Reluctantly, he discovered fresh vistas

This is the sort of job many sane folks would cherish.
It’s a travel show to Italy, Costa Rica, Maldeves and more. It “visits some of the world’s most beautiful and intriguing destinations,” said Rita Cooper Lee of Apple TV+.
And it centers on Eugene Levy (shown here) … who says he really didn’t want to go.
“I’m not a great traveler,” Levy told the Television Critics Association. “I don’t have a great sense of adventure. I’m not curious by nature. I’m not proud of any of this, but it’s just a fact.” Which fits “The Reluctant Traveler,” an eight-week debuting Friday (Feb. 24) on Apple.
That concept evolved as he was nudged along. “They are beautiful places,” producer David Bridley said. “And Eugene finds the joy in those places and the beauty.”
But he had to push himself, meeting new people in new places. “I’m not a chatty guy, you know?” Levy said. “I don’t really open up to people on my own. (But) you can’t always say no to things.”
At 76, Levy is known for roles as dads and dignitaries – seven “American Pie” films, four Christopher Guest semi-improvised films (including “Best of Show”) and triumphing with “Schitt’s Creek.”
But long before that, he was in an early wave of television satirizing television.
“Paul (Shaffer) and Eugene were walking encyclopedias of show business,” Dave Thomas wrote in “SCTV” (McClelland & Stewart, 1996). “They had been studying it all their lives … every comedy and variety show that was aired.”
Levy spent most of his college time at the student union, doing shows ranging from Shakespeare to playing Oscar in “The Odd Couple.” He dropped out of school after four years and was in the Toronto cast of “Godspell,” eventually getting the lead role of Jesus.
But the comedy center was the apartment that he and Martin Short had in Toronto, with others (including Levy’s sometimes-girlfriend Andrea Martin) stopping in. The people there would go on to launch both “Saturday Night Live” (Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray) and “SCTV.”
The latter had Levy as a prime force – playing a newscaster, playing bad comic Bobby Bittman and writing constantly. “Eugene was very prolific in those first two seasons,” Thomas wrote. “He always cranked out a reliable amount of comedy material. You could set your watch by Gene,”
He would create cable’s “Maniac Mansion” in 1990, then do little writing (except for the semi-improvised movies) until his son talked him into co-creating “Schitt’s Creek” and starring in it.
“The character of Johnny Rose in the show was as close to me as anything I’ve done in my career,” Levy said. “So that was a huge challenge, something that made me very nervous.”
It eventually swept the Emmys, showing that it can be good to try something nerve-wracking.
He found that again when reluctantly traveling to South Africa.
“The thought of going on safari didn’t do anything to me,” Levy said. “I’d seen the animals; I used to watch the shows on TV …. Do I have to make the trip and get up at 5 in the morning to go on safari?
“But when I got there, I just felt an affinity with the landscape.” Traveling didn’t seen so awful.