I remember the day — March 4, 1994 — when I learned that John Candy, big of heart and large of funny bone, had died from an apparent heart attack at age 43. I was a movie critic and a film writer in the Life section of USA Today, distracted by the Winter Olympics TV coverage of Nancy Kerrigan’s silver medal comeback. But the minute I heard that one of the warmest and funniest actors around had passed away, I poured myself immediately into writing his appreciation.

As someone who grew up in Buffalo, I was lucky to have early access to “Sctv,” the Canadian sketch-comedy counterpart to “Saturday Night Live,” long before the series was picked up by NBC. I was cued into the genius of Candy and his clowning cohorts Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as they inhabited sundry out-sized characters who worked at a fictitious television station.