Canadian Club: DVD release reminds of ‘SCTV’s‘ eclectic humor

Kirk Baird

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 | 8:14 a.m.

There was always something different about "SCTV."

Maybe it was the setting a low-budget television network broadcasting from the fictional town of Melonville, located somewhere in the "tri-city area."

Or perhaps it was the characters:

Guy Caballero, the stingy station owner and president who scoots around in a wheelchair to garner more respect.

Johnny LaRue, an overweight megalomaniac with his own show on "SCTV," whose notorious cons frequently backfire.

Edith Prickley, the leopard-skin-wearing station manager with a vocabulary only a sailor could love.

Count Floyd, boozer newsman Floyd Robertson's side job as the vampire host of "Monster Chiller Horror Theatre."

Bobby Bittman, the ultimate Borchst Belt comic, whose disco outfits, open shirt and gold chains not to mention his penchant for "dropping by" other shows unannounced are as obnoxious as his act.

And Lola Heatherton, a pill-popping, no-talent fusion of mediocre talent Lola Falana and Joey Heatherton.

Whatever it was, by the time "SCTV" landed on NBC's Friday late-night lineup by late spring of 1981, there really wasn't anything else like it on television a TV show devoted to parodying TV.

Oh sure, there were classic spoofs of movies, such as "On the Waterfront Again," "The Nutty Lab Assistant" and "Polynesiantown."

But those sketches were conceived as low-budget TV-movie variations of the actual films, and featured much of the fictional network's stable of characters, alongside dead-on impersonations of, say, Bob Hope, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and Floyd the barber (Howard McNear) from "The Andy Griffith Show."

After watching the "SCTV" DVDs, in retrospect it can be said the cast John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas and later Martin Short rivals any group from "Saturday Night Live," or any other sketch-comedy show for that matter, in terms of talent.

The talent all came from the famed improvisational Second City groups in Chicago and Toronto.

Second City has since expanded into Detroit, Cleveland and Las Vegas, where it remains a popular attraction at the Flamingo more than three years after it debuted.

For a sense of what "SCTV" was all about -- off-the-wall characters and biting humor -- the local Second City troupe, which performs twice nightly Thursday through Tuesday, is a great source.

Fans of the show, along with anyone who appreciates good satire, can also check out the first season of "SCTV" on June 8, when it makes its debut on DVD. The five-disc set, which retails for $89.99, includes all nine episodes of the first season on NBC -- uncut -- as well as interviews and commentary by the cast.

It's only taken two decades for all of this to happen.

The hang-up?

"Music rights, plain and simple," said Flaherty, in a recent interview from Toronto.

"All the music we used, we didn't get clearance for any of it, which is a no-no in television, of course. We just said, 'Ah, this music will be good for that,' and we'd use soundtracks to movies (and) we'd bring in Broadway musical numbers. It's been a nightmare to clear, that's what's taken so long."

Thankfully, Shout! Factory, which is releasing the DVDs, has steered through the maze of legal entanglements and received permission for the songs and music, including material by artists who performed on the show.

"They never could release the videos to VHS, but Shout! has been great about this. They got it all together and they organized it," said Flaherty, one of three cast members to be with the show its entire run from 1976-1984.

"They got some permissions and they had to pay some other ones."

On the air

"SCTV" first broadcast as "Second City TV" in 1976. The show was a monthly, half-hour comedy program syndicated to four stations in Ontario.

The idea for the show came about after NBC had major success with a similar program, "SNL," that also consisted mainly of former Second City cast members.

And from the beginning there was a good-natured rivalry between the shows.

"We were proud of our show. After the first couple of seasons we thought we had a good show and we were kind of miffed that nobody knew it and it was struggling in obscurity but managing to stay on the air ... while those guys were getting huge contracts for movies. There was that competition at least," Flaherty said.

"We had to be good, we had to do a good show that was unique to us and not like 'Saturday Night Live,' but competitive."

Despite the show's lack of mainstream success from its five years in syndication, NBC brass thought enough of "SCTV" to bring it to the network as a 90-minute show.

"SCTV Network 90" -- later shortened to "SCTV Network" -- first aired on May 15, 1981.

Unlike NBC's other shows, "SCTV" was taped in Canada, as it always had been, which prevented the network from interfering.

