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"What ever happened to Rick Moranis?" has become a bit of an entertainment industry refrain over the last decade or so.
For starters, the Toronto-born writer-actor-comedian, who created such memorable SCTV characters as veejay Gerry Todd and hoser Bob McKenzie, has concentrated on raising his two children in New York City after his wife passed away from cancer in 1991.
Since then he's mainly done voice work in commercials and animated features, most recently Brother Bear II with fellow SCTV alumnus Dave Thomas that's expected to be released this year.
"I pulled out of on-camera work in the mid'-90s just to take a break from it and spend some time at home, and discovered in a few short years that I really didn't miss it," says the onetime star of Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Parenthood and The Flintstones.
"And I still don't. I don't mind doing the odd thing but in terms of film or TV production, I don't know if I'll ever go back to it or not. I really had my fill of it."
But fans of Moranis, who still comes home to Toronto a couple of times a year, will be thrilled to hear he's got a new solo album, The Agoraphobic Cowboy, in stores today and up for a best comedy album Grammy tomorrow night in L.A.
He says the relative success of the album hasn't led to any Hollywood offers to adapt it to the big screen, although an agent and A&R person in Nashville did suggest it before he even recorded it.
"It was a good thing for me to hear because there is no movie," says Moranis.
Still, there is an offer of maybe doing a TV special around the album with CMT in Nashville.
"They invited (producer) Tony (Scherr) and I down, which we did about a week and a half ago, and we performed four songs for their web concert series called Studio 300 sessions, and they talked about maybe doing an hour long show, which would be kind of a, not a mock-documentary, we would sort of stage a little bit of a tour and they'd follow it or something like that. I don't really think it's going to happen. I don't think it's in the cards for me to turn this into anything other than what it is."
Still, Moranis' transformation to country artist has proved so convincing he's even gotten concert offers, not that he's going to take anyone up on it.
"I'm not saying I am The Agoraphobic Cowboy," he jokes. "I'm not agoraphobic, but I don't like airports or hotels. I'm quite happy to just not go on the road."