Second City Television
Second City Television, commonly shortened to SCTV and later known as SCTV Network and SCTV Channel, is a Canadian television sketch comedy show that ran between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot from Toronto's Second City troupe. It is a rare example of a Canadian show that moved successfully to American TV. SCTV Network is available on terrestrial network, cable, and satellite.
Premise
The show's premise is the broadcast day of a fictitious TV station in the town of Melonville. Melonville's location is left unspecified; the very earliest episodes imply it is in Canada, but most later episodes place it in the US.A typical episode of SCTV presents a compendium of programming seen on the station throughout its broadcast day. A given episode could contain SCTV news broadcasts, sitcoms, dramas, movies, talk shows, kid shows, commercial send-ups hawking nonexistent products, and game shows. Several "shows" are seen regularly on SCTV, including SCTV News; soap opera The Days of the Week; late night movie features Monster Chiller Horror Theater and Dialing For Dollars; and Great White North, among others. Many other SCTV shows are seen only once, such as game shows like Shoot at the Stars in which celebrities are literally shot at like targets, or full-blown movie spoofs like Play It Again, Bob in which Woody Allen tries to get Bob Hope to star in his next film. Episodes also feature a range of SCTV-produced promos and commercials, such as spots for "Al Peck's Used Fruit" or "Shower in a Briefcase", or a PSA that helpfully describes "Seven Signs You May Already Be Dead".
Also seen fairly frequently, particularly in later episodes, are behind-the-scenes plots focusing on life at the station. These often feature Guy Caballero, SCTV's cheap, tyrannical owner and president, who, despite being perfectly ambulatory, uses a wheelchair to earn "respect" from employees and viewers. Also seen regularly are weaselly, sweating station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, succeeded in the position by flamboyant, leopard-skin clad, foul-mouthed Mrs. Edith Prickley ; vain variety star Johnny LaRue ; washed-up entertainers such as singer Lola Heatherton and comedian Bobby Bittman ; news anchors Floyd Robertson and Earl Camembert, talk-show host Sammy Maudlin, cult-stardom-destined and beer-addled brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie, and many others.
The small cast, typically six to eight members at any given time, play a wide variety of other station roles ranging from program hosts to commercial spokespersons. They also impersonate numerous popular celebrities appearing on the station's programming.
History
Show creation
There is much dispute as to who actually created the SCTV series. The show itself bears no "created by" credit, although it gives "developed by" credits to Bernard Sahlins and Andrew Alexander.In 1976, Andrew Alexander was looking to expand his company into the realm of TV production. He called together the current cast of the stage show to discuss a format for a Second City TV series. Also in attendance at the meeting were Second City veterans Harold Ramis, Sheldon Patinkin, and Del Close, along with business partner Bernard Sahlins.
According to Dave Thomas's account in SCTV: Behind The Scenes, various ideas were batted around, then—and here is where meeting attendees remember things differently—either Close or Patinkin came up with the idea of presenting programming from the world's smallest TV station. The cast immediately jumped on the idea as a workable model for presenting a virtually unlimited range of characters, sketches, and ideas while still having a central premise that tied everything together. From there, the actual content of the show was all the work of the cast, with contributions from Alexander and Sahlins.
Alexander remained as producer and executive producer throughout SCTV's run. Sahlins stayed for the first two seasons as a producer. Patinkin was a first-season writer and de facto editor and post-production supervisor. Close had no further involvement with the series.
Seasons 1 and 2: 1976–79
SCTV was initially produced in 1976 at the Toronto studios of the Global Television Network, then a small regional network of stations in Southern Ontario. For the first six episodes, new episodes were seen once a month. For the next seven episodes new episodes were seen bi-weekly. In September 1977, Global ordered 13 additional episodes, which were seen once a week from September through December.These irregularly scheduled 26 episodes were considered one "season" for syndication purposes. All of the original cast except Harold Ramis were from the Toronto branch of The Second City theatre improv troupe; Ramis was a Second City veteran, but with the Chicago troupe.
The original SCTV cast consisted of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas. All also served as writers on the show, although Martin and O'Hara did not receive writing credits on the first four episodes. Ramis served as SCTV
Several cast members also worked together as regulars on The David Steinberg Show, which premiered the same week as SCTV on the Canada-wide CTV Network and in US syndication. The David Steinberg Show also featured future SCTV cast member Martin Short, but did not utilize any of the SCTV cast as writers. It folded after a single season.
For the second season, SCTV became a weekly series on Global, and was seen in syndication throughout Canada and parts of the United States. After episode three of the second season, Ramis was no longer in the cast but continued to receive credit as the show's head writer for most of the season.
