Between Christmas 1983 and Christmas 1989 three movies would be released staring four of our original five “Ready For Prime Time” actors, all five of these actors came from the “Not Ready For Prime Time Players” lineup over the first five seasons of the groundbreaking show Saturday Night Live.
Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy would come to define not only the comedy of a generation, but a certain level of consciousness. An entire generation has identified with their tag lines, one liners, and impressions for the better part of 50 years.
Over the course of this season The Latch Key Kids will explore just how much these five actors have meant to the generation that remembers staying up really late on Saturday Nights and to the generations that have now grown up in a pop culture world these actors helped create.
We will discuss the show that simultaneously brought them all together and helped break them all apart. Yet over the many years that followed SNL many of these actors would find themselves in each other’s orbits, some quite frequently, and for one actor in particular his orbit would be so large that even now close to 40 years after his death we are still starstruck.
Three movies – 1983’s ‘Trading Places’, 1988’s ‘Scrooged’, and 1989’s ‘National Lampoon’s: Christmas Vacation’ combined four of our principal five players and in so doing changed Christmas forever.
And while John Belushi is not in any of these movies his influence and impact are crystal clear.
So, we will kick off our season by coming home for the holidays….
Because it’s time to sit back and relax….Mom and Dad won’t be back for at least an hour and Welcome to The Latch Key Kids Present “Ready For Prime Time Players Part I: Home For The Holidays”.