​Happy Holidays Everyone! 

In 1973, the famed Second City improvisational comedy enterprise set up a theater in Toronto, Canada. By 1976, Second City Television or SCTV was developed and over the next eight years helped launch the careers of John Candy, Harold Ramis, and Eugene Levy.

​Following the success of SCTV, then DJ and radio producer Rick Moranis was persuaded by his friend and SCTV writer/performer Dave Thomas to join the show. Together they came up with Bob and Doug McKenzie, fictional brothers who hosted a local talk show that played upon Canadian stereotypes. As their popularity grew, they released two albums and starred in the 1983 comedy film Strange Brew.

“Take Off” was released in 1981 and features vocals by Geddy Lee, who was also a childhood classmate of Moranis’. If you lived anywhere near the Canadian border you couldn’t escape the shortened single of this song, and ironically enough it would be Lee’s highest charting single in the US.
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Stupid Billboard hosers… 

Long before the Animals scored success with their 1964 version of “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,” Songwriter Claude August “Bennie” Benjamin helped pen the 1941 hit “I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire.”
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First recorded by Harlan Leonard and his Rockets, and then by Horace Heidt & His Musical Knights, this version is often considered the best. I especially love the production from those early 78’s and that earnest, sappy delivery that was common from the crooners of the day.