Mourning my loss of SCTV

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m getting ready to move. In the process I’m obsessively cataloging all my possessions. I’ve gathered my videocassettes from all over (and the house is pretty bare by now) and have discovered a shattering loss: my SCTV videotape is gone. Missing. Lost. Whatever.

I must have lent it to somebody. I’m too kindhearted, and spacy, and I’m always lending stuff and utterly forgetting who has it. This was a 6-hour homemade tape, recorded off a TV marathon in 1979 or so, complete with period commercials. (Fred Rated Stereo, Cal Worthington Ford, etc.)
(“Ah’ll stand on my head to sell you a car! Ah’ll eat a bug to sell you a car!”)

But who cares about that. I’ve lost all my favorite SCTV moments, never seen (by me) anywhere else:

John Candy as Hercule Poirot in “Death Takes No Holiday” (a parody of Murder on the Orient Express):
“I’m ze bigger man. I should get ze bigger porkchop. It’s ze law! Somewhere.”

Catherine O’Hara as the shrill English instructor on “Sunrise Semester,” working on common phrases with Andrea Martin as Purini Schloroso, the hilariously English-imparied student:
O’HARA (with great clarity): Can you direct me to the hotel?
MARTIN (with equal clarity): Kaa-nuu neha nederachame ad na-hodol?

Andrea Martin as Edith Prickley, she of the leopard-print outfit. I remember her best hawking the Rhythm-Ace:
“You can be CHOPPIN YOUR SALAD TO THE BOSSANOVA BEAT!!!”
(Soft and tan and young and lovely…)

O’hara as Lola Heatherton:
“I wanna bear ALL YOUR CHILDREN!”

O’hara as Katherine Hepburn talking about Her First Time:
“He wanted to use the living room set, right on the stage! But I feel the stage should be reserved for performing - and a performance was hardly what I had in mind.”

And - this was recalled in Perry Como’s recent Washington Post obit - Eugene Levy as “Perry Como: Still Alive” doing upbeat numbers (“Fame,” “Celebration Time,” “I Will Survive,” “I Love the Nightlife”) with incredibly energetic backup singers/dancers - but Como is lying on the stage, almost asleep, covered with a blanket.

I love the fact that Como himself, quoted in the WP obit, said he thought that was hilarious.

2

“IIIIII LLLLLOOOOOVVVVEEEE TTTTHHHEEE NNNNIIIIGGGGHHHHTTTTLLLLIIIIIFFFEEE. IIIII LLLLOOOOOVVVVEEEE TTTTTOOOO BBBBOOOOOOOOGGGGIIIIEEEEE…”

Until that moment, I had no idea it could be drawn out that long. Great TV.

And Andrea Martin as “Indira!” One of the places they were going to be staging it, according to the scroll, was Don and Angie’s Pizza in Glen Ellyn, Illinois–a real place! Since I lived there I was disappointed it was (obvious, even to me, despite my “preparations” for watching the show) just a joke, but I still liked that they, a raft of Canucks, would have heard of it.

My favorite episode was the one where Soviet TV had taken control of the frequency. It even LOOKED like Soviet TV, with the different number of scan lines and all.

[voice of disgust]
“Uzbeks!”
[/voice of disgust]

3

I’m watching old SCTV’s every night on NBC after Conan O’Brien. Set your VCR.

4

THANKS, I had forgotten about Indira! “She was just a prime minister who wanted to become a singer! But she simply seduced a nation!” With Slim Pickens as Che Guevarra. Priceless.

Re Glen Ellyn (been there) - I loved the fact that “Wayne’s World” was in Aurora, Ill. Perfect setting for it, too. Every house in Aurora looked just like that.

eunoia, for real??? I had no idea! Thanks.

5

Oh, yeah. It’s technically part of the Late-late-late show appropriately named Later… instead of trying to have a real host with a real late-night talk show, they just show all the old SCTV episodes. And damn, this is some of the greatest shit I’ve seen since Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

6

umm… you know that NBC is replaying SCTV late night, right after Jay Leno?

I also had my collection of original SCTV tapes stolen by my psycho-exgirlfriend, tapes I recorded from the original broadcasts. In the reruns, people just can’t quite get what was so radical about this show. Especially when they do satires of long-forgotten shows like Irv Kupcinet.

Anyway, here’s a couple of my favorite moments:

We interrupt this program for an important tornado warning:
“You Tornados better not come around here if you know what’s good for you!”

