10 Essential Dan Aykroyd Comedies, Ranked

Eric Idle, who guest hosted Saturday Night Live back in the 1970s, paid Dan Aykroyd the sort of compliment that would make other comics purr with admiration.

Aykroyd, a founding member of the Saturday Night Live team alongside other greats such as John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase, became an audience favourite thanks to his madcap style and knack of impersonating celebrities such as Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Vincent Price.

It was on the show that he created characters that would go onto become major box office draws such as the Coneheads family and, of course, the Blues Brothers alongside his close friend Belushi.

Following an appearance on the show by Monty Python star Idle, the great British comedian said Aykroyd’s ability to both write and perform characters so flawlessly meant he was the only Saturday Night Live cast member capable of being a Python.

Dan Aykroyd, said Eric Idle once, was the only Saturday Night Live comedian good enough to join the Monty Python troupe

“SNL” 1976 cast: (from left) Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, John Belushi, Lorraine Newman, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray – PHOTO: (c) NBC/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT

The success of the show’s early years meant the cast became household names and pursued other opportunities. The major attraction for Aykroyd was film with his first notable appearance being Sergeant Frank Tree in Steven Spielberg flop 1941.

That didn’t deter him, writing a feature length story for the Blues Brothers that would become the much loved John Landis film of 1980. He followed this in 1981 by working with Belushi again in the sporadically fun but misjudged Neighbors.

Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers

However, in the two proceeding years – 1983 to 1984 – Aykroyd enjoyed the best period of his life in the movies. He starred in Doctor Detroit, Trading Places, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Ghostbusters and even found time for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The talented comedian from Ontario, Canada also co-created Ghostbusters alongside his friend Harold Ramis, which is widely considered his greatest work. During this time he made the infamous “lost” film Nothing Lasts Forever, which has never been released in America due to unspecified “legal difficulties”, and also worked with John Landis again on Into The Night (alongside Jeff Goldblum) and Spies Like Us (alongside Chevy Chase).

Dan Aykroyd and Daniel Stern in 1995’s Celtic Pride.

Since the 1980s Dan Aykroyd has enjoyed more misses than hits at the box office but he did star in audience favourites such as My Girl, Grosse Pointe Blank, Sneakers, Driving Miss Daisy (of which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and, of course, Ghostbusters II. 

Essential Dan Aykroyd comedies

Honourable Mentions

Driving Miss Daisy

Dir. Beresford (1989)

Dan Aykroyd would earn an Oscar nomination for his appearance in Bruce Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy. The film, also starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, would win four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress.

Sneakers

Dir. Robinson (1992)

Dan Aykroyd enjoys a small role in Phil Alden Robinson’s wonderful comic spy thriller, Sneakers. Aykroyd plays a conspiracy theorist and electronics technician within Robert Redford’s team of security specialists who earn a living breaking into secured areas such as bank vaults to analyse weaknesses.

When they are approached by the National Security Agency to carry out a covert yet dangerous mission, things take a turn for the worse. This fast-paced, twisty thrill ride provides some wonderful cat and mouse entertainment from an exceptional cast which includes River Phoenix, David Strathairn, Ben Kingsley and Sidney Poitier.

Spies Like Us

Dir. Landis (1985)

Spies Like Us gets a mixed reception from audiences but this comedy about two inept secret agents is great because of the pairing of Chevy Chase with fellow 80s comic great Aykroyd.

10. Doctor Detroit

Dir. Pressman (1983)

Aykroyd’s first film in which he did not share top billing with another actor and the first film after his close friend John Belushi had died, Doctor Detroit sees a mild-mannered professor get conned into taking on the persona of an underworld pimp who soon finds himself up to his neck in beautiful women, mobsters, and a notorious crime lord named Mom.

9. Neighbors

Dir. Avildsen (1981)

Swapping the character personas each were known for, Dan Aykroyd plays the over-caffeinated and potentially psychotic Vic alongside John Belushi as the “straight man” Earl Keese in this comic tale of suburbia-in-peril.

Not a patch on The Blues Brothers and a somewhat strange directorial choice for Rocky filmmaker John G. Avildsen, Neighbors is nevertheless another opportunity to see Aykroyd and Belushi doing what they do best.

8. Twilight Zone: The Movie

Dir. Landis (1983)

Aykroyd’s role in Twilight Zone: The Movie might be small but blimey is it significant. In one of the great jump-out-of-your seat moments, the comic star features in the film’s prologue as a passenger of a car driving at night.

Along with the driver he talks about which Twilight Zone episodes he finds the scariest before the infamous line: “Do you want to see something really scary?”.

7. The Couch Trip

Dir. Ritchie (1988)

A wonderful cast including Walter Matthau and Charles Grodin joins Dan Aykroyd for The Couch Trip, an amusing fish-out-of-water comedy about an escaped convict taking over a burnt-out shrink’s radio show and practice with understandably outrageous results. Director Michael Ritchie made a number of endearing comedies in the 1970s and 1980s such as The Bad News Bears, Fletch and Wildcats.

