The new documentary “John Candy: I Like Me” arrives Friday on Prime Video, with a number of family members, stars, and former colleagues sharing touching tributes to the late actor.
Among the many big names who appear — and there are many: Mel Brooks, Catherine O’Hara, Tom Hanks, and Bill Murray, just to name a few — Brookline native Conan O’Brien‘s memories of the comedian stand out. O’Brien explains in the film how the Canadian comic and “Second City Television” alum inspired him, eventually setting O’Brien on a path to pursue late-night TV stardom.
“I’m at that impressionable age. I’m a comedy freak, and here comes John Candy, and I’m like, ‘Who is that guy?’” O’Brien says in the documentary, later pointing to Candy’s “SCTV” Yellowbelly sketch, about a cowardly soldier in the Old West, as “the Oppenheimer blast” for his comedic inspirations. “That wiped my mind clean, that you could do a sketch where someone shoots a mother and a child in the back while a fun song plays.”
Later in the documentary, which was directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, O’Brien shares a heartfelt personal story of meeting Candy during the Bay State star’s time at Harvard. O’Brien reveals that, while serving as president of the Harvard Lampoon during his senior year, the organization invited Candy to come speak on campus, with the actor happily obliging.
“So I drive to Logan Airport. He took a commercial flight from Toronto. And I see John Candy coming down an escalator,” O’Brien recalls in the documentary. “He had a camera around his neck, like a tourist. The only way if John Candy was going to play a tourist, he’d have a big camera around his neck and he’d be like, ‘Oh wow, golly gee!’ That’s the way he was.”
O’Brien says that the actor was “John Candy times 10″ while visiting Harvard, having fun with the students and enjoying the montage of clips from his career that the group assembled for him.
“He’s everything you want him to be,” O’Brien says in the documentary.
And most of all, O’Brien recalls the piece of Yoda-like advice that Candy gave him about wanting to try comedy.
“I’ll never forget this, he looked me square in the eye and he said, ‘You don’t try it. You either do it or you don’t do it. You don’t try it, kid,’” O’Brien says. “And that spoke to me, like, ‘All in kid. All in or not at all.’”
Matt Juul is the assistant digital editor for the Living Arts team at the Boston Globe, with over a decade of experience covering arts and entertainment.
Matt Juul can be reached at matthew.juul@globe.com.