We close our programming day with Inspirational Thoughts:
“When life gets you down, you got to get up and MAMBO!”

But better yet were the musical acts. I’d do just about anything to get tapes of these episodes:

Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats with “Ricardo Montalban” in a remake of “To Sir With Love”

The Tubes performing “Sushi Girl” in full costume, in a loosely inspired remake of “The Wizard of Oz”

Somebody whose name I forgot performing “Summertime Blues”

Tony Bennett performing “The Best Is Yet To Come” to a crestfallen MacKenzie brothers after their big TV special flopped. I saw this at a really tough time in my life and it made me cry and cry.

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Glad to help, masonite. What will the SDMB do when the unemployed who know these things can’t afford to post? Heh heh…

8

Mike Meyers (Wayne Campbell) is Canadian. There is a suburb of Toronto called Aurora. Mind you, most of Southern Ontario is a suburb.

Ginger

9

Personally, my favourite episodes were the 2 or 3 when they were on strike and getting CBC feeds instead of their own. It was a kick seeing Hinterland Who’s Who (Which showed on CBC seemingly more hours a day than the actual programs sometimes in that era), and the shows invented by the SCTV gang were SOOOO like real Canadian TV of the time.

Aaaah, Magnum PEI…

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OoooH!!! Hinterland Who’s Who! Everything I ever needed to know about the mighty beaver I learned from that! Woohoo! And how about that music, the wooo-Wooo0-woooo… some take-off of the loon or something.
It’s no wonder Canadians of my age are such a messed up lot.

Ginger

11

But “Wayne’s World” was set (and partially filmed) in Aurora, Illinois. Wife thinks it was inspired, in part, by a Christian music video program out of Aurora, Colorado. “It’s just like it, except Christian!”

As for the ubiquity of suburbia, I have claimed “Suburban” as my ethnicity. Set me down in any suburb on the planet and in fifteen minutes I will find the mall.

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Come help me find my way around my new town, then!

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Don’t they have like the BIGGEST mall on the planet in Edmonton? Shouldn’t be hard to find.

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Yeah, but it’s a sucky mall. Don’t waste your time.

I don’t live in Edmonton, BTW. But I have, and I’ve wasted enough time in that behemoth for every single member of the SDMB.

Ginger

15

“Hi, I’m Fred R. Rated, and this is my wife Unda…” Oh, those wacky 1970s commercials. Hey, here’s something you might remember: “Little bitta heaven, Ninety-four point seven, K-M-E-T. Tweedle-dee!”

My favourite SCTV scetch was the one where Bill Flaherty was telling a bedtime story to his son, Billy. He starts out with the story of the girl who didn’t wash her face one morning. By the end of the day she was so covered with zits that her own mother didn’t recognize her! “No, dad! I want to hear a story that’s really scary!” "“Really scary”? Okay. This one’s so scary, it even scares me! There’s an old man in a lighthouse. Yeah, a lighthouse, Billy. And it’s a dark and stormy night. And he looks down at the rocks, and what does he see, Billy? Rats! Rats, swarming over the rocks! And they all had these beady little eyes and whiskers and they were going, “meeee meeee meeee meee…” and so on. Until the story climaxes with the hoard of rats making their way up to the top of the lighthouse where the old man is trapped… “AAAaaaahhhhhhh!!! Ho, ho, ho! Now, wasn’t that a scary story, Billy?” Billy’s eyes are staring, his hair is white and sticking straight up, and he’s obviously dead. “Billy? He’s dead. Honey? I think I really did it this time!”

Thanks for reminding me about the “Indira” sketch. Hilarious!

And who can forget Johnny LaRue, Edith Prickley and Sammy Maudlin?!

You say these are being re-broadcast? I’ll have to set my VCR!

16

I just about went mental when they cancelled SCTV, I must say. I mean, it never reached the lofty heights of Pat Sajak’s variety show, I must say, but what could? He’s Pat Sajak, after all!

17

I go there quite a bit. Its not that its “sucky”, it is just a, get this, REALLY BIG MALL. If you don’t care about going to the waterpark, amusment park or play with the remote control boats, why bother? All the stores that are there are in every other mall.

Hey Ginger, OT but where about in Alberta are you from?

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Just moved to Canmore. Got twenny bucks? :smiley:
Ginger

19

Heh. Yeah, but you ain’t getting it :wink:

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[hijack] NO KIDDING [/hijack]

Just like Mrs. Prickley!

Ginger