Blues Brothers Band Members’ Acting Ability: A Ranking

So many people seem to be ranking things lately–pop culture ephemera, the like–and why not me? The world needs my numinations. I shall tell you which discrete item is better than other discrete items, and by how much. My topic, Blues Brothers Band Musicians Ranked By Acting Ability, is in honor of Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, whose birthday it is today, and I am an important American literary voice.

ONE: Alan “Mr. Fabulous” Rubin

Look at that marvelous bag of sleaze; his hair steals the scene by itself, but then the script gives him a good line–No, sir, Mr. Daley no longer dines here–and he knocks it out of the park. The rest of the scene is similarly his, and the role he occupies is a trickier one than it might seem: the Margaret Dumont. The viewer must empathize with the Dumont (Yes, it is absurd what these small Jewish men are babbling about), but not root for the Dumont. No one wants the Dumont to win, obviously, but no one wants anything bad to happen to them. All Dumonts have ever been guilty of is being fancy. They’re not bad people.

Rubin plays the Dumont perfect. He’s not a monster. He just wants to work his steady gig and make his steady tips and not deal with the Blues Brothers. His position is defensible! Look how swell his hair looks! Did we not know that God Himself had ordained that he rejoin the band, we might side with Mr. Fabulous over Jake and Elwood.

O, that thick-lipped insouciance.

(SIDE NOTE: In at least one alternate universe, there exists a cut of The Blues Brothers wherein Mr, Fabulous successfully resists the Blues Brothers’ offers, and then the rest of the film shifts to a lyrical Cassavetes-like character study of a maitre d’ in 1980’s Chicago.)

TWO: Murphy Dunne DISQUALIFIED

Murph, erstwhile of Murph & the Magic Tones, is a scratch. No action will be accepted on Murphy Dunne.

(It should’ve been Paul Shaffer. I would lead a crowdfunding effort to digitally insert Paul Shaffer into the Blues Brothers pasted over Murph. You’d also have to de-age Paul, I guess, so this is gonna cost a lot of money. Paul put the Blues Brothers Band together, wrote all the charts, led the rehearsals, and Belushi pitched a bitch about him working with Gilda Radner too much and tossed him from the movie. John Belushi has an entire wing in the Problem Attic.)

THREE:  Willie “Too Big” Hall

Incredibly sexual name here. You got “Willie,” which means a penis, and “Too Big,” which refers to the penis we were just discussing, and then “Hall,” which is–one would assume–the size a vagina would need to be to enswallow the member on the table. This man’s name is a microaggression; I did not consent to this.

FOUR: Steve Cropper/Donald “Duck” Dunn (TIE)

Each man delivers his few lines with ease, but these guys just looked cool.

Check out the Duck:

And the Crop:

These are hip, hip men.

FIVE: Tom “Bones” Malone

What’s the difference between a trombonist in a car and a frog in a car?

What?

Frog might be going to a gig.

SIX: “Blue” Lou Marini

Blue Lou is more wooden than a forest that came to life and taught Bill Walton lessons about basketball and being a man. Blue Lou is stiffer than a man universally known for his spectacular boners having an especially notable erection.

On the other hand:

I always thought that was a sweet shot.

SEVEN: Matt “Guitar” Murphy

While virtually every other decision from the production of Blues Brothers can be explained away with “because cocaine,” the allocation of so damn many lines to Matt “Guitar” Murphy cannot. Are you jamming out in a Mississippi-style blues style? Call Matt. Maybe getting jazzy with it? Matt’s your guy. Go toe-to-toe in a sass-off with Aretha Franklin? Call Cleavon Little or Franklin Ajaye. This is not an arena in which Matt “Guitar Murphy will shine.

And yet the man was called upon to emote. To emote!

“Woman!”

But, hey: his performance is charmingly terrible, and you can see how much practice he put into it. Matt “Guitar” Murphy tried his hardest, and that’s what matters. I don’t like this ranking nonsense. Everyone’s number one in my book. I will not be doing this anymore, but I hope you leaned something here.