SCTV was Canadian ‘lightning in a bottle’
Show’s kooky cast ended up becoming the ambassadors for Canada’s comedy scene
Each delirious episode began in the same adroitly subversive way, with a torrent of TV sets hurtling out apartment windows followed by a bombastic voice-over: “SCTV is on the air!”
For any TV junkie who grew up in the 1970s, the wildly inventive sketch series defined Canadiana and our uniquely outsider perspective in a whole new hilarious way.
And its cast of kooks 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 (later Saturday Night Live) — as being slightly more inspired or freer or smarter or something,” Ramis said.
The cast was drawn from the nascent Toronto branch of Chicago’s famed Second City improvisational theatre.
When it launched on just a handful of Global stations in southern Ontario in September1976, 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 smooth-talking 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 marble-mouthed 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 behind the scenes with sharp satire that riffed on celebrity, fame, the media and pop culture.
Thanks to the fact few skits were particularly topical, it went on to stand the test of time in a way few comedies of the era would.
Levy says SCTV was just following in a grand tradition of biting Canadian satire.
“I don’t know if that’s because we were part of the Commonwealth back when and there’s a bit more of a British edge to our sensibility, but there’s always been . . . very kind of hot, hip shows that you always found really kind of smart and extremely funny,” Levy says.
Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, is said to have drawn inspiration for the loony residents of Springfield from SCTV’s Melonville and Conan O’Brien has said it was the biggest influence on his comedy career.
Without it, there arguably would have been no The Kids in the Hall, The Ben Stiller Show, nor Mr. Show With Bob and David.
Yuk Yuk’s founder Mark Breslin says the series emerged during a magical time for Canada’s burgeoning comedy scene.
“It’s lightning in a bottle in a lot of ways, that era, isn’t it? But that’s also because people didn’t really know what they had in a sense,” he says.
At the same time, Canuck comics had the benefit of drawing inspira- SCTV tion and influence from two cultural powerhouses, suggests improv master Colin Mochrie.
“When I was growing up, I saw as many British comedy and shows as I did American shows and I think Canadians sort of have a hybrid of those two humours,” muses the Whose Line Is It Anyway? star, adding that Canada’s notorious inferiority complex might have played a role too.
“We’re also like a little brother — outsiders to America — and I think that made us want to hone our comedic skills so we could get noticed.” SCTVwent a long way toward making that happen.
A late-night syndication deal put the quirky comedy on NBC after Saturday Night in most U.S. markets, allowing it to build a cult following on both sides of the border.
NBC would later pick it up as a 90-minute show from 1981 to 1983, when it arguably hit a creative and critical stride with the addition of Short’s manic characters and the increasing popularity of Bob and Doug, who spun off a bestselling comedy album Great White North and movie Strange Brew.
Ultimately, SCTV’s ratings failed to take off, and its stars began defecting to pursue individual careers. The show landed on the fledgling cable network Cinemax for a final run in 1983.
Andrew Alexander, show producer and head of the Second City in Toronto, says its spirit endures in the work of countless comics working today.
“If you talk to even Seth Rogen or Judd Apatow or Jimmy Kimmel or any major (comic) — Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey — they all talk about SCTV as being their influence. It’s pretty cool that they still look at that as kind of a seminal inspiration,” he says.