Yeah, it’s an 80s thing. One of the funniest things I saw recently was a send-up of the old Irv Kupcinet show. How many people actually remember Irv Kupcinet? That makes all the difference.
BTW, I recently caught my one of my all time favorite episodes. It’s a sendup of the movie “To Sir With Love” except featuring Ricardo Montalban (Levy) and special guest stars, The Boomtown Rats, with a young Bob Geldof just a few years before he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now if I can just get a tape of my most hotly desired show, the one featuring The Tubes singing “Sushi Girl” in full costume.
Well, when I first saw SCTV it was the Canadian 30 minute version that aired on WWOR channel 9 in NY in the late 70s. And I thought it sucked. I kept waiting for the jokes like on SNL. However, I was also only like 11 years old.
When I watched the show on NBC late night in the early 80s (after Letterman) I was 17 or 18 by then and I was able to appreciate that it wasn’t all about the punchline. SCTV was always more subtle and sophisticated. And I think the 90 minute NBC version was a huge improvement over the old one.
I still find the old CBC shows kinda weak, but some of the NBC ones are masterpieces. The Merv/Orsan Wells/Spielberg/Lucas bit, the “Days of the Week” serial (especially the “The Gradute” finale), the Different Strokes/Body Snatchers w/Conrad Bain’s brother episode, the one where Caballero rigs the Emmys, the Towering Inferno parady (with Jonny Nucleo).
It just wasn’t like SNL. It was not shot in front of an audience so it didn’t have to have an obvious joke every 30 seconds. And ultimately, that was a good thing.
Half Wits! I just remembered that one fom the last series… It was damned funny.
ALEX TREBEL(LEVY): The catagory is Food: Name an Italian dish?
BZZZZZ Lawrence Orbach?
LAWRENCE:(SHORT) Swedish Meatballs.
TREBEL: Swedish meatballs? Unbelievable. Lawrence where the Hell do you think Sweedish meatballs come from? BBZZZZZZZ. What?!
DARREN PEEL (CANDY): Spain?
Or this one
ALEX: Let’s meet the contestants.
Darren Peel I understand you are a family man.
PEEL: Yes Alex.
ALEX: (LONG PAUSE)can you tell me anything about them.
PEEL: Yes Alex I have a mother and I have a father.
I read an interview with Eugene Levy in which he said the early Canadian productions were his favorites.
Rhino is supposedly going to roll out a big SCTV promotion next year and begin reissuing the series on VHS and DVD.
The Andy Griffith parody where Floyd the Barber wants vengeance for his dented barber-pole.
“I want you to kill Opie.” It’s probably been fifteen years since I saw that and it still nearly makes me soil myself.
Is that the same one where Otis takes Opie fishing and gets him drunk? Jesus.
Also the guy that Dave Thomas played that was obsessively into home-video. Probably not funny to the younger folks who don’t remember what it was like when Betavision vs VHS was as devisive an issue as PC vs. Mac.
And Tiny Town. How f*cked up was that?
SCTV may seem a bit weak these days but ‘back in the day’ there wasn’t anything to compare. Saturday Night Live was the only thing that came close, and it wasn’t nearly as strong, IMHYFNCO. [sup](In My Humble, Yet Fiercely Nationalistic Canadian Opinion)[/sup]
Well Larry, you know that SNL always played second fiddle to the SCTV group. The original SNL was formed from Second City. Even today, most of the best SNL players are former Second City members. And today, SNL sucks mostly because it lost track of its SC roots.
There are too many good bits in SCTV. And insane secondary characters like Bill Needle, Perini Scleroso, Harvey K-Tel, and Mr. Mambo. And I always thought Catherine O’Hara was a vastly underrated actress.
Ya know, I used to know Dave Thomas, I sold him computers at my store in Los Angeles, and he’s the only guy I’ve ever met that immediately struck me as hilariously funny from the moment I met him. And it’s not like he was doing jokes or anything, we were just talking computers. I could hardly keep a straight face…
Aw, damn, I love SCTV. I wish I had the opportunity to watch it more often. Yeah, the humor is a bit dated, but I’m used to adjusting my mindset for that. It’s like watching old episodes of Star Trek: TOS… it’s corny, it’s dated, but it’s still some damn fine television.
John Candy: He was also great in Who Is Harry Crumb. May he RIP.
How about Gerry Todd? This was Rick Moranis as a very early incarnation of a VJ presenting rock videos.
Not only was Todd’s dialogue humourously bad–he was more interested in the video technology he was operating than he was in presenting entertainment–the “rock” videos were actually then-current top-40 hits arranged and presented as lounge acts. Who could forget Dave Thomas singing “Turning Japanese” like Vic Damone while walking through a park?
