Super Canadian TV

 

All right, I know there's been absolute flack over Canada the last year or so and we all learned to hate Canadians, right? Right?!

No?

Oh, it was a Trump gag? Well then never mind.

Well, while I got you here, I might as well drone on about a favorite Canadian program that will last forever in our memories...HINTERLAND WHO'S WHO!

No, sorry, I was thinking of a series of short nature documentaries that lasted a bathroom break...though the show I am talking about did parody Hinterland Who's Who.

No, the show I refer to is SCTV, or rather Second City Television. 

It grew out of a group of improv performers who did acts at Second City theatres in Toronto and Chicago. They had quite a list of members who would go on to great movie fame and Saturday Night Live. Some members included Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Catherine O'Hara, and Martin Short, among others.

At some point in 1976, the group's Toronto leader Andrew Alexander was getting tired of his cast members departing for Saturday Night Live (even though SNL was still in its freshman year) and wanted to do something on TV, and yet not copy SNL. One perosn at the meeting suggested a show about the day in the life of a cheap struggling TV station.

It went from there, producing two scattered seasons in Toronto, going dark for a bit, then reigniting in Edmonton in 1980. SOmetime in 1981, SCTV moved to NBC to make 2 wildly successful years of 90-minute shows. It came up again on Cinemax after being canceled by NBC, but by then the remaining cast were burnt out.

I actually caught on to SCTV when it was put into a syndicated package of 30 minute shows. The first two seasons were already a half hour, but the two years of 90 minute shows were split into quite a few half hours. This series package was on our local PBS station at 11p.m. weeknights during the summer of 1985.

It was here that I watched the comic genius of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Harold Ramis, Martin Short, and Dave Thomas. They put out a variety of skits spoofing TV shows, movies, and commercials.

Most people are familiar with the NBC run, but the station also aired the original Toronto-produced run as well as the first seaosn produced in Edmonton. The Toronto episodes have a bit of a starker feel with a definite lower-than-average set of production values. Yet, the performances are first rate.

My favorite from those early episodes is the Fantasy Island spoof. Eugene Levy's Ricardo Montalban is hilarious and Dave Thomas's Bob Hope impression nails him perfectly. The Harold Ramis episodes were not all that notable in themselves, though he played some funny characters like Officer Friendly and Mr. Green Fatigues and Moe Green the station manager.

The actor who always stood out no matter which episodes were aired was John Candy. He just made every scene come alive whether he was the focus of the scene or a suporting player. His Johnny LaRue evolved from a substance abusing (alcohol, smoking) reality show star to spoiled channel personality always going over budget.

The first season in Edmonton was without John Candy and when I was a kid I generally ignored most of those episodes, though later I came to appreciate them more, mostly for one performer: Rick Moranis. Even though he had not made his bones in the Second City theater, he was quite prolific with his characters and took them with him to NBC. 

A lot of people remember him mostly for his skits with Dave Thomas as the McKenzie brothers called The Great White North. This skit was transformed into a cult classic called Strange Brew in 1983 (one of my favorite DVDs). 

Incidentally, the Great White North came out of a rule that SCTV needed to have 2 minutes of purely Canadian content. Moranis and Thomas just created several 2 minute sketches just riffing about whatever they could think of, and the least worst were aired. They also made a comedy record that held some winners (I love their 12 Days of Christmas rendition!).

Back to Moranis, though, he could do anything! My personal favorite of his material was as manic director Larry Siegel in the spoof "Diff'Rent Folks". The little kid is trying to copy Gary Coleman's cuteness, but Siegel pulls him aside, yelling, "What the hell's wrong with you? You're not Coleman, you're not getting Coleman's salary!"

Dave Thomas was another gem. Besides his Bob Hope, he also did a great impression of Bones McCoy in a few episodes, and also of Richard Harris.

Joe Flaherty and Eugene Levy had their own portfolios of characters, particulary together as serious news casters Floyd Robertson (Flaherty) and incompetent Earl Camembert (Levy).

Andrea Martin was hilarious as the second station manager, leopard print-wearing Edith Prickley. She also did a mean cross-eyed Barbra Streisand.

Catherine O'Hara's tortured falling star Lola Heatherton was genius, and she also had her set of wild characters. I do beleive she was the youngest of the show's performers.

In the middle of NBC's run, O'Hara left as did Moranis and Thomas. Coming in just before their departure was Martin Short, very much a genius like Moranis with a warehouse of characters, most notably Ed Grimley. His Jerry Lewis was quite accurate.

Favorite episdoes:

Fantasy Island (1978)- a whole cast spoof

Zontar (1981)- SCTV is invaded by evil cabbages that when touched, hypnotize all the station workers into talking like zombies. The human liaison is Hank Bain, Conrad Bain's brother (played by Bonar Bain, Conrad's real borther). Even guest Natalie Cole is not spared from hypnotism. DeForest Kelley (Dave Thomas) works with station owner Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) to defeat Zontar's leader (John Candy).

CBC/Janitor Strike (1982)- an SCTV janitor strike for some reason disrupts regular show production, so they borrow programs from the CBC(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), including the aforementioned Hinterland Who's Who. This episode was pretty special because Canadian performers were themselves making fun of  real 
Canadian programming. 

Sweeps Week (1983)- a strange TV presence called the Energy Ball takes human form to kidnap security guard Guy Gustaffson (Eugene Levy), Ed Grimley, and just itself to kidnap Gavin MacLeod (Flaherty) and a TV executive. The Energy Ball is apparently a frustrated response to all the crap aired during sweeps week on all networks to get high ratings.

In conclusion, I am a proud owner of all of the NBC episodes in season sets and a "best of early years" set. It was a genius show mostly because they focused on concepts and did not get topical. Ever watch an old Saturday Night Live from the 1970s? A lot of the jokes fall flat now because they aged badly. SCTV just stayed in its bubble and blew it up as big as they could before it burst.

I'm gonna take off, eh!