Season 3: 1980–81
The show was off the air for the 1979–80 season, but returned to production after Andrew Alexander and Allarcom-ITV Edmonton owner Charles Allard struck a deal to produce SCTV at ITV Studios in Edmonton, Alberta.Candy, O'Hara, and Ramis dropped out at this juncture, and Dave Thomas was promoted to head writer. Added to the cast were Tony Rosato, Robin Duke, and Rick Moranis. Moranis, a friend of Dave Thomas primarily known as a radio personality in Canada, was the only cast member not to have come from the ranks of Second City. John Blanchard became the series director at this point.
This season of the show was seen in Canada on the CBC, and in scattered markets in the U.S. in syndication.
Seasons 4 and 5: 1981–83
In 1981, NBC picked up SCTV as a 90-minute program to replace the canceled Friday variety show The Midnight Special. Less than two months after season 3 ended, SCTV was back on the air for season 4, airing first as SCTV Network 90, then as SCTV Network, late Friday nights. For this iteration, Rosato and Duke dropped out, and Candy and O'Hara returned. Because of the rush to generate material for the 90-minute format, several early season 4 episodes consisted partially or entirely of sketches broadcast during seasons 1 to 3. Ramis, Duke, and Rosato are in many of these sketches, uncredited.Season 4 was broadcast irregularly from May 1981 to July 1982. Beginning in January 1982, production of the series returned to Toronto for the remainder of its run.
Writer/performer Martin Short joined the cast at the end of season 4, taping three episodes before O'Hara, Thomas, and Moranis left; one of those episodes was aired as the season 4 finale in July 1982; the other two were held for the start of season 5, which began in October 1982. For the remaining 12 episodes of season 5, the cast of Candy, Flaherty, Levy, Martin, and Short were augmented by supporting players John Hemphill and Mary Charlotte Wilcox, neither of whom became an official cast member. Also, during season 5, Ramis and O'Hara returned for one episode each as guest stars.
The last original SCTV episode for NBC was broadcast in March 1983. For both seasons 4 and 5, the show continued to air on the CBC in Canada as a full hour, edited down from the 90-minute NBC shows.
The 90-minute NBC episodes were released in a series of DVD sets in 2004 and 2005, and selected skits are also available in 90-minute collections.
Season 6: 1983–84
In the fall of 1983, NBC wanted the late Friday night time slot for the new Friday Night Videos. SCTV was offered a slot on early Sunday evenings by NBC, but because they would have had to alter the show's content to appeal to "family" audiences, as well as face CBS's dominant 60 Minutes, the producers declined.Instead, for its final season, the show moved to pay-TV channels Superchannel in Canada and Cinemax in the United States, changing the name slightly to SCTV Channel. The running time was now 45 minutes, and new episodes were seen every second week from November 1983 to July 1984. For this final season, the cast consisted solely of Flaherty, Levy, Martin, and Short, although Candy, Thomas, and O'Hara all made guest appearances. Writer/performers Hemphill and Wilcox once again appeared semi-regularly.
After the show's end several SCTV characters continued to make appearances on Cinemax, with Flaherty reprising his roles as Count Floyd and Guy Caballero during free preview weekends in 1987 and 1988, and Bobby Bittman appearing in a standalone special chronicling his life and career under the Cinemax Comedy Experiment banner.
''The Best of SCTV'' 1988
On September 5, 1988, ABC aired a special called The Best of SCTV. In the special, Flaherty and Martin returned as Caballero and Prickley. The two presented a look back at SCTV as they tried to convince the FCC to renew their license. A slightly different version aired in Canada, wherein the pair make their arguments to the CRTC; this necessitated a few changes to certain lines of dialogue and on-screen text, but the show content was otherwise identical. This special was ordered amidst the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike.Packaging into different lengths
The earliest three seasons, in Canada, were 30 minutes. NBC broadcast two seasons of 90-minute programs, including at the beginning material from the Canadian seasons. Some of these 90-minute shows were abbreviated to 60 minutes for the Canadian market. After the end of the NBC seasons the material was repackaged into 30-minute shows.Reception
SCTV received mostly positive reviews following its first episode. Margaret Daly of the Toronto Star wrote, "Global TV may have just pulled off the comedy coup of this season... the concept is as clever as the loony company members." Dennis Braithwaite of the Star wrote that SCTV was "delightfully funny and inventive" and "the best satire seen regularly on North American television. No, I haven't forgotten NBC's Saturday Night." Newsday's Marvin Kitman wrote, "The premiere episode was quite simply the most superb half hour comedy…in a long time." "SCTV is witty, grown-up, inventive and uproariously funny," Gary Deeb wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times.Awards
During its network run on NBC, the show garnered 15 Emmy nominations. The episode "Moral Majority" won an Emmy Award for Writing for a Variety or Music Program in 1982. During Joe Flaherty's acceptance speech, award presenter Milton Berle repeatedly interrupted with sarcastic retorts of, "Oh, that's funny". Flaherty then turned to Berle and said, "Sorry, Uncle Miltie...go to sleep". A flustered Berle simply replied, "What?" The incident became comedy fodder for SCTV, as the next season contained a bit where Flaherty beats up a Berle lookalike while shouting, "You'll never ruin another acceptance speech, Uncle Miltie!"SCTV won the award again in 1983.