Besides that, there were plenty of “in” jokes and sketches that you would only get if you were familiar with Canadian television and Toronto. The character “Alex Trebel” is, of course, a parody of Alex Trebek–and Trebek really did host a high-school quiz show in Toronto during the 1960s. It wasn’t called “High-Q,” but the SCTV version was fairly accurate in its portrayal of some of the more awkward moments on the actual show, and Trebek’s efforts in trying to get the show back on course.
And the SCTV “commercials” that featured a Jewish man selling drapery or rugs–yes, there was an actual business that advertised like this. Torontonians would recognize a typical advertisement for Crazy Joe’s Drapery, which featured the owner pitching his drapery, but not sounding too enthusiastic about it. The actual store was in a Metro Toronto neighbourhood called Downsview, but the SCTV address was given as “Lansdowne at Pape.” Which was another joke–while both streets exist in Toronto (they’re even subway stops), they parallel each other, and don’t meet.
It was a great show. Let’s thank Mrs. Yatscke for the cabbage rolls and the coffee.
Great, great show - which made you think while you busted your gut laughing.
I fell off my chair with the commercial for “Evita” starring Lola Heatherton as Evita and Slim Whitman as Che when Slim (Joe Flaherty) starts yodelling: “you were supppoooosed to have been immortal!”
Only the writers of SCTV could have remembered the obscure Chuck Conners drama show “Branded” which they re-worked for John Candy as “Yellow-Belly”…
“Yellow, Yellow-Belly - where you gonna run to now…”
priceless
dos centavos
“Look ma! It’s Yellow-belly!”
BLAM!
“You’ve killed my son-”
BLAM!
Funniest 30 seconds ever!
I attended an SCTV retrospective a few years ago at the Museum of TV and Radio. There was a packed house and the fans certainly enjoyed the montage of sketches.
The show liked to make fun of its inability to produce enough original material. Joe Flaherty as Guy Caballero, who only rode around in a wheelchair to earn respect, was often talking to unseen network executives about this. The commercial for “Indira” with Slim Whitman as Punji Guevara was used a lot.
NBC owns exclusive rights to all but the Cinemax years of the show and has prevented any video sales of old shows for a while.
Yup. The Schmenge brothers were a dead-on parody of Polka Time, a Sunday afternoon show out of Edmonton. And of course Floyd Robertson = Lloyd Robertson, and Earl Camembert = Earl Cameron. And then there was that episode that was entirely a parody of CBC programming - “You could be the next Pat Boutet!”.
[Tommy Shanks]
Well, g’night.
[/Tommy Shanks]
Harold Ramis was hilarious on that early show.
I live in Edmonton, and routinely walk around the areas where they used to shoot the outdoor stuff. It’s a little strange sometimes.
Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and Gilda Radner were from Second City. Garrett Morris wasn’t, I don’t think Chevy Chase was and Jane Curtin wasn’t. Larraine Newman (sp?) was from a West Coast group called The Groundlings.
I’m surprised no one mentioned…
Monster Chiller Horror Theater, with Count Floyd. I loved it when he would howl like a wolf, looking uncomfortable doing it, and introduce his favorite movie, “Bloodsucking Monkeys from West Mifflin.” Plenty of Pittsburgh references.
Dave Thomas as Walter Cronkite in “Altered Walter”, a parody of the movie Altered States.
Just a couple of my favorites.
And Bob and Doug McKenzie on Great White North- you hosers… I loved the theme song!
I think one of the reasons I always preferred SNL to SCTV was the simple fact that the former was indeed live. Knowing people are out there “without a net” just somehow makes it funnier.
For the most part I thought SCTV was highly overrated. The only characters that made me laugh were Bob & Doug, The Schmenges and of course, John Candy as “MR Mambo”!
Chris W
I watched one episode of SCTV last year. Didn’t even crack a smile. Granted, some of the sketches mentioned in this thread sounded like somewhat funny premises, but… was ANY truly funny television produced in north america during the 80’s? Real, lasting humour that’s still funny today? Sometimes it seems doubtful…
And i found most of it funny
it just depended on if you had low budget uhf networks around ( the uhf favorite america one comes to mind )
Also it helps if ya were around at the time of the show like sketch comedy
But if ya wanna start a war say monty pythons not funny ::d&r:: althouhg it might be becuase i dont get the references
ok kill the sketch comedy words I never should post at 5 am
Although most people who read my posts wont notice anything amiss
Ahhhh! How could I forget that one. “Oooooh, dat’s scaaaaaaaaaaary, keeds!”
Yep, plenty of Pittsburgh references. Joe Flaherty is originally from the 'burgh. My favorite is “Night of the Giant Squirrels from Squirrel Hill.”
Zap!