SCTV Review: Backstage (1-1) / Murder at SCTV (1-2)

/

Before we begin: I will be reviewing the first three seasons’ shows as they aired in Canada, with notes as to which sketches were added or omitted from the original American Rhodes Syndication airings and the 1984-85 Blair Entertainment strip syndication package. As well, the original Rhodes versions of season 1 weren’t aired in the same order as the original Global broadcasts (the first thirteen shows were mixed into the running order somewhat randomly with the second batch of thirteen, which was more or less aired in order); I have a rough idea of the US shows’ running order but not a definite list.

I only have a handful of Rhodes versions so I don’t have too detailed information about edits to individual sketches, but I do have video files of all the sketches that only appeared in the Rhodes package (which will be reviewed at the end of season 1), as well as the sketches removed from the Canadian version of the strip package (which will be reviewed in their respective episodes).

I also want to thank Pat Durkin, Donnie Smith and Kevin Smith for their contributions to this project so far.

RATINGS SYSTEM:
***** - Classic
**** - Great
*** - Good/Average
** - Meh
* - Awful

“Backstage” (season 1, episode 1; originally aired Sept. 21, 1976)

COMMERCIAL: THE LASER-MATIC

  • The flash attachment that turns night into day.

  • Nothing outstanding, but a good quick introduction to the series; Dave Thomas’s experience in advertising helps commercial parodies like this one.

  • Thomas mentions his frustration with the “tacky” flash prop in his 1996 book SCTV: Behind the Scenes, an example of the show operating with a minimal budget and a lack of experience with the type of behind-the-scenes work it needed.

  • Who’s the extra posing with Flaherty, Ramis, Martin and O’Hara? Another player from Second City Toronto?

***

OPENING

  • I don’t have an original Global copy, but I have seen a few Global versions of the early shows; the opening theme for the first 13 shows is the xylophone music that sometimes plays during the end credits, and Dave Thomas’s opening announcement begins with “Don’t touch that dial, don’t touch that one either, and stop touching yourself! SCTV is on the air!”. The earliest shows also credit Joe Flaherty as “Joseph O’Flaherty”, and include some outside performers (such as Jayne Eastwood, Brenda Donohue and Monica Parker) in the opening titles.

  • The original Rhodes versions of season 1 use the intro from the second batch of shows (“Dance of the Hours” by Spike Jones).

SUNRISE SEMESTER: BOOKKEEPING WITH MOE GREEN

  • Moe Green (Harold Ramis) gets caught up in an anti-capitalist rant while teaching Fundamentals of Bookkeeping.

  • The first appearance of Ramis’s Moe Green, already a sweaty and slightly inept weasel, but not established as he would be in his role as TV host and station manager. This is another short one, with Green going off on a tangent until Thomas’s voiceover announces that the show will no longer be seen “due to a change in programming policy”, though it does give Ramis a good exit joke (“The Rockefellers are behind it, that’s what it is, they can’t stand bookkeeping and they don’t like me!”

  • Theme: The Ranz des vaches from Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”; the earliest shows use a straight version (my Shazam identifies this recording as by Peter Maag & The London Symphony Orchestra) before switching to the Spike Jones recording.

*** 1/2

PROMO: UNNECESSARY SURGEON & TED GORDON: MALPRACTICE LAWYER

  • A medical drama about cut-happy surgeon Dr. Jake Sloan (Joe Flaherty), and a spin-off featuring his lawyer Ted Gordon (Dave Thomas)

  • This is hilarious; not only are Dr. Sloan’s surgeries the definition of unnecessary (removing mucus membranes for a cold, and taking the patient’s shoulders as well), but he’s also incompetent (he had four martinis before an operation), a sleaze (winking at a witness he gave an unnecessary gender reassignment to while they testify at his malpractice hearing), and a complete asshole to his patients. Thomas’s Gordon is a similarly awful (but entertaining) character.

  • Unnecessary Surgeon begins an hour earlier than most programs on SCTV (Thursdays at 8pm)

  • Another extra playing a small role, this time as the judge in the malpractice hearing.

****

THE JOHNNY LARUE SHOW

  • Johnny LaRue (John Candy) denies he’s gay and gets winded by some very easy exercises.

  • Even though this was mostly just a riff on how out of shape and unsuitable LaRue is to host this show, Candy has his signature character nailed down right away and his performance makes the sketch.

