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I
have very fond memories of staying up, way
past my bedtime, and watching SCTV
after Johnny Carson on Friday nights many
a moon ago. It was only on for two
disappointingly brief seasons, but a lot
of those episodes and characters were so
damn funny they were permanently etched in
my brain:
Count
Floyd’s inept Monster
Chiller Horror Theater,
which usually featured 3-D “classics”
by Dr. Tongue and Woody Tobias Junior; Big
Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok’s Farm
Film Report,
where they “blowed things up REAL
good!”; The polka zen of the Schmenge
Brothers, and of course, those hosers from
The
Great White North,
Bob and Doug McKenzie. Just thinking about
them brings a smile to my face.
SCTV
began as a half-hour sketch show for
Global TV in Toronto back in 1977, and in
one of those cosmic tricks of fate, was
blessed with a near perfect ensemble cast (pilfered
from Chicago's and Toronto's Second City
comedy club): Joe Flaherty, Eugene
Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis --
who was replaced with Rick Moranis, Dave
Thomas, Andrea Martin, and the late John
Candy. I rank this group behind only Sid
Ceaser’s troupe from Your
Show of Shows
and Monty
Python
for shear comedic brilliance.
The
premise of the show centered around a
fictional UHF station in the fictional
town of Melonville and the gonzo
programming it put on the air. This
provided the players with plenty of cannon
fodder as they sent-up television as we
knew it at the time: celebrity variety
specials, afternoon talk shows, locally
produced commercials, cooking shows, game
shows, and movies of the week.
And
the more absurd the better, which is why
you'd see things like Gregory Peck (Flaherty)
on a cooking show, musical guests herded
onto boats with the Fishin'
Musician,
and musical duets with Barbara Streisand
and Slim Whitman. Nothing was sacred, even
Mr.
Rogers Neighborhood
gets skewered by Mrs.
Falbo's Tiny Town.
In
between the outlandish spoof sketches (The
Sammy Maudline Show etc.), fake
commercials (Tex and Edna Boil’s
Organ Emporium etc.) and absurd
movie parodies (John Candy as Curly
Howard as Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur in
Ben-Him etc.), we’d get behind
the scenes subplots and scuttlebutt on the
workings of the station; from the acerbic
station manager, Guy Caballero (Flaherty),
to the insane program chief, Edith
Prickley (Martin), and the
human money pit, producer Johnny LaRue (Candy),
whose ego is matched only by his lack of
talent, ineptness, and desire for crane
shots. (One
of the shows biggest assets was the
in-joke continuity at the station.)
The
show was syndicated in the states and
expanded into a 90-minute SCTV:
Network 90,
when it was picked up by NBC in 1981 (ABC
had the first crack at it, but thought the
show was "too smart" and feared
their viewers wouldn't get it and backed
out). Unfortunately, the show, like
it’s counterpart Saturday
Night Live,
began losing talent, and instead of
recasting, the show quickly and quietly
folded after a last season on Cinemax. SCTV
flashed big and bright but quickly burned
out, but I, and many others, sure enjoyed
it while it lasted, and everyone from Mad
TV
to Curb
Your Enthusiasm
owes a debt to this show.
So
with all this comedy gold waiting to be
mined again, why was I apprehensive when
it was announced that a compilation 5-DVD
set of SCTV's
first season was being released? Well,
memory can be a tricky thing, and
sometimes revisiting things you like from
the past can be a complete disaster (which
is why I can’t watch old episodes of CHiP's
anymore). Would
the skits and sketches be as funny as I
remembered them? Was I just remembering
the good parts? It’d been almost twenty
years since SCTV
went off the air...How dated was this
going to be? ...Maybe it would be better
off if the show just stayed safely in my
memories and recollections. And if all
that wasn’t bad enough, the set bears a
hefty price tag of nearly $90. So
considering all those factors, it looked
like SCTV
would only continue to be a memory for me.
And
it was at this point that I found myself
at a local retailer that had it on sale
with $25 knocked off the asking price.
After a quick perusal of what episodes
were included, before I knew it, I was
through the checkout line, with the boxed
set paid for in hand, and home putting the
first disc in before I even realized what
happened.