SCTV was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 2002.
Features
SCTV parody shows include a parody of the western drama The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams—retitled Grizzly Abrams—which depicts the burly wilderness hero as the owner of a wild tortoise that takes weeks to lead police to the skeletal remains of its master, trapped beneath a fallen log.Battle of the PBS Stars is a parody of ABC television's Battle of the Network Stars athletic competitions that pitted performers against each other in running and swimming events. SCTV
The People's Global Golden Choice Awards sends up award shows in which the industry honors itself. Presenters include stars ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Jack Klugman reading off the nominees in each category, with SCTV chief Guy Caballero secretly having conspired to guarantee that every award goes to his own network's stars.
Some of SCTV
Impersonations
Impersonations are also an integral part of the comedy, with almost every cast member playing multiple roles as well-known personalities. Some impressions include:| Star | Impersonations |
| John Candy | Edward Asner William Benedict Humphrey Bogart Tom Bosley Richard Burton Pat Carroll Julia Child James Coco Divine Jackie Gleason Luba Goy Alfred Hitchcock Curly Howard Jerry Mathers Marvin Miller Jack Nicklaus Tip O'Neil Merlin Olsen Luciano Pavarotti Elvis Presley Babe Ruth Hal Smith Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder Jackie Vernon Hervé Villechaize Orson Welles Roy Williams Shelley Winters |
| Robin Duke | Imogene Coca Sandy Duncan Anne Murray Linda Ronstadt Shelley Winters |
| Joe Flaherty | Alan Alda Eddie "Rochester" Anderson Yasser Arafat Hugh Beaumont Dick Beddoes Menachim Begin Tony Bennett Charles Bronson William F. Buckley, Jr. Joe Clark Alistair Cooke Broderick Crawford Bing Crosby Salvador Dalí Kirk Douglas Art Garfunkel Bernard Gorcey Larry Fine Henry Fonda Peter Fonda Paul Frees Robert Goulet Hugh Hefner Charlton Heston John Huston Jack Klugman Don Knotts Kris Kristofferson Gavin MacLeod Richard Nixon Peter O'Toole Gregory Peck George Plimpton Geraldo Rivera Jason Robards Paul Schofield Gene Siskel Donald Sutherland Slim Whitman Tom Wolfe |
| Eugene Levy | Bud Abbott Yasser Arafat Milton Berle Ernest Borgnine Jack Carter Lon Chaney Jr. Perry Como Howard Cosell John Charles Daly Tony Dow Gabriel Dell Freddy Fender Ed Garvey Lorne Greene Judd Hirsch Rupert Holmes Moe Howard Henry Kissinger George Lucas Norman Mailer Howard McNear Ricardo Montalbán Graham Nash Neil Sedaka Gene Shalit Alex Trebek Gino Vannelli Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ralph Young |
| Andrea Martin | Harriet Anderson Joan Baez Ingrid Bergman Karen Black Charo Joyce DeWitt Patty Duke Arlene Francis Connie Francis Barbara Frum Indira Gandhi Linda Lavin Sophia Loren Marsha Mason Golda Meir Ethel Merman Liza Minnelli Joni Mitchell Anne Murray Phyllis Newman Bernadette Peters Lynn Redgrave Zelda Rubinstein Beverly Sills Patti Smith Barbra Streisand Mother Teresa Brenda Vaccaro |
| Rick Moranis | Kip Addotta Irwin Allen Woody Allen David Brinkley George Carlin Dick Cavett Francis Ford Coppola Morton Dean John Denver Keith Emerson Richard Dreyfuss Merv Griffin Gordon Lightfoot Elton John Chuck Mangione Paul Le Mat Michael McDonald John McEnroe Brent Musburger Don Rickles Teri Shields Phil Silvers Ringo Starr James Stewart David Susskind Mel Tormé Al Waxman Anson Williams Neil Young |
| Catherine O'Hara | Tammy Faye Bakker Lucille Ball Rona Barrett Frances Bavier Barbara Billingsley Karen Black Rita Coolidge Angie Dickinson Joan Embery Morgan Fairchild Jane Fonda Eydie Gormé Virginia Graham Katharine Hepburn Dorothy Kilgallen Linda McCartney Mary Tyler Moore Jane Pauley Gilda Radner Helen Reddy Jessica Savitch Brooke Shields Maggie Smith Elke Sommer Meryl Streep Joan Sutherland Elizabeth Taylor Margaret Thatcher |