"Back then they didn't do nearly the production in Canada that they do now. Now they have all of the big studios and everybody has representatives up here (in Canada) and offices and everything," Flaherty said. "But back then it was a trek to come up here and basically meddle with the show, so they kind of left us alone. Especially in Edmonton. Boy, nobody wanted to go there. They didn't even know where that was. They would ask, 'What coast is that on, again?' 'No, it's inland. It's right above Montana.' "

Even with the freedom to write what they wanted, the show stumbled in the ratings, becoming more of a cult favorite rather than the ratings hit that "SNL" had become.

"When I think back on it, 'SCTV' had terrible numbers," Flaherty said. "I don't know how the hell we stayed on with that thing."

Critical plaudits helped, along with an Emmy for outstanding writing in a variety or music program.

Still, some of the performers ached to move on to other projects.

And by 1982 three cast members -- Thomas, Moranis and O'Hara -- left the show, and Short was added as a replacement.

Thomas and Moranis turned the show's most popular characters, Bob and Doug McKenzie, into a feature film.

The beer-swilling, tuque-wearing brothers were originally created to fulfill a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation mandate that the syndicated series must have two minutes of "distinctive Canadian programming."

But the Canadian caricatures also proved popular in the United States, spawning the catchphrases, "take off," "hoser" and "good day, eh?" as well as a top 40 single, "Take Off," from their comedy album, "Bob & Doug McKenzie: Great White North."

Despite the McKenzie brothers' success, and another Emmy win for the show, "SCTV" failed to catch on. After offering to move "SCTV" from its late-night slot, opposite "60 Minutes" -- a deal the cast rejected -- NBC canceled the lowly rated show in June 1983.

The producers of "SCTV" then signed a deal with HBO that allowed the series to continue on Cinemax, where it aired in 45-minute original episodes.

At that point, Candy left the cast, leaving only four members to carry the show: Flaherty, Martin, Levy and Short.

In hindsight, Flaherty said he wishes that Candy's departure ended the show.

"There wasn't the contribution to the show that we normally had. Plus, it was just extremely difficult to write a sketch show with just four people. So it was a problem that we tried to deal with," he said. "I think we grew as a show up until the Cinemax season and then we just kind of stopped. It wasn't a year of growth, that's the way I'll put it."

And by that time, the show's cast and writers' sense of comedy had evolved into what Flaherty called "non-funny humor."

"A lot of the scenes that were supposed to be funny, we were just sort of commenting on it by saying, 'Here's a scene where people think they're being funny but they're not funny,' " he said, laughing. "I think we may have done a few too many of those."

Cultish appeal

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- its cult status, "SCTV" served as a source of inspiration for many of today's top comedians.

In providing a written tribute to the show in the DVD's liner notes, Conan O'Brien said, "Watching 'SCTV' in the late '70s and early '80s profoundly shaped my idea of what television comedy could be. What started out as a very simple show featuring Second City performers became, within two or three years, the most highly crafted and consistently surprising comedy show ever made. I don't think anyone's ever topped it."

Dan Aykroyd added: "All of us at 'SNL' used to watch 'SCTV' and were enormous fans of our colleagues. Clearly the shows rank up there with the Pythons' and ours as a groundbreaking comedy which is as fresh today on cable and DVD as it was originally."

Even local "Second City" performers tout the show as an influence.

" ('SCTV') was probably one of my first introductions to sketch comedy, along with 'Saturday Night Live,' " said Las Vegas Second City castmember Seamus McCarthy, 34. "It just made me laugh. I was a huge fan of the Bob and Doug McKenzie brothers. They always cracked me up.

"I always thought the show was terribly underrated. Hopefully, the DVD release will get the show back in people's minds and they will discover just how radical and how ahead of its time it was."

While Ithamar Enriquez, 26, wasn't old enough to see "SCTV" when it originally aired, he became a fan of the show after watching it in syndication.

"It think it definitely helps me realize it's OK to try out different characters," he said. "All of those guys played so many different types of characters, they were fearless in that and didn't even question it."

"SCTV" signed off the air on July 17, 1984. The episode consisted of a failed pledge drive that netted only $111 and forced the network to close its doors.

Over the years there has been periodic talk of a reunion "SCTV" series. But the closest that's come so far was a cast reunion at the 1999 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, which was hosted by O'Brien.

As for a true "SCTV" reunion, don't hold your breath, Flaherty said.

"And don't talk to me about it, talk to the rest of the cast," he said. "I don't know what their problem is, but the idea just doesn't fly with them. I wish it did, though, I really wish it did."

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