I’m
such an idiot. Why was I even worried.
Those old shows were just as funny -- if
not funnier -- as I remembered (and
I’m amazed at how well I remembered a
lot of them.)
Each
disc contains two episodes from the Network
90
run (Episodes #79 -- #87), plus behind the
scenes featurettes on the making of the
show, a tribute to Candy, and a reunion of
most of the cast members at the 1999 U.S.
Comedy Arts Festival.
Highlights
include:
-
The
Leave it to Beaver 25th Anniversary
Special
with Candy as the 30-year old,
unemployed Beaver, Flaherty as the
alcoholic Ward, and O'Hara as the
cheating June that ends with the
Beaver murdering Eddie Haskell (Thomas).
-
Play
it Again Bob
-- a clash of comedic styles between
Bob Hope (Thomas - who does a
dead on perfect Hope) and Woody
Allen (Moranis).
-
A
Japanese talk show featuring an
interview with giant monster Grogan (Candy).
-
A
record commercial for the Five Neat
Guys.
-
Two
Count Floyd movies, including the
disastrous debut of Ingmar Bergman's Whispers
of the Wolf
and Dr.
Tongue’s 3-D House of Stewardesses.
-
Tom
Jode (Flaherty) and his
clan head back to Oklahoma in The
Grapes of Mud.
-
Johnny
LaRue’s disastrous Polynesiantown
that gets him in hot water with
Caballero, triggering a reoccurring
gag throughout all the episodes about
blown budgets and crane shots.
-
Merv
Griffith (Moranis)
goes to Mayberry for The
Merv Griffith Show
where Otis (Candy) gets
Opie drunk.
-
Nine
episodes of Kanadian
Korner
better known as The
Great White North.
-
Several
variety show disasters, including a
Russian Weightlifter (Candy),
but the best one was Gene Shallit's (Levy)
featuring fellow tone-deaf and
rhythmically challenged film critics
Rhona Barret (O'Hara),
Siskel (Flaherty) and
Ebert (Thomas).
-
The
set climaxes beautifully with the last
episode that splits time between the
McKenzies and a hilarious parody of Fantasy
Island
with Mr. Rourke (Levy)
and Tatoo (Candy) that
combines a Bob Hope (Thomas)
and Bing Crosby (Flaherty)
road picture, Casablanca
and The
Wizard of Oz.
-
And
as they say, many more that are too
numerous to list.
I've
gone through all the discs now at least
twice now. I honestly forgot how funny Joe
Flaherty was (especially his Kirk
Douglas and Bing Crosby impersonations),
but the best part about these discs is
seeing John Candy in action again. Man I
miss him. His movie career was short and
spotty at best, but he's friggin'
brilliant here.
I
understand that a lot of people aren't
going to remember, or weren't even around,
when this type of television they're
making fun of dominated the airwaves. The
musical variety show is long dead, TV talk
shows these days are freak shows all by
themselves, and I can't even remember the
last time I saw a commercial for Ronco or
K-Tel. But it won't matter, trust me, it's
still funny.
The
only thing disappointing about the set
were the episodes that were absent (and
where the heck did they dig up some of
those musical guests).
-
I
really want to see Ben-Him
again.
-
Candy
as Devine as Peter Pan singing “You
Can Fly”.
-
Levy
as a near catatonic Perry Como singing
the disco standard “I Love the Night
Life.”
-
Maybe
a few installments of the soap opera The
Days of the Week.
-
I
also recall when they did a spoof of The
Godfather
where "Don" Caballero runs
into some trouble with rival
“family” stations.
-
More
Sunrise
Semesters.
-
And
I have the vaguest recollection of an Invasion
of the Body Snatchers
take-off that found chunks of lettuce
stuck to the back of everyone’s
head.
-
And
for heaven's sake, where are the
Christmas shows?
Never
fear, though, I understand more SCTV
discs are on the way. Until then, I’m
very content with these discs, and thanks
to them, I'm happy to report that SCTV
is now back on the air -- permanently.
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