  • LaRue’s theme song: “Colonel Bogey”, performed by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra.

****

SCTV AM NEWS TODAY: BIG NEWS/LITTLE NEWS

  • Floyd Robertson’s (Joe Flaherty) stories are major world events, while Earl Camembert’s (Eugene Levy) items are dull local happenings.

  • The first appearance of another SCTV staple; the dynamic between Levy’s inept Earl Camembert and Flaherty’s Floyd Robertson is pretty much established here if not the characters themselves (Levy is wearing a normal-looking jacket and tie here; Earl’s recognizable bow-tie and loud jackets haven’t been introduced yet).

  • This was a trunk bit from Second City Toronto’s 1975 Alterations While You Wait revue; note the reference to “the 401” during Camembert’s fake story about the rabid caribou.

  • I’ve always loved the opening title for the news sketches in the first season, with the film clips of the hang-glider (only seen in some episodes), the man falling, and the ambulance set to the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

  • I also like the touch of Floyd’s items all having film footage on the bluescreen behind him as well as teletype sound effects (which go silent as soon as he passes to Earl).

*** 1/2

COMMERCIAL: EVELYN WOODS SPEED TALKING SCHOOL

  • Evelyn Woods (Catherine O’Hara) will teach you how to save time by talking very fast.

  • A short spoof of the Evelyn Wood speed reading courses (also parodied by Cheech & Chong and SNL around this time). Mostly notable for Catherine O’Hara’s performance, where she seamlessly eases in and out of the “sped-up tape” gibberish.

  • The phone number at the very end was writer/producer Sheldon Patinkin’s actual number at the time.

***

BACKSTAGE

  • Johnny LaRue (John Candy) deals with professional and personal setbacks.

  • This was supposed to be a much longer piece (with a lot of improvisation by John Candy, as per Sheldon Patinkin in SCTV: Behind the Scenes), but most of it had to be cut from the final show when it pushed the running time far past the half-hour minus commercials; here it is presented in disjointed vignettes. Candy’s performance holds the material together, but this is something the show would have handled better once it expanded to 90 minutes and the backstage world of the station was much better established.

  • Monica Parker, who plays Johnny LaRue’s lover, has had an extensive career and is still working to this day.

** 1/2

COMMERCIAL: STOP THOSE DEPRESSING ADS

  • Gregory Peck (Joe Flaherty) asks viewers to put an end to commercials about starving children.

  • Good premise, and Joe Flaherty’s excellent impression makes up for the non-existent makeup hair-and-makeup job.

  • For some reason, a lot of the early PSAs and commercials use “Box [current year]”

*** 1/2

MASTERPIECE THEATER: THE GIRLS OF VIENNA

  • Alistair Cook (Joe Flaherty) presents Part XII of Ibsen’s “The Girls of Vienna”, in which Betty Freud (Catherine O’Hara) contemplates leaving Sigmund (Eugene Levy). A drunk Johnny La Rue (John Candy) crashes the scene.

  • There are funny little individual moments here and there, such as Ibsen’s writing (on the back of a CN Tower postcard) becoming an illegible scrawl, Andrea Martin as Mrs. Freud’s “mannish friend” Anna von Furstenburg (aka George Raft), and LaRue breaking into the scene, but the whole thing drags a little too much and never really comes together. Later Masterpiece Theatre sketches seem to have a better handle on the format.

  • Old Vienna is a real brand of beer that’s primarily sold in Canada.

**

SCTV PM NEWS

  • Earl Camembert (Eugene Levy) finally has a big story, but Floyd Robertson (Joe Flaherty) interrupts with news of Johnny La Rue’s drunken rampage.

  • A short bit, pretty much a way out of the LaRue storyline, but also a good callback to the earlier news sketch.

***

WORDS TO LIVE BY

  • Joni Newton Buffy (Andrea Martin) rambles about snowflakes, individuality, her weight.

  • Andrea Martin brings one of her stage characters to the show for the only time; I liked her performance even if the material was forgettable, and I wish they found a way to use her again in another show.

** 1/2

Final thoughts: The first show pretty much sets the format of the series, but the lack of budget is pretty apparent, and right now it feels like everyone’s still in the process of figuring out how their pieces and characters should work. Some things definitely worked: John Candy’s charisma comes through pretty much immediately, and the best pieces in the show are the ones with the show’s original characters or the ones that fit the TV programming concept. The backstage stuff, even though presented as “programming”, doesn’t quite work, and the first Masterpiece Theatre installment feels a little too stagey and doesn’t have enough of the cast’s voice in it.

