Brian Seff (November 8, 1950) is a musician, comic, actor, and writer who appeared as Rick (one half of Rick & Ruby) in Season 3s Mork and Mindy Meet Rick and Ruby
Biography[]
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Brian moved around quite a bit in his early life, eventually staying for eight years in Tucson, Arizona before he and his family moved to Southern California in his mid-teens. He’d developed an interest in Rock & Roll Music from a very early age. By the time he was ready to graduate high school, he was sure that being a Rock Star was his career choice, having switched over from cello to guitar at age 15.
He moved to San Francisco after one year of college to further his dream. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take the role of Rock Star seriously enough and moved towards comedy.
Discovering in his young adulthood a liking for British humor as well. As the US comedy scene in the late 1990’s began to be less to his liking, and his second marriage was crumbling (He now has three divorces to his discredit), he chose to look across the Pond, and has never looked back.[1]
Career[]
In the early 1970’s, Brian and his best friend Monica Ganas (Ruby) started an act called Rick & Ruby that worked out of San Francisco. The act was a mix of music and comedy, with Rick mostly as the straight man, and became well-known among the Bay Area club scene.
Within five years, the act, by then a trio with the addition of keyboardist Joshua “Raoul” Brody, was playing large venues all across the country, garnering national exposure in 1979 through their work with Robin Williams on his National Tour. Through their connections with Robin and Paul Pee Wee Herman' Reubens as well as a stint at the Comedy Store they decided to move down to LA in 1980. [1][2]
Filmography (Actor)[]
| Year | Show | Episode | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Mork & Mindy | Mork and Mindy Meet Rick and Ruby | Rick |
| 1981 | The Pee-Wee Herman Show | (TV Movie) | Mr. Jelly Donut |
| 1982 | Madame's Place | Episode #1.18 | The Comic |
In 1986, Monica, now married and mother of two, chose to retire from the scene to go back to school and get her Ph.D, while Brian chose to try a career as a solo stand-up with his guitar. During the whole Rick & Ruby era, Rick never had a surname, and needed one for a solo career. The booker of his first gig, needing a name to put in the publicity, asked him, “You’ll still be using the name Rick, right?” “Yeah, Rick Right sounds good,” was Rick’s reply, and the name has stuck.[1]
29 years, a few thousand gigs in 37 of the 50 states and 21 countries later, Rick Right is still out there, entertaining people sometimes one-third his age with his knowledge of all that’s good and bad and worth ridiculing in the world of music. He combines not only a love and knowledge of music, but is a fine guitarist, singer, impressionist, and humorist, and uses all those skills to create an act which delighted US audiences for nearly 15 years before discovering a UK scene that liked him even more.[1]
Mork & Mindy[]
In Season 3's Mork and Mindy Meet Rick and Ruby, Brian, as he did in the Rick & Ruby musical trio, played Rick the gormless dimwit, but top class guitarist and singer, who is also the father of his girlfriend Ruby's unborn child. Together with Ruby and their keyboardist Raoul they form 'The Stupids' who have travelled from Akron, Ohio to play a week at Da Vinci's, Remo wanting to bring live music into the restaurant. At least until he finds out how heavily pregnant Ruby is.
Note:[]
Brian Seff & Monica Ganas were working (with Raoul) in their Rick & Ruby act in San Francisco when they met Robin Williams in 1977, and became friends with him performing at his wedding in SF to Valerie Velardi, prior to his move to Los Angeles and eventual break through on Mork & Mindy. Once he started Mork & Mindy, whenever they were in LA they would stay in his house in Malibu. [2]
At the end of the first season, when he was about to take his stand up act on a National Concert Tour (stand up), he told his agents that he’d like to book Rick & Ruby as his opening act, The agents had heard of them, and thought a musical comedy act sounded like a good mix for him, and that Robin could come out and sing with them if he wanted, which was he was thinking too. During their performance as his opening act at the 6,000 seater Universal Amphitheatre, they were seen by one of the producers of the show, (Bruce Johnson). Afterwards he spoke with them, and said they had to get them on the show, and would write an entire episode around them, and they met with him at his house to thrash it out as well as working the song 'This Heart is Closed for Alterations' by Jonathan Katz, Robin's Musical Director from the tour into the episode. [2]