March 5, 1982: John Belushi Dies

March 5, 1982: John Belushi dies of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles. He was only 33 years old.

Belushi rose to fame as part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live, "The Not Ready for Prime Time Players." His father was an immigrant from Albania, and so John, like other sons of immigrants, often played foreign characters, including in the very first sketch the show ever aired, on October 11, 1975, as a man learning English. The teacher, played by Michael O'Donoghue, went against type by teaching him with expressions that would never be used in real life: "Repeat after me: I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines."

His father owned a diner in Wheaton, Illinois, outside Chicago, and it was called The Olympia. That would be the name of a sketch, and the diner in the sketch, where Belushi served, "No hamburger! Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!" And, "No fries, chips!' And, "No Coke, Pepsi!" Later sources would say the sketch was based on the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, which some SNL writers, from Chicago, knew well, but Belushi denied it, saying he'd never been to the Billy Goat.

Another immigrant character was Samurai Futaba, who had a different job in every appearance: Hotel desk clerk, delicatessen operator, tailor, and so on. Belushi did not, however, play one of the show's best-known immigrants, the alien Coneheads.

Dan Aykroyd did, and he and Belushi developed a music act, The Blues Brothers, who would sing 1950s and '60s soul tunes, backed by Booker T. & The M.G.'s. This led to a 1980 film, easily the most successful movie ever based on an SNL sketch. Another great Belushi music-themed sketch showed him playing Ludwig van Beethoven, then putting on sunglasses and playing "What'd I Say?" and doing a fantastic Ray Charles impression.

By that point, Belushi had already made his first hit movie, Animal House, playing John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the embodiment of the film's fraternity of slobs at a fictional college in 1962. His speech after the frat members are all expelled is legend. Psychotic, but legend.

John Belushi was the acting equivalent of a rock star. But he wanted to be a real rock star. To him, that meant fully embracing the lifestyle. And that meant drugs. They say marijuana is not a gateway drug. It was for him. It led to cocaine, and finally to heroin. It was a combination of cocaine and heroin, a "speedball," that killed him.

Later in the 1980s, his younger brother Jim Belushi joined the SNL cast, and became a star in his own right. In the 1990s, Aykroyd, Jim, and John Goodman got together to form a new version of the Blues Brothers, including making a weak sequel film, Blues Brothers 2000.

Also in the 1990s, Chris Farley joined the cast of SNL. Also a Midwesterner, and so fat he made John Belushi look thin, he developed his own memorable characters. And he also developed into a movie star. But he also developed a drug problem, and he also died at age 33. He learned all the wrong lessons from Belushi.

They say there's a fine line between genius and madness. John Belushi passed out on it. We should still be laughing our asses off at things he's doing in 2022, at the age of 73. Instead, we're laughing at things he did from 1975 to 1980, and that's it.

But what he did in those 5 years.

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March 5, 1982 was a Friday. This was also the day the movie Diner premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 6 games in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 105-98 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 122-108 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 98-91 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 126-103 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 126-120 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Kiki Vandeweghe scored 36 points.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Utah Jazz, 127-121 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Joe Barry Carroll scored 52 points, and had 14 rebounds. Clearly, this was not a night when he earned the nickname "Joe Barely Cares."

And there were 2 games played in the NHL. The Washington Capitals beat the Calgary Flames, 8-6 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-0 at the Winnipeg Arena.