‘Lightning in a bottle’
SCTV’s Canadian comedy still resonates
Each delirious episode began in the same adroitly subversive way — with a torrent of TV sets hurtling out apartment windows.
And the bombastic voiceover that followed was a beacon to all diehard comedy nerds: “‘SCTV’ is on the air!’’
For any TV junkie who grew up in the ‘70s, the wildly inventive sketch series defined Canadiana and our uniquely outsider perspective in a whole new hilarious way.
And its cast of kooks — among them a hyperactive man-child named Ed Grimley, a leopard print-clad station boss named Edith Prickley and a couple of dim-witted hosers named Bob and Doug — would become unlikely ambassadors for the brainy but funny artists, musicians, actors and writers raised in the Great White North.
Today, its stars are legendary: the late John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, the U.S.-bred Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty and the late Harold Ramis, as well as later Canadian cast members Martin Short and Rick Moranis.
Back then, they were just a group of pals who loved to make each other laugh, former head writer Ramis recounted in one interview that can be found online.
“We just pleased ourselves (with) what we thought was funny and I think that led us to a kind of comedy that was later acknowledged — even by people at ‘Saturday Night’ — as being slightly more inspired or freer or smarter or something,’’
Ramis said of a wildly talented crew that debuted in the shadow of NBC’s slicker late night showcase, which would later come to be known as “Saturday Night Live.’’
“‘Saturday Night’ people always paid lip service to ‘SCTV’ saying we were really the funny show but it was a little like being the comedians’ comedians, or playing to the band in a certain way. The audience might not have gotten what we were doing but other comedy people seem to have really appreciated it and real hardcore comedy fans knew every scene that we did.’’
The cast was drawn from the nascent Toronto branch of Chicago’s famed Second City improvisational theatre.
And its modest beginnings
mirrored the cheap and hapless TV station it parodied, set in the fictional town of Melonville where it seemed anything could, and did, happen.
When it launched on just a handful of Global stations in southern Ontario in September 1976, it had no stars, no sponsors, and barely enough funds to pull together a bare bones show. It would go on to a disjointed run that often teetered on cancellation until its demise in 1984.
But a genius premise gave the young cast licence to run wild with demented characters.
There was Candy’s smoothtalking network star Johnny LaRue; Short’s deluded albino lounge singer Jackie Rogers, Jr.; O’Hara’s big-haired entertainer
Lola Heatherton; Candy and Levy’s inane polka duo Yosh and Stan Schmenge; and Thomas and Martin’s marblemouthed hucksters Tex and Edna Boil, the owners of various small businesses forever imploring viewers to “Come on down!’’
The humour was undeniably silly, but deceptively smart as it took viewers — the first generation to be reared on TV — behind the scenes with sharp satire that riffed on celebrity, fame, the media and pop culture.
It was shameless and subversive, and thanks to the fact few skits were particularly topical, went on to stand the test of time in a way few comedies of the era would.