Dan Aykroyd on his History Channel show, spirituality and why 'SNL' still works
The show is called "The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd" and the stories told are so crazy that at times even the host can't believe what he's reading.
"I stop taping often and say to the producer, 'Really, come on. This is all true?'" Aykroyd, 72, tells Paste BN. "And that's what makes it work: they are unbelievable stories but they become credible by virtue of the research that is done and applied."
Season 2 of Aykroyd's History Channel show (premiering Friday, 9 EST/PST), features a number of unbelievable yet true tales, including the Texas woman and son who decided to get in their bathtub when a tornado touched down in their town. The two were picked up by the storm and deposited a half-mile away. They survived.
"It's certainly a counterbalance to fake stories out there, fake news," Aykroyd says. "The vetting on all these stories is so genuine."
As for Aykroyd's beliefs, the "Ghostbusters" star is a spiritualist who thinks a "divine force" is also behind some of these unbelievable tales.
"When I see stories like the guy falling out of the airplane or the woman going down in the ship three times (both survived) or the woman and her son in a bathtub, I gotta look and say, 'Somehow there is some divine God-like intervention that saves their lives,'" he says. "I certainly would like to believe that and I think all of us would."
Aykroyd still watches 'SNL'
You probably could spend a full hour on any one of these stories: "UnBelievable" runs through seven to nine of them in a single hourlong episode. Aykroyd says the pacing is deliberate to keep the audience's attention, just like the TV show he's best known for: the actor was an original cast member of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" from 1975-79. As for the current iteration of the late-night sketch show, Aykroyd is a fan. He especially enjoys "Weekend Update" co-anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost.
"I think that 'SNL' remains unafraid to take on politicians and risqué subjects, and I don't think they're policing themselves" in terms of political correctness, he says. "They're out there right on the edge, still. The audience stays with it because it's good writing and good casting and good execution of the material."