John Belushi's lost (and last) comedy: 'Noble Rot'

John Belushi, via imdb.com

Calling it one of John Belushi’s “biggest missed opportunities,” Splitsider.com’s Bradford Evans writes (in a biweekly column called “The Script Pile,” which focuses on unmade TV shows and film projects) about the “lost” comedy that Chicago’s and Wheaton’s favorite son was penning with “Saturday Night Live” scribe Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci) in early 1982, just a couple of months before Belushi’s death from a drug overdose on March 5 of that year. Its title: “Noble Rot.”

“Just like Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? a decade earlier (or Continental Divide, even), Noble Rot is a revival of the screwball comedy sub-genre, popular in the ’30s and ’40s,” Evans writes, “and it’s a more mature and subtle comedy than the other stuff Belushi was making at the time.”

There’s much more to the story, so go here to read the rest of it.

Tim Kazurinsky (provided photo)

And if you missed it yesterday, Splitsider posted an examination of longtime Chicago resident Tim Kazurinsky’s three-year run on SNL. Kazurinsky and Belushi became pals in the late 1970s, when Belushi camped out in Chicago to shoot “The Blues Brothers” with Dan Aykroyd, and then co-stars on the films “Neighbors” and “Continental Divide.” Prior to their introduction, Kazurinsky had acted with John’s brother Jim on the stages of Second City.

Here’s John

And here’s Tim (with Joe Piscopo)