MVP:

  • John Candy

Rhodes version differences:

  • all segments included (unsure of individual edits to scenes)

Blair version differences:

  • Removed: Evelyn Wood Speed Talking School, Words to Live By

  • Added: new syndication promo for Wara, Wara, Wara (Robert Corness v/o)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.

“Murder at SCTV” (season 1, episode 2; originally aired Oct. 21, 1976)

SWAMI BANANANANDA: PART I

  • Swami Bananananda (Harold Ramis) shows some exercises for the legs.

  • A little slight (this part is only about a minute long), but I did like the Swami’s backstory (his real name is Dennis Peterson, and he thought it would be a good way to meet girls).

  • In the original broadcast, this leads into the opening sequence, but the Canadian package has this fade awkwardly into a bumper.

** 1/2

SWAMI BANANANANDA: PART II

  • Swami Bananananda (Harold Ramis) injures himself.

  • Pretty much just an extension of the gag with the prop legs in the first part; this felt a little obvious, but Ramis has a few funny lines (“If my brain was connected to my body, I would be in great pain right now.”)

** 1/2

CAPTAIN COMBAT

  • Captain Combat (Dave Thomas) shows how to camouflage; Mr. Green Fatigues (Harold Ramis) visits with “Mr. Schmeisser”.

  • Not the funniest on paper, but the performances (particularly John Candy as Gunny Rabbit) make the sketch; the “lesson” (“Never be in a room with a loaded gun unless you’re holding it”) and Candy collapsing in the background as the credits run ended this strong. This also works as a standalone piece independent of this week’s running plot.

*** 1/2

COMMERCIAL: FAT CHANCE FOR THE SUB SAHARA

  • Lawrence of Arabia (Joe Flaherty) appeals for antacids to be sent to the formerly-starving residents of the Sub-Sahara who’ve now overindulged on famine relief.

  • This feels like a companion piece to “Stop Those Depressing Ads” (same basic format, with Flaherty playing a distinguished actor doing a PSA in front of a chromakey screen), though at least this time they made a little more effort to make Flaherty look like Peter O’Toole. Funny subversion of these types of commercials.

***

ENGLISH FOR BEGINNERS

  • Lucille Hitzger (Catherine O’Hara) tries some simple phrases with student Perini Scleroso (Andrea Martin).

  • An import from the Second City stage (that had also been performed by Valri Bromfield and Dan Aykroyd), this is the first SCTV appearance of Perini Scleroso; the main joke (Scleroso repeating what the other person says in a garbled gibberish) is already there, but Martin’s characterization is a bit more gruffer and doesn’t quite have the cheerful obliviousness that she would have later in the series. I think she works better as a character once Martin gives her a little bit of a personality.

  • It’s weird realizing that Catherine O’Hara was only 22 years old here.

***

SCTV AM NEWS TODAY

  • Earl Camembert (Eugene Levy) doesn’t have any more information on the wire services strike.

  • A short and forgettable piece, though the interplay between Levy and Flaherty is still strong.

  • Earl Camembert now has his trademark bowtie and loud outfits, but still isn’t quite the bumbler as he would come to be. The SCTV News set is also changed slightly; the SCTV is now on an angle and has orange stripes above and below it.

**

STAN MUSIAL’S GREATEST HITS

  • Babe Ruth (John Candy) plugs an album of Stan “The Man” Musial’s greatest baseball hits.

  • Kind of a weak premise (the hits being literally the sound of a bat hitting a ball), but Candy does his best to sell this, and there’s a funny dig at the Montreal Expos in there.

  • Once again, Sheldon Patinkin’s phone number is used; Patinkin mentions in the foreword to Jeff Robbins’ Second City Television that he got calls every time the sketch ran in Toronto.

** 1/2

SCTV AM NEWS TODAY: PART II

  • Floyd Robertson (Joe Flaherty) interviews security guard Gus Gusstofferson (Eugene Levy), who’s investigating the death of Captain Combat puppeteer Knowlton Lampeer.

