Dan Aykroyd will get again to his roots in his Historical past Channel present, “The UnBelievable With Dan Aykroyd.”
Every episode of the present (which returns for Season 2 on Friday, Nov. 15 at 9 p.m.) is hosted and exec produced by the previous “Saturday Night Live” star and explores a variety of unusual tales all through historical past.
Though Aykroyd is primarily referred to as a comedy actor and author – “SNL,” “Ghostbusters” and “Coneheads” – he’s had a lifelong curiosity in historic oddities.
“My great-grandfather was a spiritualist, a paranormal researcher. And so, I just grew up with that stuff. And my mother saw a UFO in the late ’40s in Ottawa, Canada … And she was always interested in it,” Aykroyd, 72, advised The Publish.
He added that he himself has had about three UFO sightings “that convinced me that the [flying objects] weren’t made out here, not manufactured on earth.”
His most up-to-date UFO sighting was a couple of decade in the past when he was staying in a lodge in Montreal, he mentioned. Aykroyd recalled it as “a big gray rectangle with bulbs that looked like grapes underneath it. [It made] no noise, no sound, no lights. But, it was hovering there and it was a fixed position. We don’t have anything like that. It had no propulsion or wings.”
UFOs are included in “The UnBelievable With Dan Aykroyd,” however the present additionally explores a variety of quirky tales, corresponding to a brown bear that turned a conflict hero for the Allies throughout WWII or a flying lawnmower that after killed a spectator at a soccer recreation.
“I like to narrate things, and I like to present good stories,” mentioned Aykroyd.
“The researchers of the History Channel are superb, and the academic credentials of the interviewees and the writers are our first class and high quality. So when they approached me to do it, I said, ‘Sure, I love this.’ This type of material, who doesn’t like to be shocked, surprised, have their credulity challenged.”
He added, “I thought, ‘This is going to be a hit.’ And it is because people love this stuff.”
Aykroyd is himself a part of Hollywood historical past as one of many authentic forged members on “Saturday Night Live.”
It’s been simply over forty years since his former castmate and “Blues Brothers” co-star John Belushi died of a drug overdose at age 33 in 1982.
Reflecting on his late buddy, Aykroyd mentioned that shortly after Belushi’s film “Animal House” got here out in 1978, the duo was driving and got here to a stoplight close to a faculty.
“This was when ‘Animal House was’ big, just exploding,” he recalled.
“And he got out of the car, and he went to the front [of the school]. When he went to the bottom row of windows, he knocked on the windows and started to dance up and down … And the people threw open the windows. And then the second floor of the windows came up. People were looking out, and there he was, just twirling on the lawn.”
Aykroyd mentioned by the point Belushi received again within the automobile, “all the floors were just alive with people yelling and screaming and laughing and shouting. And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s the power of stardom right there.’”
