Saturday, July 02, 2005
"I cannot laugh. The dwarves make me feel old."
SCTV is on the air!
SCTV, one of the greatest shows ever on TV. I didn’t realize it until I started seeing the shows on TV again this year how much SCTV had shaped my sense of humor. For those of you who don’t know, SCTV was an ensemble TV show that strung together SNL/Fridays-like skits into a single premise. The premise was that there was a low-budget television, filled with all sorts of zany characters that were as funny as the celebrities that the actors spoofed.
The genius of the show rests in its premise and its actors. The premise served to cover the REAL budgetary shortcomings of the show. It looked like a low budget UHF channel because their budget was only slightly better than a low budget UHF channel. The commercials it mimicked looked like local commercials of the day.
And the cast itself was strong. In retrospect it is almost hard to believe so many talented people worked together (much like the original SNL cast). John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, Martin Short, and Dave Thomas. Even seeming nobodies Robin Duke and Tony Rosato were great.
So much of the show’s writing was complex, yet it doesn’t dwell on being smarter than its audience. There was so much subtlety to the show, yet there was so much craziness on screen it was easy to get sucked into the hack jokes they were using to make fun of hack jokes. SCTV was a TV show that existed to make fun of television.
And, the show benefited from having a limited run. Its original syndication run served to create time to perfect their craft, as well as build a cult following. The show was rarely shown in a good time slot, and in many markets it wasn’t even shown in any sort of regular manner. Eventually, a failed bid for ABC turned into a fortunate run on NBC, which extended the shows length, gave it a more stable rotation, and even recycled classic skits from the past for a new audience to see.
And teh show was cutting edge. Floating about in obscurity allowed it to touch on subjects not entirely common on TV. Homosexuality, drug abuse, and international relations. I remember one particular skit about a Japanese talkshow that still offends me in its stereotyping. But it was an age of a scared America. We were all ducking nuclear warheads, scared of communisim, and waiting for the Japanese to buy all of America. To see these topics dealth with the way they were makes me feel ashamed that I was ever part of that America. Cutting edge and introspective, yet never arrogant or self-important.
I was first exposed to the show at some unknown point in my child hood. My cool Uncle David probably got me started. I most likely saw it on late-night NBC, as I used to love staying up late to watch TV in the summers. And since most of my TV viewing was bad UHF channels, the show was naturally a draw to me. I then later saw reruns on PBS, only to forget about it for a few years until Nick at Night (long before TV Land) showed the show ever week night. This happened when I was in 5th or 6th grade, and continued up until I was in high school. I stayed up every night to see it, until it was cancelled. By the time I got over the rerun cancellation, I was already hooked on a new skit show, Kids in the Hall, which finished development on my sense of humor. Both shows exuded cleverness and subtlety, and I am in great debt to both for shaping my off-color view of the world.
All you have to do is invoke Johnny Nuclei, Polynesian Town, or the whole network gang wara ala Godfather ("we're goin' to the mattresses!"), and I am instantly in a great mood. And the skits weren't the only highlight. There were great music acts, of bands that gave great performances even though they have been somewhat lost in time. The musical guests were always worked into a skit in some way, not just introduced as a musical intermission. Nothing beats seeing these songsters ham it up in some classic comedy skits. Dr. John, Southside Johnny, The Tubes, and so on. All great, all fun, and all still awesome to see even years after their music is off the airwaves.
By the end of the shows run, the characters that were invented were more memorable than the spoofs. And that is saying a lot, because (for instance) it is hard to remember the Leave it to Beaver 20 year reunion special without laughing out loud (Beaver kills Eddie). The characters were all over-the-top and unique. The shows’ cutthroat station manager Guy Cabellero is always seen in a wheelchair (he has no infirmities, he only uses it for respect). The troubled Hollywood darling Lola Heatherton invokes Liza, Babs, and any other diva. Bob and Doug MacKenzie (the Canadian stereotype brothers that do the Great White North show) were so funny they got their own movie. So did polka duo, the Schmengie Brothers. Earl Camamembaer, the hapless, news anchorman with big aspirations, and who is forever the ass of everyone’s jokes. Think Ron Burgandy minus swagger. Oh, and there was good old Edith Prickly, Snake, Bobby Bittman, and Ed Grimley. And a billion more I don’t care to exhaustively list.