  • First appearance of Levy’s dim SCTV security guard Gus Gustofferson (spelled with an extra “s” this episode), who would figure more heavily in the Network 90 era. As a sketch, this was a little too dull, this segment mainly exists to turn the Captain Combat shooting into an ongoing plotline for the rest of the episode.

  • I did get a laugh from the bad picture of Captain Combat used during Floyd’s introduction.

  • Was Knowlton Lampeer named after late Canadian journalist Knowlton Nash?

**

COMMERCIAL: SALE OF THE CENTURY

  • John of Gaunt’s speech from Richard II is used as a sales pitch.

  • Short but sweet; good punchline.

  • In SCTV: Behind the Scenes, Dave Thomas reveals this piece was one of several that was written for (and rejected by) Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson when they did their guest appearance on the show (which would air two months later).

***

GUS GUSSTOFFERSON: SECURITY GUARD

  • Gus Gusstofferson (Eugene Levy) incriminates himself while questioning suspects about Knowlton Lampeer’s death.

  • This has some funny moments, especially in comparison to the news segment (Gus constantly doing the “dun-dun-dun-dun” music stings, Captain Combat saying he doesn’t hate anyone except North Koreans, “but Mr. Lampeer wasn’t a North Korean” and randomly performing a “theme song” at the close of the sketch), but the attempt to bring all the characters from other sketches feels convoluted, and the whole thing never really gels.

  • There’s a random pan to Ramis as Gus goes on about why he hated Lampeer; Thomas and Patinkin mention in SCTV: Behind the Scenes that director Milad Bessada made a lot of similar pans and shooting decisions because he didn’t really get a lot of the jokes, which depended a fair bit on familiarity with North American television. You can also see that Ramis’s turban is really just a bath towel.

**

SCTV MOVIE OF THE WEEK: WARA, WARA, WARA

  • A dramatization of the Italian surrender during World War II, from both the Allied and Italian perspectives

  • There are a few funny jokes peppered throughout (the Allies being willing to commit all sorts of atrocities in order to take some ball bearing factories), but this a little too dull and repetitive to work; it’s also over 6 minutes long. SCTV would get better at the long-form sketch, but their first movie parody is a weak point of this show.

  • For some reason, Thomas and Levy are playing Captain Combat and Gus Gustofferson here while the others are generic soldiers (though Flaherty is apparently playing an Eisenhower stand-in); I did like the bits with Captain Combat still acting like a kids’ show host in the war.

  • Second City Toronto alumna Jayne Eastwood plays General Dwight’s wife Betty in the flashback.

  • There’s a music-related edit to the versions of this show aired after 1998 to remove Ramis pretending to play “My Way” on the harmonica during Gus’s speech. Oddly enough, this edit wasn’t made when the sketch runs in episode 2-22 to replace “Family Crisis” in the same package.

** 1/2

SCTV PM NEWS

  • Earl Camembert (Eugene Levy) shows Floyd Robertson (Joe Flaherty) how to shuffle his news bulletins.

  • Just a short and silly bit to play under the close, and the best of the three SCTV News bits tonight. I wonder if this was Flaherty and Levy just improvising on the set.

  • One thing that bugs me about the post-1984 repackages is the new copyright bumpers added over the end of the credits to remove the Global Television credits and original copyrights. The early shows had these credits superimposed over the video from the sketch, so there sometimes would be a visual joke that doesn’t really come across as well when it’s just audio only as the new bumper appears.

***

Final thoughts: A bit of a forgettable and sluggish show; unlike the first show, there aren’t any sketches that really stand out as particularly great, even if there are individual funny moments across a lot of them. The attempt at stretching out the murder into a plotline doesn’t really work, and too much of the show time is taken up by a dull movie-of-the-week sketch. It’s not terrible, but it’s not really an episode that has many hints as to what the show would soon be capable of doing.

MVP:

  • Dave Thomas

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: SCTV AM News Today – News Service Writers’ Strike (moved to 1-12), Fat Chance for the Sub-Sahara PSA (moved to 1-7), Stan Musial’s Greatest Hits (moved to 1-4)

  • Added: Alpro Dog Food (from 1-8)

Blair version differences:

  • Removed: Fat Chance for the Sub-Sahara, Stan Musial’s Greatest Hits (moved to 1-20), Sale of the Century (moved to 1-22), SCTV PM News

  • Added: Cooking with La Rue (1-4), new syndication promo for Theatre North America (Robert Corness v/o)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.