John Belushi And Dan Akroyd Had A Cocaine Budget Baked Into The Filming Of "Blues Brothers"

(SOURCE)

We had a budget in the movie for cocaine for night shoots,” Dan Aykroyd tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Ned Zeman of the careening, madcap production of John Landis’s 1980 movie, The Blues Brothers, in which he starred alongside John Belushi. “Everyone did it, including me. Never to excess, and not ever to where I wanted to buy it or have it. [But] John, he just loved what it did. It sort of brought him alive at night—that superpower feeling where you start to talk and converse and figure you can solve all the world’s problems.”

John Belushi is one of those dude's that showbiz lost WAY too soon. I'm from the same town that he was from, so I am probably biased in saying that (there's a mural of him in my HS), but for me personally, he's absolutely on the Mt. Rushmore of performers the world was robbed of at an early age. 

To me, it's John Belushi, Chris Farley, and maybe a small handful of others. His story is well known and everyone knows he had EXTREME issues, but…goddamn is it badass to have drugs baked into a budget from your employer. I don't do drugs because I know I'd like them WAY too much, but I've been told that cocaine "turns all your bad feelings into good feelings", so it should come as a shock to nobody at all that the elder Belushi was completely blown during all his movies. Every time the camera was rolling he was bringing NOTHING but fun vibes. 

This quote from Joliet Jake should have "and a kilo of blow" added to it: 

And don't forget about everyone's favorite frat boy, John Blutarski:

Or his tenure with SNL:

The dude was a MAGICIAN as a performer. Laughs on laughs on laughs. Just incredibly magnetic whenever he was on a screen, be it big or small, which I guess we have cocaine to at least partially thank for that. Makes me think every studio on earth should be slipping coke mickeys into their actors' coffee each morning. We'd enter a new golden age of film. It's not too dissimilar to allowing athletes to juice. It makes for a better, more entertaining product when players are on PEDs. 

Those are just facts. That's not to say I endorse the legalization of cocaine, but I do endorse Hollywood studios and pro sports organizations illegally baking a drug budget into their operating costs. So long as I'm entertained, I'm good with them breaking the law. Just don't get caught.