| Harold Ramis | Kenneth Clark Clint Eastwood Stanley Fafara |
| Tony Rosato | Edward Asner Robert Blake Lou Costello Lou Ferrigno Ella Fitzgerald Tony Orlando Danny Thomas |
| Martin Short | Paul Anka Scott Baio Jamie Farr Tom Hayden Dustin Hoffman Huntz Hall Jerry Lewis Brian Linehan Howie Mandel Howie Meeker Billy Redden Fred Rogers Tony Sandler Paul Simon David Steinberg Kenneth D. Taylor Deney Terrio Pierre Elliott Trudeau Gore Vidal Robin Williams |
| Dave Thomas | Howard Baker Jerry Brown Red Buttons Michael Caine Bennett Cerf Walter Cronkite Rodney Dangerfield Phil Donahue Robert Duvall Roger Ebert Richard Harris Benny Hill Bob Hope Dennis Hopper Lee Iacocca Bob Keeshan DeForest Kelley Steve Lawrence Liberace G. Gordon Liddy Randy Newman Ken Osmond Al Pacino John Ritter Carl Sagan Vernon S. Shaffer William Shatner Neil Simon Steven Spielberg Steven Stills Fred Travalena Orson Welles James Whitmore Robert Young |
Sketches and characters
Popular sketches and recurring characters include:- Mailbag, SCTVs take on a vox populi segment where near-apoplectic host Bill Needle answers viewer mail. The show's length is continually cut until Needle is down to mere seconds of airtime. Bill Needle appears frequently in SCTV shows that were cancelled after one episode.
- Farm Film Report aka Farm Film Celebrity Blow-Up: Two hicks named Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok interview celebrities and ultimately encourage them to blow up. Exploding guests include Dustin Hoffman, David Steinberg, Bernadette Peters, Meryl Streep, and a lispy Neil Sedaka.
- Polynesiantown: a parody of modern-day film noir. In its attempt to emulate the movie Chinatown, this extended one-shot sketch ends with a crane shot that pushes the show so over budget that the sketch's producers get in trouble with the network. The show's writers incorporate this behind-the-scenes drama into the show's long-term continuity, sending the career of actor/producer/superstar Johnny LaRue into a tailspin as a result of this budget mishap.
- The Sammy Maudlin Show: Flaherty is the afro-coiffed, knee-slapping, overly effusive host welcoming a panel of "stars" who do nothing but heap lavish praise on each other and applaud their pointless profundities. The sketch originated as a parody of Sammy Davis, Jr.'s short-lived talk show Sammy and Company. John Candy played the Ed McMahon-style sidekick/sycophant William B. Williams, named for the actual sidekick on Sammy and Company, radio personality William B. Williams. Eugene Levy portrayed egomaniacal funnyman Bobby Bittman, with his repeated catchphrase "How are ya?". Bittman's younger brother Skip Bittman, played by Moranis, eventually appeared on Maudlin as well. Andrea Martin parodied Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft with "real terrific" combo-character Lorna Minnelli; Catherine O'Hara also portrayed a character that combined two personalities, Lola Heatherton, based on Joey Heatherton and Lola Falana.
- The Days of the Week is a soap-opera spoof, with the continuing saga of terminally-ill rock star Clay Collins trying to marry slutty fiancée Sue Ellen Alison in the few days left to him by his tactless doctor Elliot Sabian. A second plot hatched by corrupt doctor Wainwright has small-time criminal Rocco conning the wealthy Violet McKay into accepting him as her long-lost son Billy, even though Rocco is so inept that he mistakes Mojo the maid for his mother. A third story has the suave swindler Harrington trying to seduce the suicidally depressed May Matlock out of the land she owns. It is the only recurring segment throughout the series without a laugh track. The title is a parody of the title of one of the most famous soap operas, Days of Our Lives.
