knew right then that I had no choice but to pursue a career in show business.”
“The next day,” he said, “I quit Medical School, and here we are.”
“In fact,” he told Candis, “I’m writing a script right now about when your dad and I worked together at CFTR.”
People like Sandy Hoyt, Doc Harris, Roger Klein, Keith Elshaw, Sharon Henwood, Earl Mann, Stirling Faux and The Magic Christian.
(Rick, shown below when we worked at CFTR in Toronto)

In the quest for equality, the ladies sure caught up in the terrible language department, didn’t they?
Can CFOs tell the difference between the Monkees and the Beatles?
Speaking of the Beatles, I wonder if John knew that “Hey Jude” was about his son, Julien.
I read that half of us are gonna come out of this virus thing as great cooks, but the other half is going to have a drinking problem.
Geo: What a ride, huh, Chet?
Geo: Always good to hear from you, Jack, and as always, thanks for the read. Fixed the Vail blunder. (tough to put all the letters in the correct order when you’re typing this shit with one finger)
Don Walker: If it was up to Ed Shadek we’d all still be living in San Diego…Ed was such a pragmatist ..When I approached him about taking Presidents’ Day off. Ed paused and said we’ve never done that in the past…Oh hell, I’m 59 years old and I don’t have that many 3 day weekends left..! (Who ya Gonna Call?)
Geo: I still remember those days fondly, Don.
Doug Herman: Ed Shadek was a good guy and a real old-school gentleman. It turned out he had quite a few three-day weekends left; he was around 90 when he passed away a couple of years ago. (Who Ya Gonna Call?)
Geo: I agree, Doug, Ed was a gentleman who always lived up to his word.