Today in Jim Belushi: Stephen Colbert says he slapped Belushi onstage once
Per Stephen Colbert, Belushi was none too pleased about it
Aux News Belushi
Sometimes, in the midst of a committed “yes, and” things can go horribly awry. Just ask Stephen Colbert, who, on the latest episode of his podcast, Strike Force Five, told co-hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver about the time he slapped Jim Belushi. It all began in Colbert’s Second City days when he would play improv games like “Freeze Tag” on stage. The game requires two performers to begin a scene. Then, a third actor calls “freeze,” tags out one performer, and starts a new scene. We promise this is the last we explain the rules of an improv game in this newswire.
Anyway, Colbert says that fellow Second City performer Jim Belushi would regularly “slap people on stage” to get a “shock reaction” from the audience. “He has these big old meathook hands,” Colbert said. “So he would pick someone who he felt like, ‘That guy’s not gonna hit me back.’ And he would jack them.” While Colbert “1,000%” got the joke of slapping people on stage—if we don’t—he did recall a time when things went “a little bit too far.”
“Obviously, Mr. Belushi was not aware it had gone too far. It was all in good fun,” Colbert said as he went into a story about “Freeze Tag,” presumably when his co-hosts leaned in because everyone loves to hear about an improv scene they didn’t see or participate in. During the game, Belushi did his trademark slap, and Colbert called “freeze.” However, instead of tagging someone out, he told the slapped performer, “Hit him back. This is never going to stop unless you hit him back.” Belushi’s victim, as one would, refused.
“So I turned to Belushi, and I said, ‘Like this,’ and I gave him the swiftest crack I could give him from a short distance.” This didn’t go over well. There was “chaos in the house,” and the two men had to be separated as the house lights turned on in the theater. “We’re backstage yelling at each other. It was fantastic,” Colbert said. “He was a little upset.”
Let that be a lesson to us all: commit to the bit, unless the bit is slapping Jim Belushi.
16 Comments
Man, now there’s a bucket list item.
“And that’s for ‘About Last Night,’ you fucking monster!”
Odd, whoever heard of Jim Belushi being an asshole before?
Next we’ll be getting stories that he wasn’t the model of health we all assumed he was and that he was actually using hard drugs, if you can believe it!
You may be confusing him with John. Although Jim may have used as well, I don’t know. He seems to have been pretty outspoken against it (other than cannabis) because of what happened to his brother.
Nah, that was his brother John. The one who had actual talent.
I bet he doesn’t try that with Mike Tyson!
Or maybe he would. He might have a plan. But like Mike says, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth!
That makes absolutely no sense. Colbert wasn’t a boxer, he was dealing with an asshole at work. Strawman.
Colbert was working with The Scarecrow and The Scarecrow was being an a-hole? That’s amazing!
Commit to the bit, unless the bit is slapping Jim Belushi. If that’s the bit, commit even harder.
I think you meant to say, “…commit to the bit, especially if the bit is slapping Jim Belushi.”
Commit to the bit ESPECIALLY when it involved slapping Jim Belushi.Fixed it for ya.
And he’d do it again, too.
Anyway, remember that weird period where Jim Belushi was an action star?
Colbert all out here, living the dream.