- Mel's Rock Pile is a knockoff of the Citytv dance show Boogie and closely resembles American Bandstand and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Hosted by "Rockin' Mel" Slirrup, a nervous, bespectacled nerd who plays lame pop songs for surly in-studio teen guests. One memorable episode of Mel's Rock Pile features an appearance by Sex Pistols-type band The Queen Haters, featuring the entire Short-era cast in perfect '80s punk-band mode. Another features Thomas as Richard Harris, performing MacArthur Park live in the studio—complete with lengthy instrumental breaks. This causes an uncomfortable Mel to try and fill the otherwise "dead" air. Harris dances endlessly in total agony during the elongated orchestral stretches, while the show moves on to other skits. The song finally ends when an audience member hurls a brick at Harris's chest.
- Martin Short's Jackie Rogers, Jr. is an earnestly smarmy albino Las Vegas headliner with a grating, lisping laugh in a manner similar to Sammy Davis, Jr. Rogers is partial to sequinned jumpsuits, Jack Jones-style song standards, and "eligible ladies". Later, Rogers runs for political office but drops out of the race when he realizes it's cramping his showbiz lifestyle. Jackie Rogers, Jr., like Ed Grimley, was later seen on Saturday Night Live when Short was hired there as a cast member.
- Short's somewhat unclassifiable uber-nerd Ed Grimley is an SCTV fixture, appearing on numerous assorted shows, commercials, promos, and "behind-the-scenes" dramas. His hair is styled using an upside-down funnel, and he plays the triangle, for which he took lessons. Grimley has an obsession with the game show Wheel of Fortune and host Pat Sajak. The SNL version of the character is the same, except the sketches have Grimley getting involved in weird situations: meeting a perpetually unlucky man, being targeted by the Devil, and having a near-death experience. As of 2012, Grimley is the only SNL and SCTV character to have his own children's cartoon show: The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley.
- Half-Wits and High-Q are parodies of quiz shows College Bowl and Reach For The Top hosted by a highly irritable Alex Trebek approximation named Alex Trebel. Over a decade later, Levy gave Norm Macdonald permission to borrow the basic premise for the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches on Saturday Night Live; Will Ferrell likewise played an irritable, exasperated Trebek.
- The 5 Neat Guys, an absurdly clean-cut, '50s style vocal group, are portrayed by Candy, Flaherty, Levy, Moranis, and Thomas. The "5" sing songs like "I've Got a Hickey on My Shoulder", "Pimples and Pockmarks", and other unmemorable tunes. Several of their songs contrast with their squeaky-clean image, however, such as "She Does It", "Nancy Has the Largest Breasts In Town", and "Who Made the Egg Salad Sandwiches?".
- Connie Franklin, a caricature of Connie Francis portrayed by Andrea Martin. Franklin appears on the Sammy Maudlin Show and also in a parody of mail-order record commercials. Her songs are universally depressing; one contains the lyrics, "I'm losing my hearing, I've lost sight in one eye. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, did you really say goodbye?"
- Another Martin Short character, talk-show host Brock Linehan, is a parody of real-life Canadian interviewer Brian Linehan. Linehan was famous for his meticulous interview preparation, often uncovering details that even his interview guests had forgotten about, which Short satirizes by going in the opposite direction: on SCTV
's version of the Linehan show, called Stars in One, all the research compiled about any particular episode's guest is totally wrong, making for unhappy guests and a frustrated, uneasy host. - Harry, the Guy with the Snake on his Face. Harry runs Melonville's adult book and X-rated video stores.
- "Video deejay" Gerry Todd hosts an all-night "televised-radio" type of video show. Moranis's turtleneck-sporting, smooth-talking radio-personality parody—complete with casually pronounced "vuddeeo"—presages the first group of MTV VJs.
- Mayor Tommy Shanks is Melonville's "easygoing" mayor, a man prone to sudden fits of rage and physical violence who still gives regular fireside chats on SCTV while feeding treats to a stuffed dog that sits motionless by his side. Throwing out one non sequitur after another, Shanks manages to convey absolutely nothing of relevance during his broadcasts. Eventually he succumbs to mental illness and is institutionalized. While still in the institution, he runs for reelection with the campaign slogan "Get me outta here!" and wins by a landslide. Some sources erroneously claim the character is named after Edmonton jazz musician Tommy Banks, but the character predates SCTV
's move to Edmonton by two years and does not resemble Banks. - SCTV News, anchored by Flaherty as mostly professional newscaster Floyd Robertson and Levy as geeky, clueless Earl Camembert, a model of oblivious self-importance. The members of the SCTV news team are named after Canadian news anchors Lloyd Robertson and Earl Cameron respectively, but otherwise bear no resemblance to their real-life counterparts. Unlike the Saturday Night Live news parody Weekend Update, which typically uses actual news headlines as setups for more satirical humour, SCTV News uses more absurdist humour, with news stories often focusing on events in Melonville. Another source of humour for this segment is the contrast between the hapless Camembert and the more respected Robertson, who usually ends up playing straight man to Camembert's antics. A running gag involves the news team's tendency to give the hard news items to Robertson and the trivial or poorly prepared stories to his co-anchor.
- Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: This fright-film showcase is hosted by Flaherty's character Count Floyd — a "vampire" who mysteriously howls like a wolf. Floyd is unable to pick genuinely scary movies, and at times has to introduce movies he has never seen, about whose content he has no clue. The show features laughably non-frightening Z movies like Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses, 3-D House of Beef, and Tip O'Neill's 3-D House of Representatives; 3-D movies are burlesqued. Many of the movies feature "mad scientist" Dr. Tongue and his hunchback assistant Bruno, played by Woody Tobias, Jr.. As revealed in his very first appearance, Count Floyd is actually SCTV News anchorman Floyd Robertson working a second job. This character note was then ignored for several years before being picked up again as a plot thread towards the end of the show's run. Floyd's double duty is a comic homage to the early days of television, where the kiddie show hosts at smaller TV stations were often members of the local news staff in costume.
- Mrs. Falbo's Tiny Town: An educational television show parody. Wanda Falbo talks to the children viewers about different things in Melonville like her visit to Melonville Maximum Security Prison and even introduced the kids to G. Gordon Liddy. She is assisted by the Messenger. Wanda Falbo was later featured in segments of Sesame Street from 1989–2000 where she worked as the Word Fairy.
- The Shmenge Brothers are the leaders of a polka band from the fictional Eastern European country of Leutonia, called The Happy Wanderers. Based upon Czechoslovakian-born, Edmonton-based polka cable show host Gaby Haas, the Shmenges appear during Seasons 3 and 4. Like Bob and Doug McKenzie, the Shmenges were breakout characters and their popularity resulted in the HBO special The Last Polka. In one episode, the Shmenges perform a memorable tribute to composer John Williams. The band's name is based on the Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller song "The Happy Wanderer", which is frequently performed by polka artists. The hosts make a point of thanking the hostesses, in each episode, for the cabbage rolls and coffee provided.
- Harvey K-Tel, portrayed by Thomas. K-Tel, a parody of rapid-fire mail-order commercial announcers, speaks in a rapid patter both on and off the air. The character's name is derived both from Canadian mail-order commercial company K-tel and the actor Harvey Keitel.
- The famous CCCP1-Russian television episode in which SCTV is taken over by Soviet programming. At first nothing seems out of the ordinary at the station: on the air, Levy plays Perry Como in a promo for Still Alive, a TV special in which Como's trademark relaxed style is taken to ludicrous extremes as the singer performs most of the disco-inspired set lying down. Then, after The Great White North, and during a live broadcast of Caesar featuring Bobby Bittman, SCTV experiences a broadcast signal intrusion as a Soviet propaganda channel's signal overtakes SCTV's. The station calls itself "three-C-P-one", referring to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which is abbreviated USSR in English but CCCP in Cyrillic. The "shows" are Russian-themed spoofs: Tibor's Tractor, a situation comedy about a talking tractor similar to My Mother the Car—only with the voice of Nikita Khrushchev; a game show, What Fits into Russia?, in which the host mocks other countries by comparing them to USSR's massive size; Upo-Scrabblenyk, a crossword game show where ridiculously long words are considered abbreviations; and Hey, Giorgy, a sitcom about "everybody's favorite Cossack" modeled on the Canadian TV series King of Kensington, with the memorable line "Uzbeks drank my battery fluid!", uttered when Moranis's Lada won't start outside an alehouse. The CCCP1 episode is shot with a "new Soviet mini-cam," a massive electronic device the size of a small car that has to be dragged around by three technicians and burns up early in the show. The piece makes it clear on several occasions that CCCP's enemy is the Uzbeks, a reflection of the Soviet Union's ongoing struggle with Uzbek nationalism. At one point, Guy Caballero attempts to get parent network NBC to address the intrusion, only for Fred Silverman to inquire if the Soviet programs are ratings hits.
