Unlimitedia
Sick Product of a Sick System
Comwayon
A Disappointing Continuation
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
bmoore-13
There are not a lot of things about this world I can state with full assurance, but I can say with full confidence that SCTV is, bar none, the funniest show of all time. Younger viewers--those born after, say, 1970--may have a hard time with the allusions to and parodies of pop culture circa 1980, and my guess is this would cause those viewers to meet my claim with skepticism. But think about it: every show by and large depends on its time, including SNL and Monty Python. Nevertheless, there is plenty here for anyone with half a brain and a good sense of humor to enjoy. Some of the sketches involve topical matters, but the sheer chuztpah and intelligence of them makes such topicality secondary. The acting alone is without comedic peer for a TV show in English. Over the past twenty-five years I have never been able to decide who my favorite SCTV actor is. I love the two (main) women: both Martin and O'Hara are game for anything, and they are loaded with comic nuance. But the same goes for all the rest of the cast. Sometimes I conclude that Eugene Levy edges out the others, but as soon as I say that I think of John Candy as William B. or Curly (etc.) or Rick Moranis as Jerry Todd or Skip Bitman, and I renege on my statement. But thinking about Skip leads me to think of Levy as Bobby Bitman, and the process starts all over. (And this is to say nothing of the very great, very funny work by Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty.) The movie and TV work of the cast, post-SCTV, has been merely OK overall, but don't let it deceive you: all of this great casts' best work occurred on SCTV. After the show ended, Candy fared the best, but he sadly deprived us of his great presence way too early, god rest his soul. Others have done OK in Christopher Guest films. But, again, these usually only make me yearn for SCTV. Martin Short is probably my least favorite of the regulars, yet he has his moments (Boy from Deliverance, some Ed Grimley bits, etc.). The writing, too, is consistently excellent. (All the cast wrote bits, but some more than others.) Watching the DVDs--and thank god for those!--I see that there are stretches of "padding," but even this is usually pretty funny. (Even Monty Python has some not-so-great shows.) Some of the guest bits are a little lame, and sometimes I wish they had not bothered with guests, unless they make sense to the story (Zontar was funny). Much has been made of the laugh track; I never liked it either. Still, one can punch holes in about anything, and they do not, in the end, add up to much. And this is why I can proclaim that, for me, SCTV is the very zenith of TV comedy. I urge anyone who is uninitiated to jump in with both feet. Any of the four NBC seasons would be a good starting point. (If you want a single DVD, try the Christmas show.) I hope that someone will now release the Cinemax shows.
Ian Ray Hawke (act2LA)
It's a shame so few people have seen this show, which ranks among the most brilliantly hilarious and astonishinly inventive of all television comedy series. It's important to note that the Cast List here is very misleading, noting only one character per actor. In reality, SCTV operated much like MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, THE KIDS IN THE HALL, and Saturday NIGHT LIVE, programs which it is most definitely AT LEAST on a par with. All these versatile and talented performers played literally DOZENS of character roles -- often pulling off multiple roles WITHIN THE SAME SCENES! The writing and acting talent level on this show was of the highest caliber at all times and they did it all on one of the lowest budgets in modern TV history.
frankfob
As a previous poster has said, SNL and SCTV were both comedy sketch shows, but that's where the resemblance ends. SNL far too often descended into juvenile, and sometimes even infantile, humor and its casts were way too uneven. It had the brilliant and manic John Belushi, but it also had the mediocre Garrett Morris, who really didn't do much of anything. It had the gifted Gilda Radner, who could do damn near anything, but it also had Laraine Newman, who didn't do all that much, either, and many of the cast members in its later shows really had no business being there. SNL's cast did various running characters, but, with few exceptions, each person's character wasn't really distinguishable from the actor himself. SCTV had no such problems. John Candy's Johnny LaRue, Josh Shmenge and Gil Fisher ("The Fishin' Musician") were about as different from each other and Candy himself as you could possibly get, as were Rick Moranis' Doug McKenzie and Rabbi Yitzhak Karlov, Andrea Martin's Edith Prickley and Mrs. Falbo, etc. Another big difference between the two shows was the writing. Virtually every episode of SCTV was as sharp, incisive and devastatingly funny as anything that ever came out of television; SNL on the other hand could go for weeks without having a decent show, and in fact went for several YEARS in the '80s without having any even HALFWAY decent shows. SCTV integrated all of its guest stars into the actual storyline of the episode itself, with often surprising results (musicians Dr. John, Tony Bennett and Fee Waybill of the Tubes, for example, turned out to be quite good). SNL put its guest hosts into some of the sketches--with many of them obviously reading their lines off of cue cards--and most didn't acquit themselves particularly well.One of SCTV's main strengths was that it gave its audience credit for having the intelligence to understand what it was trying to say and do, which was something that SNL often lost sight of, especially in its later years. And how could anyone forget such brilliant pieces as "Abbott and Costello in a Turkish Prison"; "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses"; the side-splitting parody of "Ocean's 11" with the monumentally untalented Vegas schlock comic Bobby Bittman and his even less talented idiot son Skip; the hapless Count Floyd of "Monster Chiller Horror Theater", who--no matter how pathetic the movie ("Tonight's film: 'Bloodsucking Monkeys from West Mifflin, Pennsylvania'!") he was showing--always stubbornly claimed, "Oooh, wasn't that scary, kids?"; "The Sammy Maudlin Show"; "Farm Film Report" ("They blowed up real good!"); the list goes on and on. Most of the sketches are so sharp, witty and clever that they don't date at all, even though they're almost 30 years old. SCTV set a high standard for sketch comedy, and so far no other show has measured up.
baylissfan
I never saw the actual first run of SCTV, but my late night insomnia opened me up to it during reruns. Now I can't live without watching. The amount of stars that were on it(Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Rick Moranis, etc.) make this oh-so enjoyable to watch. I'm a big fan of SNL too, but in my opinion, SCTV surpasses it. It was just a truly great show. I love its characters, its material, basically everything about it.