My favorite characters were as follows;
1. the pompous, fast-talking, drunken, has-been/never-was actor Johnny LaRue, who is slowly demoted through the shows run into a running joke who can’t get work.
2. Count Floyd, the unfortunately named host of the late-night Monster Chiller Horror Theater, who invariably is given movies that are anything but scary (the title of today’s entry comes from one of those such movies… a spoof on Ingmar Bergman’s brooding films mistaken as a horror movie by the shows programmers).
3. Dr. Tongue, yet another John Candy classic. The doctor is a sweaty mad scientist who is the antagonist (ala Bela Lugosi) of many bad horror movies. Oh, and he apparently thinks that moving items close to the camera lens makes them appear in 3-D. His movies include the The 3-D House of Pancakes, The 3-D House of Stewardesses, and so on.
4. Gerry Todd. Videophile and hipster, Gerry runs a pre-MTV music video show that shows musical acts that are almost as bad as his cheesy effects (random fades and logos that he controls from a giant soundboard in from of him as he hosts) and his lame, call-in-radio style bits (his "guess how much money is in the jackpot" bit makes me laugh every time). How could I forget the man who showed me the lounge version of Turning Japanese?
All in all SCTV is awesome. TV Land shows episodes on Friday nights, although the last three weekends they have preempted it for random summer marathons. Better yet, Shout Factory has started releasing episodes on DVD collections. Three volumes are out, and a fourth is on the way. Volumes one – three contain the entire run of the NBC life span (which is a great place to start… all of the best skits from the old days are recycled, and the budget is a bit higher). The bad news is that the sets are a little expensive, at anywhere from $59 to $79 each.
Check ‘em out. Horns up.
SCTV, one of the greatest shows ever on TV. I didn’t realize it until I started seeing the shows on TV again this year how much SCTV had shaped my sense of humor. For those of you who don’t know, SCTV was an ensemble TV show that strung together SNL/Fridays-like skits into a single premise. The premise was that there was a low-budget television, filled with all sorts of zany characters that were as funny as the celebrities that the actors spoofed.
The genius of the show rests in its premise and its actors. The premise served to cover the REAL budgetary shortcomings of the show. It looked like a low budget UHF channel because their budget was only slightly better than a low budget UHF channel. The commercials it mimicked looked like local commercials of the day.
And the cast itself was strong. In retrospect it is almost hard to believe so many talented people worked together (much like the original SNL cast). John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, Martin Short, and Dave Thomas. Even seeming nobodies Robin Duke and Tony Rosato were great.
So much of the show’s writing was complex, yet it doesn’t dwell on being smarter than its audience. There was so much subtlety to the show, yet there was so much craziness on screen it was easy to get sucked into the hack jokes they were using to make fun of hack jokes. SCTV was a TV show that existed to make fun of television.
And, the show benefited from having a limited run. Its original syndication run served to create time to perfect their craft, as well as build a cult following. The show was rarely shown in a good time slot, and in many markets it wasn’t even shown in any sort of regular manner. Eventually, a failed bid for ABC turned into a fortunate run on NBC, which extended the shows length, gave it a more stable rotation, and even recycled classic skits from the past for a new audience to see.
And teh show was cutting edge. Floating about in obscurity allowed it to touch on subjects not entirely common on TV. Homosexuality, drug abuse, and international relations. I remember one particular skit about a Japanese talkshow that still offends me in its stereotyping. But it was an age of a scared America. We were all ducking nuclear warheads, scared of communisim, and waiting for the Japanese to buy all of America. To see these topics dealth with the way they were makes me feel ashamed that I was ever part of that America. Cutting edge and introspective, yet never arrogant or self-important.