6. Ghostbusters II

Dir. Reitman (1989)

While Ghostbusters II doesn’t quite reach the delights of the original film, a fictional continuation of the wonderful characters created Harold Ramis and Aykroyd can only be welcomed. Indeed, Part 2 delivers more of the same, but when you have characters as lovable as Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman the attraction is simply the company you’re in. A mixture of family-friendly paranormal horror and a healthy dose of comedy make Ghostbusters II one of the better sequels of the 1980s.

5. Dragnet

Dir. Mankiewicz (1987)

This part parody, part homage to the Jack Webb-fronted television series of the same name sees Aykroyd star opposite Tom Hanks as two mismatched cops on the trail of a strange cult known as P.A.G.A.N (People Against Goodness And Normalcy).

Aykroyd pens the screenplay (this time alongside Alan Zweibel and director Tom Mankiewicz) highlighting his skills in front of, and behind, the camera. The film is uneven and not everything works but it is great to see two comedy stars of the 1980s partner up.

4. Grosse Pointe Blank

Dir. Armitage (1997)

A small part for Aykroyd in George Armitage’s fun hit-man comedy Grosse Pointe Blank sees the former Saturday Night Live legend play a veteran contract killer who comes to loggerheads with a down-on-his-luck assassin played by John Cusack.

3. The Blues Brothers

Dir. Landis (1980)

Written by Dan Aykroyd and John Landis based on characters Aykroyd created for Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers is widely acknowledged as one of the best comedies of the 1980s.

John Landis directs as Aykroyd and Belushi bring their perfect comedy creation to the big screen. A seminal film from the decade, The Blues Brothers, about the bumbling exploits of two siblings who attempt to reunite their rhythm and blues band in order to make money to save the Catholic orphanage that raised them, is about as good as 1980s comedy gets.

2. Trading Places

Dir. Landis (1983)

Another great 1980s pairing sees Saturday Night Live founding member Aykroyd team-up with SNL new-kid-on-the-block Eddie Murphy for a role-reversal comedy that remains one of the best films of the decade.

Aykroyd plays Louis Winthorpe, a successful, educated and affluent commodities broker, who ends up homeless and penniless after his bosses make a bet to turn a poor street hustler (Murphy’s Bill Ray Valentine) into a flourishing member of their brokerage.

Set over Christmas and New Year, fish-out-of-water hilarity ensues before the pawns within the bet realise they are the butt-end of the joke and plan revenge. Trading Places is a great example of the zeitgeist of America in 1983, the year it was released; that Reagan-era materialism alongside the explosion of Wall Street as a mecca for those both ascending the class structure and toppling off its highest peak.

1. Ghostbusters

Dir. Reitman (1984)

Written by Aykroyd alongside fellow star Harold Ramis, Ghostbusters is the Canadian comedian’s greatest movie. Everyone knows the story of this 1980s classic as a group of paranormal researchers set up a ghost-hunting business in New York.

What starts out as a risky move financed by family inheritance turns into a lucrative business as all manner of ghosts and ghouls descend on the city. As the calls for ghost-busting increase, so does the Ghostbusters’ stock and they are catapulted into the public consciousness, becoming minor celebrities. When the city is faced by the deadly threat of Gozer, the team, with their proton packs and khaki uniforms, become New York’s last hope.

The film provides a marvellous balance between creepy supernatural horror of the family-friendly variety and laugh-out-loud comedy. That’s thanks to some excellent special-effects, much of which is done in-camera. Eggs breaking by themselves and frying on a kitchen surface is a stand out moment, as is the scene when a character is attacked in her home by a monster whose arms break out of the sofa she’s sitting on.

There’s also the ensemble cast of characters which includes Ramis as the Ghostbusters’ chief analyst, bespectacled Annie Potts as their receptionist, and Rick Moranis as nice-but-dim Louis Tully. Bill Murray is the obvious standout as smooth-talking, street-smart “Ghostbuster” Peter Venkman who spends much of the film trying to court ghost victim Sigourney Weaver including after she becomes possessed.

Aykroyd’s standout moment is one cut from most daytime television screenings when an attractive female ghost visits him in bed, unzips his trousers and proceeds to give a whole new meaning to the term “wet dream”.

Ghostbusters is Dan Aykroyd’s best cinematic creation primarily because the unique premise produced such a cohesive, warm and funny movie that, thanks to rewarding repeat viewings, has stood the test of time despite its need for some now-primitive computer-generated effects.

The story jumps off the screen thanks to Aykroyd and Ramis’ larger-than-life characters, their obvious interest in the paranormal, and their innate ability to write comic dialogue that instantly inspires a hearty laugh. There’s nothing to dislike in the film – it’s a lovingly produced original comedy with characters you’d want to invite to a never-ending dinner party.