YouTube Gold: The Blues Brothers

A fun debut for Jake and Elwood

In the mid to late 1970’s, Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon held a powerful place in American culture. Neither was afraid to mock anything and both were at times hilarious and quite often rude, particularly by recent standards.

Animal House, starring John Belushi, was a surprise hit in 1978 and two years later, the Blues Brothers came out.

The movie starred Belushi and Dan Ackroyd as Jake and Elwood Blues as two blues (duh) musicians who decided to raise money to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised.

The movie has some tremendous musical scenes with the likes of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Cab Calloway, among others.

When the act was introduced on Saturday Night Live though, it came with little fanfare. As you’ll see in this video, the Blues Brothers, backed by an outstanding band, more than held their own. It was a fun homage to blues and soul music but sadly there would be no sequel with the original Blues Brothers: Belushi died of an overdose in 1982. He was just 33.

By the way, you probably recognize the opening music: it’s been played in Cameron since the movie came out.