- A Jazz Singer parody that reverses the story by having musical guest Al Jarreau play a popular jazz singer who wants to become a cantor. His father is a disapproving pop-music impresario played by Levy's befuddled Sid Dithers. Dithers, four feet tall and cross-eyed behind Coke-bottle glasses, speaks with a thick early vaudeville-style Yiddish accent. The payoff of this parody makes for a classic SCTV moment: Jarreau has become a synagogue cantor, fulfilling his dream against his father's wishes, and he wonders if his father will ever speak to him again, until, during the service, he is interrupted by a disco-clad Dithers standing in the doorway in dancing shoes, spangled jacket, and corn-rowed hair.
- Tex & Edna's Organ Emporium, a series of parodies of local car dealer TV ads with Tex and Edna imploring viewers to "Come on down!" to buy their wares.
- Thursday Night Live, an atrociously low-budget ripoff of Fridays and Saturday Night Live created by Guy Caballero, who wants to go hip by making this show. It is a long collage of uncontrollable laughter and hooting from the rowdy audience and many unconvincing samplings of profanity and corny drug jokes. The guest host is Earl Camembert, who during the monologue does a bad impression of Steve Martin, saying, "Well, I beg your pardon!"
- Towering Inferno, a satire of the 1974 Irwin Allen film, with each cast member playing multiple roles, trying to escape "the world's thinnest, tallest building" after it catches on fire. Martin is at this point the only female cast member, so they are forced to use doubles when two women appear in the same shot. Candy actually says, "You take the Edith Prickley double and I'll take the other girl and get out of here," acknowledging the fake as a wink to the audience. There is also a nuclear reactor on the top of the building, with a spinning restaurant above it.
Bob and Doug McKenzie
The characters ultimately became icons of the very Canadian culture they parodied, spinning off albums, a feature film, commercials, and numerous TV and film cameos. Bob and Doug helped popularize the stereotypical Canadian trait of adding "eh" to the end of sentences, a facet of Canadian life often gently ridiculed in American shows featuring Canadian characters. Lines from the sketch, such as "Take off, you hoser!", became part of North American popular culture. Thomas later revealed in his 1996 book SCTV: Behind the Scenes that the other members of the cast grew bitter at the immense financial and popular success of the Bob & Doug McKenzie albums, ultimately leading to Thomas and Moranis leaving the show in 1982. Flaherty and Candy accused Thomas of using his position as head writer to increase the visibility of Bob and Doug, even though the original segments were largely unscripted. An SCTV episode even poked fun at the duo's popularity. Guy Caballero declared that they had become SCTV's top celebrities, supplanting Johnny LaRue. This led to the pair being given a Bob & Doug "special" with Tony Bennett as their guest, which wound up being a disaster.
Moranis and Thomas recreated Bob and Doug in the form of a pair of moose in the animated feature Brother Bear from Disney. During Canadian rock band Rush's 2007 Snakes And Arrows tour, Moranis and Thomas reprised their Bob and Doug Mackenzie roles in an introductory clip projected on the rear screen for the song "The Larger Bowl". Previously, Rush used Flaherty as Count Floyd to introduce their song "The Weapon" during their 1984 Grace Under Pressure Tour. Rush vocalist Geddy Lee sang the chorus on the hit single "Take Off" from the 1982 Mercury Records album The Great White North by Bob and Doug McKenzie. That chorus aired in a 2002 episode of The Simpsons that depicts the Simpson family visiting Toronto. On March 27, 1982, "Take Off" reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is the highest charting single of Lee's career.
Special guests and musical guests
Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson were two of the show's first guest stars.The show's NBC years brought with them a network edict to include musical guests. At first, the SCTV cast, writers, and producers resisted special guests, on the theory that famous people wouldn't just "drop into" the Melonville studios, but they soon discovered that by working these guests into different shows-within-shows they could keep the premise going while also giving guest stars something more to do than show up and sing a song.
As a result, Dr. John became a featured player in the movie "Polynesiantown", John Mellencamp was Mister Hyde to Ed Grimley's Doctor Jekyll in "The Nutty Lab Assistant", Natalie Cole was transformed into a zombie by a glowing cabbage in "Zontar", and the Boomtown Rats were both blown up on "Farm Film Celebrity Blow Up" and starred in the To Sir, with Love parody "Teacher's Pet". James Ingram appeared on 3-D House of Beef, and violinist Eugene Fodor in New York Rhapsody. Hall & Oates appeared on a "Sammy Maudlin Show" segment promoting a new film called Chariots of Eggs, a parody of both Chariots of Fire and Personal Best, and showed scenes from the faux movie as clips. Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Thomas was the "topic" on a Great White North sketch. Carl Perkins, Jimmy Buffett, Joe Walsh, The Tubes, and Plasmatics also appeared on the "Fishin' Musician", hosted by Gill Fisher.
