The Man Who Made the Holidays Feel Human

A Thanksgiving reflection on John Candy, the films that shaped us, and the rare goodness that still lingers.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is its own kind of holiday. Travel purgatory. Grocery lines that look like evacuation routes. Families bracing for their annual performance reviews. It’s a night when you want something familiar on the screen — something warm, genuinely funny, and a little bruised around the edges.

This year, that thing is easy.

Amazon Prime’s new documentary I Like Me is a portrait of John Candy that feels almost too tender for the world we live in. It’s touching, unexpectedly heavy, and full of stories that confirm what people suspected all along: he wasn’t just a great performer — he was a good man. The kind you don’t meet very often, and the kind who makes you realize how rare basic decency actually is.

His children speak about him with that soft, grounded affection that only shows up in families where someone loved consistently and without ego. And then there’s Macaulay Culkin, saying plainly that Candy was one of the only adults on set who seemed to grasp how difficult his father was and how he was being treated. It’s a small moment, but once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it. You suddenly recognize the quality that shows up in every one of Candy’s characters: the instinct to look out for people who needed it.

That instinct shaped his whole career. His colleagues say the same thing, from the biggest co-stars to the most invisible crew members: he was kind. Generous. Human. Not “industry nice.” Real nice. The kind that doesn’t survive Hollywood unless it starts bone-deep. No one had a bad word. Not one.

And the heartbreaking part is that he worked himself into the ground because he knew people were counting on him. In the documentary someone says, simply, “He never said no.” If you asked John Candy to do a movie, he did it. If you asked him to voice a Saturday-morning cartoon, he did it. If you needed a cameo to get a project off the ground, he was already on the way. He showed up for everyone but himself.

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Which brings me to the Second City and SCTV era — the place where so much of this warmth was forged. Candy came from the same ecosystem that produced Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Martin Short — half the comfort-movie canon, really.

They were trained to support the scene, elevate the partner, and give the emotion its due. That’s why Candy could be enormous and hilarious without ever flattening into a joke. He carried humanity into every performance. Even the loudest, most chaotic characters were, underneath it all, people you recognized.

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And for me, that’s where the personal thread enters.

Growing up, I had a favorite aunt — the fun aunt, the one who let us get away with things we had no business getting away with. Every kid has one. The adult who feels more like a co-conspirator than a guardian. The one who’s a big kid themselves. When I look back on John Candy’s movies, especially Uncle Buck, I see flickers of her: the mischief, the softness, the unpolished affection. It’s the same emotional shorthand. The same kind of safety.

Which brings us to Planes, Trains & Automobiles, the only Thanksgiving movie that actually counts. It’s more than nostalgic; it’s honest. It’s messy. It’s unexpectedly sad. It’s a story about two men trying (and failing) to hold themselves together long enough to get home. It’s one of the only holiday films that understands how holidays really feel.

And for the love of all that is holy, you have to watch the unedited version.

Two reasons:

1. Steve Martin’s meltdown at the rental car counter.

A full symphonic arrangement of seventeen F-bombs, delivered with the precision of a man who has truly snapped. Anyone who has ever found themselves in a similar situation can totally relate. It’s the only reason the movie has an “R” rating. On television, the edited version turns it into static. In full, it’s one of the greatest comedic scenes ever filmed.

2. Edie McClurg’s response.

A moment so perfect it should be archived by the Library of Congress. Cutting it should be a punishable offense. Best of all, her dialoge in that scene was completely improvised. John Hughes told her to just chat about Thanksgiving.

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Then there’s Home Alone — the best Christmas movie ever made — which Candy magnifies with a cameo he shot in a single day for scale pay, about $400. He ad-libbed every line. The “Polka King of the Midwest” routine? Completely improvised. Five minutes of screen time, and yet he anchors the film’s emotional center of gravity in a way only he could. O’Hara, also from the Second City universe, meets him on that wavelength without missing a beat.

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And this week, in the middle of all this remembering, Jimmy Cliff passed away. Most people will rightfully remember him for a career that reshaped reggae. But John Candy fans will go straight to Cool Runnings and his unforgettable rendition of “I Can See Clearly Now,” the song that closes the film. It was the perfect ending then and feels even more poignant now — a kind of joyful defiance wrapped in sunlight.

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So here’s the ritual I’m offering you:

Tonight, watch the John Candy documentary.

Then watch Planes, Trains & Automobiles — unedited.

Then let December begin with Home Alone.

Thanksgiving has one perfect movie.

Christmas has one perfect movie.

John Candy sits at the center of both, holding the emotional weight of the holidays together with nothing more than kindness, humor, and a generosity that never once asked for applause.

He was larger-than-life in the one way that actually matters:

he made people feel a little more human.

And that’s reason enough to honor him now.

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