SCTV Network 90

Cafe Society
1

I’ve recently rented the SCTV Network 90 Collection One disks from Netflix. I’ve gone through 6 episodes so far.

Is it just me, or is the bulk of the show decidedly… mediocre?

I love the premise of a TV network, and the supporting TV personalities behind the scenes… Johnny LaRue, Guy Caballero, Edith Prickley… but the execution’s kinda blah.

The Great White North, of course, eventually gave us Strange Brew, which was a charmingly funny little movie, but the sketches themselves aren’t even up to Saturday Night Live’s low minimum standards for ‘recurring characters’. The Roxbury Twins segments have more substance.

That all said, Dave Thomas does an amazing Bob Hope impression.

2

No, it’s not just you.
I think ‘mediocre’ is a good description.

Whenever I watch them in re-runs, I can’t help thinking it was way funnier the first time around. But that was, what 20 years ago? I don’t think many comedy sketches have that kind of staying power.

It was originally a weekly show, and I don’t think it’s the type of comedy that works well when you watch 5 or 6 episodes in a row.

Still some funny stuff in there though. Especially the Johnny LaRue character. I remember the ‘cooking with LaRue’ segment where he made an economical dish that was cheap to make because ‘most of the ingredients can be easily shoplifted’.

:slight_smile:

3

“Mediocre” is being pretty charitable. I used to watch them on broadcast TV way back when and had fond memories of the show, but renting the DVDs made me realize just how selective memory is.

4

The best thing that show ever did, for meat least, was the heavyweight boxing match. They did a big long lead up to the fight, and it was over in 12 seconds. Then they just kept replaying those twelve seconds over and over again to kill time.

That, and the televisions getting tossed out the windows during the opening credits.

But otherwise, yeah, mediocre fits the bill.

5

It’s amazing how much funnier things were 20 years ago… at 12:30 in the morning.

6

I don’t know… I still enjoy Monty Python’s shows, or early SNL just fine.

I mean, cripes, this doesn’t even compare favorably to SNL of the mid-eighties, and that was its lowest point.

It’s especially puzzling to me that while this is the worst sketch comedy show I’ve ever seen … (though still mediocre in my opinion) it produced John Candy and Rick Moranis and Harold Ramis. All very funny men. With decent careers. As opposed to the State, which was hilarious, much funnier than SCTV, but whose actors only find work in Comedy Central TV series.

7

I’ll have to give it a look, but by the middle of the run, it was considered that you sat through SNL in order to stay up for SCTV.

The cast was incredibly talented. Everyone except for Joe Flaherty went on to very successful careers. Also, a lot of the humor came from recognition – seeing the same character in several different skits.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the first six episodes weren’t up to later levels. Early SNL was pretty bad, too, until they found their stride. I’d wait to see more before passing judgment.

8

I remember an interview with, I think, Dave Thomas, who said at one point the entire production packed up and moved from Toronto to Winnipeg. He said it was great for the cast, because Winnipeg was so normal and the people so friendly, that everyone got over their neuroses. On the other hand, they had nothing to draw off of, so to speak, and the sketches became increasingly silly and self-indulgent.

9

First of all, the show was taped in Edmonton, not Winnipeg.

Remember also that the show was parodying TV from 20 years ago.

That said, I have watched the old shows and I think they’re great and still hold up well. The stuff that isn’t funny now, wasn’t funny then either I will grant you, but the overwhelming majority of the program holds up.

I also want to know why someone thinks Joe Flaherty hasn’t had a successful career after “SCTV”. He’s worked very steadily. He may not have become as big a star as Catherine O’Hara or Martin Short, but it’s not like he’s doing informercials as Count Floyd.

10

I rented that and wondered, “Did I actually stay up late for this?”
I do recall one odd sketch:

At the time Christopher Cross was blowing away the charts with his debut album. “Ride Like the Wind” was huge. Michael McDonald sings backup (especially the line, “Such a long way to go”). Rick Moranis plays Michael who’s slept late and is rushing through town to get to the recording studio. He makes it just in time to sing his one line and then goes home.

11

I want to know why the OP kept getting more and more CDs of the show if he disliked it so much. Why not just cancel the order and get something you like?

12

Oh, good, I thought it was only me. A few years ago, there was a block on NBC at—1:00 AM I think it was; someone please correct me if I’m wrong. This is the period of time now covered by Carson Daly’s show. Hitherto, this spot was filled by another show hosting by a lady who was decidedly unfunny within her monologue, and then would go on to interview a B actor (I think) of the day. But, I ramble.

After this show was cancelled, they began filling this spot with reruns of SCTV, unseen by myself since 1990, when Nick At Nite played them. I had also seen some of the original airings when I was a younger child, and was somewhat confused by them. Combine this with my subsequent viewings in 1990, and I was joyed to see these shows again.

Well, they were mainly the most droll things I’d seen. A man walking down a hall for minutes on end. A skit a la Love American Style that contained a couple of banquet-type jokes. An awards show that focused a camera on “Liz Taylor” as she was exiting the buffet line with a full plate. Okay, I found that last one sort of funny.

But, there were a couple things I enjoyed, one being The Gerry Todd Show (Rick Moranis), a sort of veejay program. Everything about it was campy as hell, from the live-action “talking head” parodies of jingle singers (Ger-ry TODD!) to the simply awful video graphics used for the show title and the weather broadcasts (Hi, Lo). Another one was the aforementioned “Mike McDonald” skit. As I recall, he sang the line repeatedly while rushing in, then schmoozing with the staff in the control booth while signing the contracts, intermittently rushing out to belt out that one line. When he left, he bade them farewell in that same breathy voice (which is particularly funny since Michael McDonald speaks with a “normal” voice).

