The two Johns were larger than life in terms of their physiques and their personalities. As intensely physical comedians, they called attention to their size in ways that were funny, as well as touching.
On the Canadian comedy show SCTV, and later, in his scores of movies, John Candy was the fat guy that all the other players made fun of; the big schmuck that the audience loved to laugh at - and with. One of my fondest recollections of him is the movie Splash (1984), in which he played the older brother of Tom Hanks.
As the tiresome, angst-ridden protagonist, Hanks spends half the movie lusting after Darryl Hannah - as a chesty mermaid with crimped hair - and the other half writhing in embarrassment over his BIG brother's antics. Candy's Freddie Bauer is a jerk in both senses of the word; that is, he is both obnoxious and ridiculous, which somehow makes him endearing. When Freddie drops money underneath a lady's dress so that he can catch a glimpse of her goods, his childish delight is enough to keep any audience - even the most feminist - from completely despising him.
Perhaps it's knowing that Freddie will never be the one who gets the girl - that she will instead wind up with the neurotic Allen - that causes viewers to sympathize with him, for all his crassness and buffoonery. It is clear that, beneath his moon-faced jocularity, Freddie - like the actor who plays him - knows that the world sees him as a big, fat loser. Though Freddie smiles a lot, his luminous eyes reveal pain, particularly when he's telling his brother off toward the end of the movie. In this particular scene, Allen has just finished kvetching about the rotten hand he's been dealt, after finding out that his dream girl, Madison, is really a mermaid. Freddie listens sympathetically to much of his brother's tirade, but then suddenly explodes into a fit of his own that speaks volumes about his tormented inner character. Reminding Allen of how happy he and Madison have been, Freddie informs him that "a lot of people will never be that happy. I'll never be that happy." He goes on to say that Allen's fairy-tale notion of true love is "a crock." Admittedly, some viewers might consider this hypocritical dialogue in such a patently unrealistic and frothy romantic comedy. However, Candy's rendition of the lines has a throat-catching ring of truth.
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