This, along with SCTV's cult status, led to the show's celebrity fans clamouring to appear. Tony Bennett credited his appearance on Bob and Doug McKenzie's variety-show debacle "The Great White North Palace" for triggering a significant career comeback. Carol Burnett did an ad for the show in which an alarm clock goes off next to her bed, she rises up suddenly and advises those who couldn't stay up late enough to go to bed, get some sleep, then wake up to watch the show. Burnett later briefly appeared in a climactic courtroom episode of "The Days of the Week".
Former Chicago Second City player, Saturday Night Live cast member, and film actor Bill Murray also guest-starred on a "Days of the Week" installment as a photography buff scrambling to make it to the wedding of singer-songwriter Clay Collins and town slut Sue-Ellen Allison in time to take pictures of the event. In the same episode, he played two other roles: Johnny LaRue's biggest fan, who is subsequently hired to be LaRue's bodyguard, and Joe DiMaggio in a commercial for DiMaggio's restaurant, where he offered a free meal to anyone who could strike him out.
Robin Williams guest-starred in a sketch called Bowery Boys in the Band in which his Leo Gorcey-like character tries to hide a gay lifestyle from his Huntz Hall-inspired pal. Williams also mimicked actor John Houseman eloquently reading the Melonville telephone book.
In a rare acting role, singer Crystal Gayle guest-starred in a January 1983 episode in the sketch "A Star is Born", a spoof of the 1976 film version of the movie, playing an up-and-coming singer trying to make it big under the tutelage of her boyfriend and mentor Kris Kristofferson.
Canadian actors, including Jayne Eastwood, Dara Forward, Monica Parker, and Peter Wildman, appeared on the show occasionally as guests. Catherine O'Hara's sister, singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O'Hara, also appeared in a bit part in the episode "Broads Behind Bars". William B. Davis, still a decade away from his signature role as The X-Files' "Smoking Man", also has a bit role in one 1983 episode.
Laugh track
The laugh track used in early episodes was recorded using audience reactions during live performances in the Second City theatre.Syndication and music rights
SCTV had a 90-minute format, unique for a dramatic or comedy series, although not unknown in talk shows. Such shows are hard to fit into a schedule, and the market was limited. The original 90-minute shows were never rebroadcast.Instead, in 1984, after production on the series ended, the Second City Television syndicated half-hour episodes and SCTV Network 90-minute episodes were re-edited into half-hour shows for a revised syndicated package, which consisted of 156 re-edited half-hours. In 1990, a separate package of 26 half-hours aired on The Comedy Channel in the United States. Like the original syndicated series, the US and Canadian versions of the 1984 package differed, with the Canadian half-hours a couple of minutes longer; the running order of episodes also differed between the two countries. By the late 1990s, the re-edited SCTV Channel episodes were added to the regular SCTV syndicated package; three additional half-hours were restored to the package, knocking the episode count up to 185 half-hours.
The syndication package was picked up by NBC following the cancellation of its late night talk show Later on January 18, 2001, but to retain continuity with the latter, it was aired with an introduction voiced by Friday Night and occasional Later substitute host Rita Sever and was known as Later Presents: SCTV. It aired until Last Call with Carson Daly took over the time slot on January 4, 2002, from Monday to Thursday; Late Friday aired on Fridays.
For years, SCTV was unavailable on videotape or DVD, or in any form except these re-edited half-hour programs. Due to difficulty obtaining music rights for DVD releases, Shout! Factory edited music in certain sketches or even left out sketches like "Stairways to Heaven." Dave Thomas acknowledged: "We were true guerrilla TV in that when we wanted background music we just lifted it from wherever we wanted. Consequently, today, to release the shows on home video, it would cost millions to clear the music."
Home media
has released some of SCTV on DVD in Region 1. All episodes from Season 4 and 5 have been released in 4 volumes, and a "best-of" DVD features episodes from Seasons 2 and 3.| DVD Name | # of Ep | Release Date | Additional Information |
| SCTV – Vol 1: Network 90 | 9 | June 8, 2004 | |
| SCTV – Vol 2 | 9 | October 19, 2004 | |
| SCTV – Vol 3 | 9 | March 1, 2005 | |
| SCTV – Vol 4 | 12 | September 13, 2005 |
Other Releases
- Christmas with SCTV: Released October 4, 2005
- SCTV – Best of The Early Years: Released October 24, 2006
2008 onstage reunion