But, I must sympathize, in a way, with CandidGamera. As much as much of the show irritates me, I find myself glued to the screen, waiting, yearning for something funny.

13

And yet … and yet … the show wears much better than most of SNL. Maybe they were more low-key and the humor wasn’t forced.

I remember the skit about this couple (Andrea Martin and Rick Moranis). It was a series of ads for their cheezy bus tour company, and they ran several of these throughout the show. While Moranis was playing organ in the background, Martin would promote a visit to Las Vegas, complete with your copy of “Luck Be A Lady Tonight” (which you had to return to the driver at the end of the trip).

Then, during one trip, apparently she fell in love with some hunk, dumped her husband, and in the next commercial, there she was promoting the next bus trip, with her lover playing the organ.

Then there was the Johnny LaRue Christmas Special in which he got his Christmas wish: a crane shot of his very own.

The Bob Hope-Woody Allen collaboration was comedy gold.

And how about the Kate Hepburn skit, in which she told the story of her encounter at a young age with the stagehand who was so clean.

But mostly, it was this strange little show that didn’t seem to try too hard.

14

Of course, when I wrote “Rick Moranis”, I really meant “Dave Thomas.”

15

I didn’t realize I was so out of touch with the rest of the SDMB here. I still love this show.

You tell me that you can watch “The Battle of the PBS Network Stars” without laughing and I will be very worried. The boxing match between Mr. Rogers and Julia Child is a thing of beauty.

The parody of “The Godfather” with Guy Caballero was another brilliant episode.

“Polynesiatown” with Johnny LaRue, Vic Hedges, and Dr. John.

The staff had the latitude where they could start with an idea for a long sketch and then realize that it wouldn’t work in a long format, so it just got shrunk down to the length of a phony “promo”.

Compare that to an SNL sketch that just goes on and on and on.

Hey, if you don’t like your SCTV Network 90 DVDs, just send them to me.

16

I think SCTV was brilliant, but much of the humor is very dated now. It was a product of its time. SCTV was riffing off television of the day, and TV has changed big time. So now the jokes just seem flat. Or some of them, anyway.

But let’s not forget the great bits:

Bob and Doug Mackenzie
Count Floyd
Big Jim McBob and Billy Saw Hirok in “Celebrity Blow-up” (“He blowed up good! Blowed up real good!”)
Rock Moranis as David Brinkley, doing an essay on pot: (“Why has the quality gone down so much? Once a two-toker, now it’s a whole joint or no buzz at all! And why can’t scientists make a good dope that doesn’t make you so damned hungry all the time? Perhaps snack food could be taxed, with the money going to fund such research.”)

CCCP-1, Soviet television! With such hit shows as “Hey Giorgi!”, in which Giorgi’s tractor is inhabited by the ghost of Lenin and decadent Uzbeks drink his battery acid. Or “What Fits into Russia,” a dead-on parody of the self-promotion of Soviet state media at the time: “What about Texas? Look! Lone Star State is but a lone star in the giant sky of mother Russia! Bwahahaha!” And of course, Uposcrabblenyk.

Oh, and there’s Dr. Tongue, with his 3-D house of fear (or 3-D House of Stewardesses…)

Plus, SCTV was not scared of taking on fairly intellectual targets. I remember a hilarious dead-on parody of a Bergman film they did which was just draw-dropping in its accuracy.

17

To be perfectly honest, Count Floyd was scarier than a LOT of local TV horror movie hosts.

18

There’s a part in that where a little person walks by and Catherine O’Hara says “Hmmm. Shrimpkin” and the subtle says “Hmmm. Midget.” All these years later I think of that all the time and I say “Hmm. Shrimpkin” quite often. It comes up very often in my day-to-day life.

I am laughing so hard remembering all the sketches mentioned. For some reason the Rick Moranis ones especially. I still say “vedao” like Gerry Todd when I can’t get the VCR to play old tapes.

My favourite was always Andrea Martin and my favourite of her was “Jane Eyre-head.” So very plain! What a tradgedy that she was so very plain and so very stupid. And I will always remember “boogie with your face.” Also for some reason I still laugh thinking about Magnum P.E.I. And Happy Marsden.

In Canada that show is probably on all the time. I’ve seen them all a million times but I don’t think on purpose for a few years. It seems like maybe a lot of it is that it’s always been on in Canada, it was on since I was a kid and it will always be on. It was one of those things that everyone quoted in highschool, and when I catch it now it always reminds me of someone or something. It definitely had its stupid moments and its low points but if the day ever comes when you can’t see it on TV here I will get the DVDs for sure. I need to see it at least once a year.

19

That’s short for sub title.

20

<nitpick>that was “Tibor’s Tractor”, the Soviet ripoff of “My Mother The Car”.</nitpick>

In response to the OP… SCTV was supposed to appear as a lame Canadian version of lame TV, and perhaps in that way it hasn’t aged super well. A lot of the celebrities that they impersonated so well are have long ago fallen off the pop culture radar (if, in the case of some of the Canadian celebrities, they were ever there in the first place). I would be pretty impressed with anyone under about 30 who gets most of the references.

Another hightlight… Bill Needle (Dave Thomas), SCTV’s caustic spokesman. His grumpy morning show is just like the morning show I would do if I had to be up at that hour.