Trailerpark :: Jelly Donut Comin' : Strange Brew (1983) and the Rise and Fall of Bob & Doug McKenzie.

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"Geez, Pam, if I didn't have puke-breath, I'd kiss you."

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After the disastrous premiere of their new sci-fi epic, The Mutants of 2051 A.D.,the knuckle-headed McKenzie brothers, Bob and Doug, accidentally spend their old man's beer money, refunding a disappointed customer. And in an attempt to scam free beer from a local brewery to compensate for this lapse, the brothers are soon embroiled in plot pot of family secrets and closeted skeletons, along with a young heiress, a hockey legend, and a whackadoodle brewer who intends to take over the world via some pharmaceutically enhanced mind-control brewskies come Oktoberfest...

Video courtesy of BeautyDayDocumentary.

Okay ... Good day, eh, and welcome to our latest movie review. This one's a real beauty, too, eh. So grab yourself a brew, a cruller, and some smokes -- if you're so inclined -- and settle in for some Strange Brew, where our two hose-head heroes kind of play, like, an ersatz Rosencrantz and Guilderstern; because the plot is kinda sorta based, loosely, on Hamlet, right? If Hamlet took place in Canada; and Elsinore was a brewery instead of a castle; and if Hamlet was, like, a girl, who returns to run the brewery after her father dies under mysterious circumstances, because she doesn't trust her uncle because he's got puke-breath -- who married her mother right after the funeral and ... aw, jeez ... What was we talking about again? 

Oh, yeah, listen up hosers ... long before Wayne and Garth, and long before there was a Beavis or a Butthead, there was Bob and Doug McKenzie (Moranis and Thomas). And it was these two slightly dimwitted, anti-social oddballs who pressed inland from the beachhead established by Jake and Elwood Blues, showing that translating a two-minute sketch piece from the tube to the big screen was a viable Hollywood commodity. Sadly, in most cases, we've been suffering from this conception ever since. But! I come here not bury the McKenzie brothers, but to praise them. For unlike most of the small screen to big screen brethren, this one is actually pretty damned funny.

Born out of necessity, the McKenzies began as network time filler for the legendary Second City Television program, SCTV. Seems the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) needed an extra two minutes of material, per episode, because the CBC ran fewer commercials than it's American syndicators. Wanting it fast, simple, and cost-effective -- and most importantly, the producers needed something with a Canadian theme (-- to appease some federal broadcasting code if I'm to understand things right). Thus, Moranis and Thomas -- members of the famous troupe that included the likes of John Candy, Eugene Levy, Katherine O'Hara and Joe Flaherty -- drew the short straw, and Kanadian Korner was born, that eventually morphed into The Great White North.

All it consisted of was those two guys sitting in front of a large map of Canada, decked out in flannel, parkas, and toques, drinking beer, munching donuts, and frying up back-bacon; and each skit concerned a specific topic, ranging from how to get free beer ['natch], to microwave ovens, to why most donut places have such small parking lots. These skits were totally improvised, and no one paid much attention to them; they were just filler, after all. How could they have known that this little throwaway piece would soon turn into a full blown phenomenon. And it all happened by accident. For if one of the SCTV troupe hadn't taken leave of the show -- Flaherty, I believe, America might never have even seen let alone heard of the McKenzie brothers. Short Flaherty's input, the producers now needed more material for the American show and gave the McKenzie brothers a shot. And they hit. And they hit big.

Everybody wanted more, so, in 1981, Moranis and Thomas cut an album for Polygram as their alter-egos. Again, Bob & Doug McKenzie: The Great White North Album was totally improvised, and, buoyed by a top 40 single, "Take Off", a collaboration with Rush's Geddy Lee, the record eventually went platinum -- one of the last comedy albums to do so. Other highlights include a sermon from Elron McKenzie, Doug's sound-effects, a rousing game of beer hunter, and the Canadian version of "The 12 Days of Christmas."

With the duo's popularity peaking, a movie was inevitable, then, and MGM came knocking. Moranis and Thomas shared both the writing and directing chores, and how the hell they ever got Max Von Sydow involved in this insanity baffles me to no end. Unfortunately, the popularity of the duo began to overwhelm their creators, who were rapidly burning out, and it began to chafe the rest of their SCTV collaborators as well, and, basically, spelled the beginning of the end for that legendary program. And thought this resentment doesn't really show up in the film it definitely showed during the film's promotional tour. 

All of this rancor really didn't help Strange Brew when it finally hit the screens in '83. As with all pop culture, interest was already fading and the movie came too late. Only the hardcore fans were still interested, leading to a disappointing box office, which meant no follow up, which, in turn, relegated our favorite hose-heads to much deserved but relatively minor cult status on home video. The McKenzie Brothers did enjoy a brief renaissance in the late '90s, when they became spokesmen for Miller Brewing, trying to sell Molson to Americans, in a series of hilarious commercials. For the record: the fly fishing one made me laugh the hardest. (The duo claimed they did the campaign for the free beer.) Inevitably, rumors were soon running rampant of a reunion movie -- all the scuttlebutt called it Home Brew, that even had an entry on the IMDB for awhile, but that notion quickly and quietly fizzled out. In 2003, there was also an aborted animated series, where both actors reprise their roles -- although Moranis seemed to be confusing Bob McKenzie with his Lewis character from Ghostbusters. That's me shrugging right now. 

Still, the McKenzie's live on, and will live on, forever, in drunken perpetuity, thanks to their album, the film, and those wonderful SHOUT Factory SCTV DVD's. Those are a real beauty, eh.

And that's our review for today. So, good day, eh. 

Other Points of Interest:

Full film review of The Mutants of 2051 A.D at 3B Theater.
  

The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) / EP: Jack Grossberg / P: Louis M. Silverstein / AP: Brian E. Frankish / D: Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas / W: Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Steve De Jarnatt / C: Steven Poster / E: Patrick McMahon / M: Charles Fox / S: Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Max von Sydow, Lynne Griffin, Angus MacInnes, Paul Dooley