Can We Talk About Two Of John Candy's Most Underrated Roles From The 1980s, Please?

There’s a lot we can all say about John Candy. One thing we don’t seem to talk about much is how wonderful he was as a supporting player in some really funny movies in the ‘80s. Two of those are among my favorite roles of his, Freddie Bauer in 1984’s Splash (which you can watch with a Disney+ subscription) and Spike Nolan in 1985’s Brewster’s Millions. In fact, he may just secretly be the best parts of those movies. Here’s why.

Freddie Bauer Is A Hilarious Mess

In Splash, Candy plays the brother of Tom Hanks’ character, Allen (a hilarious early role for Hanks, too). We’re introduced to Freddie in the opening scene of the movie when Allen and Freddie were just kids, years before Allen meets Madison (Daryl Hannah), and Freddie is already showing what kind of man he will become. While Allen is seeing mermaids, Freddie is busy dropping change on the ground and picking it up with the intention of looking up women’s skirts.

Flash-forward to the present day, and we see Candy as Freddie with two fistfuls of Penthouse magazines, and he’s excitedly yelling about how they “finally published his letter.” Now, when I first saw Splash as a kid, I obviously didn’t get the joke, but I was still drawn to Candy’s over-the-top performance. Once I got older and did get the joke, well, it’s now a classic amongst my friends and me. It also defines Candy’s character so well as the screw-up, but still lovable, brother next to the buttoned-up Allen.

Spike Nolan Is the BFF We All Need

Brewster’s Millions is one of those movies that I must have watched on cable at least a dozen times as a kid. I loved baseball, and I was already familiar with Richard Pryor, who plays the titular Monty Brewster, from another favorite movie of mine as a kid, The Toy. Once again, Candy plays the role in a big way (everything about Candy was larger than life), but he never steps on the star, Pryor, and he is always there for Monty. He’s all in on Monty’s shenanigans and doesn’t question why Monty is behaving the way he is.

He’s also hilariously funny, of course. In fact, there is another line that is one of my favorite John Candy quotes. When Monty and Spike are in court and asked what they plead to assault by the judge, Spike laughs and says, “Oh, guilty, but with a real good excuse. You’re gonna love it!” Sure, he may be putting his foot in his mouth, but he’s honest and genuine, and so lovable!

In his early movie career, Candy often played wonderful supporting characters, like Ox in Stripes, the hapless security guard in National Lampoon’s Vacation, and the cop in The Blues Brothers who loves orange whips. Those movies, and the ones he played a main character in, seem to get talked about a lot more than Splash and Brewster’s Millions, but like his roles in those other movies, he’s every bit as good, and maybe better in them. Whelp, now I think it’s time to rewatch that wonderful documentary that came out last year, John Candy: I Like Me, with my Prime subscription.