John Candy is one of those stars who had you ever met him on the street, you want to believe would have been just as nice in real life as he appeared on the big screen. Luckily, according to all sources, Candy really was that great a guy, and his frequent co-star Catherine O’Hara says Candy was so open to interacting with fans he used to do comedy bits with them on the street.
Catherine O’Hara first worked with John Candy on SCTV one of the best sketch comedy shows of all time, before the two went on to make movies such as Home Alone together. It seems Candy would keep his improv comedy skills from his Second City days fresh by interacting with fans. O’Hara tells People that when people met him they would want to do some sort of comedy bit with him, and he would often oblige. The actress explained…
You’d be on the street with him, in a mall, and somebody would come up and just want to do a comedy bit with him, and he would always pick up on it right away and give something back and see their eyes light up, like, ‘Oh, I’m doing a bit with John Candy.’
I’ll be honest, if I had met John Candy on the street, the last thing I would want to do is try and do some improv comedy bit. I would fully expect that he would be so much better than me at it that it would never work. But it seems Candy did his best to make the fans who did try to be funny with him feel like they were hilarious. That had to have been incredible.
John Candy was one of the biggest comedy stars of the ’80s and ’90s. The best John Candy movies are also among the best comedy films of all time.
While it might be surprising to hear that John Candy would do improv comedy with strangers on the streets, the idea that he would do that certainly isn’t that surprising. Whenever you hear a story about John Candy, it involves him being lovely. Catherine O’Hara, who admits she had something of a crush on Candy, says that one of the nice things about talking to people about the Great Outdoors actor today is being able to tell people that he was exactly the way they’d hope he’d be. She continued…
It’s so nice to be able to not have to make up any bull, because people loved him. And when people ask, ‘What was he like?’ they want to hear what they think he’d be like. And it’s so lovely to be able to validate their guesses about what he would be like in person.
John Candy was the best. Some of Candy’s most hilarious movie quotes have become truly iconic. Of course, it’s possible that some of Candy’s best comedy was done at shopping malls with strangers.