I was first exposed to the show at some unknown point in my child hood. My cool Uncle David probably got me started. I most likely saw it on late-night NBC, as I used to love staying up late to watch TV in the summers. And since most of my TV viewing was bad UHF channels, the show was naturally a draw to me. I then later saw reruns on PBS, only to forget about it for a few years until Nick at Night (long before TV Land) showed the show ever week night. This happened when I was in 5th or 6th grade, and continued up until I was in high school. I stayed up every night to see it, until it was cancelled. By the time I got over the rerun cancellation, I was already hooked on a new skit show, Kids in the Hall, which finished development on my sense of humor. Both shows exuded cleverness and subtlety, and I am in great debt to both for shaping my off-color view of the world.
All you have to do is invoke Johnny Nuclei, Polynesian Town, or the whole network gang wara ala Godfather ("we're goin' to the mattresses!"), and I am instantly in a great mood. And the skits weren't the only highlight. There were great music acts, of bands that gave great performances even though they have been somewhat lost in time. The musical guests were always worked into a skit in some way, not just introduced as a musical intermission. Nothing beats seeing these songsters ham it up in some classic comedy skits. Dr. John, Southside Johnny, The Tubes, and so on. All great, all fun, and all still awesome to see even years after their music is off the airwaves.
By the end of the shows run, the characters that were invented were more memorable than the spoofs. And that is saying a lot, because (for instance) it is hard to remember the Leave it to Beaver 20 year reunion special without laughing out loud (Beaver kills Eddie). The characters were all over-the-top and unique. The shows’ cutthroat station manager Guy Cabellero is always seen in a wheelchair (he has no infirmities, he only uses it for respect). The troubled Hollywood darling Lola Heatherton invokes Liza, Babs, and any other diva. Bob and Doug MacKenzie (the Canadian stereotype brothers that do the Great White North show) were so funny they got their own movie. So did polka duo, the Schmengie Brothers. Earl Camamembaer, the hapless, news anchorman with big aspirations, and who is forever the ass of everyone’s jokes. Think Ron Burgandy minus swagger. Oh, and there was good old Edith Prickly, Snake, Bobby Bittman, and Ed Grimley. And a billion more I don’t care to exhaustively list.
My favorite characters were as follows;
1. the pompous, fast-talking, drunken, has-been/never-was actor Johnny LaRue, who is slowly demoted through the shows run into a running joke who can’t get work.
2. Count Floyd, the unfortunately named host of the late-night Monster Chiller Horror Theater, who invariably is given movies that are anything but scary (the title of today’s entry comes from one of those such movies… a spoof on Ingmar Bergman’s brooding films mistaken as a horror movie by the shows programmers).
3. Dr. Tongue, yet another John Candy classic. The doctor is a sweaty mad scientist who is the antagonist (ala Bela Lugosi) of many bad horror movies. Oh, and he apparently thinks that moving items close to the camera lens makes them appear in 3-D. His movies include the The 3-D House of Pancakes, The 3-D House of Stewardesses, and so on.
4. Gerry Todd. Videophile and hipster, Gerry runs a pre-MTV music video show that shows musical acts that are almost as bad as his cheesy effects (random fades and logos that he controls from a giant soundboard in from of him as he hosts) and his lame, call-in-radio style bits (his "guess how much money is in the jackpot" bit makes me laugh every time). How could I forget the man who showed me the lounge version of Turning Japanese?
All in all SCTV is awesome. TV Land shows episodes on Friday nights, although the last three weekends they have preempted it for random summer marathons. Better yet, Shout Factory has started releasing episodes on DVD collections. Three volumes are out, and a fourth is on the way. Volumes one – three contain the entire run of the NBC life span (which is a great place to start… all of the best skits from the old days are recycled, and the budget is a bit higher). The bad news is that the sets are a little expensive, at anywhere from $59 to $79 each.
Check ‘em out. Horns up.
Comments:
Good to see someone else remembers SCTV. I loved it then and am ecstatic now that I can see the old reruns again!
I just saw the first season of SCTV over again and could not stop laughing. I have to say that my favorite skit, however, comes from the second season-- Perry Como, played by Levy, does a concert in which he lies down the entire time.
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