SCTV Review: Undersea World (2-9) / Edith Prickley: Station Manager (2-10)

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

“Undersea World” (season 2, episode 9; originally aired Nov. 11, 1978)

ME AND YOU AND YOGA AND ME

  • Dana Yorgahansen (Andrea Martin) leads viewers in some exercises to relax the legs.

  • A spoof of the long-running PBS show Lilias, Yoga and You; despite a few funny pieces here and there (particularly Andrea Martin’s well timed fall), it felt like it stretched what could have been an OK promo into a sluggish and predictable sketch.

  • I find the audio mix on this to be inappropriately busy, between the canned laughter (which is louder than usual) and the background music.

**

WATER SPRAY FROM POCKETPIC (repeat from 2-1)

HIGH Q

  • Students from Parkdale High and St. Anthony’s Collegiate aggravate Alex Trebel (Eugene Levy) with their inability to correctly answer a question.

  • A rightfully loved classic parody of the Canadian academic competition Reach for the Top, anchored by Eugene Levy’s great slow burn that takes Trebel from polite annoyance to physical aggression; it’s a treat watching pretty much every reaction he has to the students. Catherine O’Hara’s performance as over-eager Margaret Meehan also manages to steal the sketch, especially as she slowly starts to break down from Trebel’s scolding while still demonstrating she hasn’t learned a thing.

  • The cast doing the voiceovers of the rowdy student audience is also funny, although they obviously repeat some of the same soundbites over and over (“Way to go, Townsend!”).

  • Written by Catherine O’Hara; some of the character names (particularly Bruce Moffet and James Bridgeman) come from her sister Mary Margaret’s band Songship, which also included Hendrik Riik, longtime husband of pal and future SCTV regular Robin Duke.

*****

LARUE TOWERS

  • If you’re having trouble finding an affordable place to live, Johnny LaRue (John Candy) is looking for a few good tenants.

  • Perfect use of Johnny LaRue here as a barely-concealed abusive slumlord, whose tenants are physically afraid of him despite his claims of being a “nice guy”.

*** 1/2

MARRIAGE COUNSELLOR

  • Dr. Taub (Dave Thomas) and Mrs. Tander (Catherine O’Hara) try to conduct their session despite the absence of her husband.

  • Another Dave Thomas/Catherine O’Hara two-hander, this one reprised from the Second City Toronto revue For a Good Time Call 363-1674. I think it probably would work a little better in the live setting with the energy from the audience to feed off, but Thomas and O’Hara give some fun performances.

***

BOTCH AND LAMB SOFT CONTACT LENSES

  • Stop letting your glasses get in the way by making the switch to Botch and Lamb.

  • I did enjoy the disclaimers, but pretty much everything else just came off as forced.

*1/2

JACQUES COUSTEAU’S UNDERSEA WORLD

  • Jacques Cousteau (Joe Flaherty) and his men look for mysteries to discover in an old well.

  • Not great, but I did get some laughs at how Cousteau was basically making his men do the “dirty work” while he spoke on the phone with his producer and his attempt to make the discovery sound more interesting.

  • I also liked how they blatantly highlighted Global’s lack of a budget here with pretty much everything aside from a still shot of the well wall being set above ground.

** 1/2

Final thoughts: A weaker-than normal show boosted by a certified classic and another funny LaRue bit. I wonder whether High Q was deliberately moved to this week’s show to improve the quality, or if it just turned out that this was the show as planned out, because there are a lot of sketches that are weak or don’t quite connect here.

MVP:

  • Catherine O’Hara

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Water Spray from Pocketpic repeat

Blair version differences:

  • Removed: Water Spray from Pocketpic repeat

  • Added: new syndication promo for Jaws 23 (Robert Corness v/o)

Additional screencaps from this episode are available here.

“Edith Prickley: Station Manager” (season 2, episode 10, aired Nov. 18, 1978)

SHOOT AT THE STARS

  • Geoff Edwards (Eugene Levy) gives Tom (Catherine O’Hara) the chance to win cash prizes and kill overexposed celebrities John Rutter (Dave Thomas), Chalo (Andrea Martin), and Robert Groulet (Joe Flaherty).

  • Tonight’s show starts off very strong with a gleefully dark gameshow parody that’s one of the most brazenly tasteless (yet still funny) sketches the show has ever done. These kinds of pieces are pretty rare for SCTV (even the Farm Film Celebrity Blow-Ups are more good-natured than outright mean), so it sticks out, but they manage to pull it off.

  • Interesting voice and look for O’Hara’s butch lesbian character; her preoccupation with Chalo was a nice touch.

*****

SCTV NEWS

  • Earl Camembert (Eugene Levy) is too focused n his editorial to do his job; it turns out to be a personal attack on his next door neighbour.

  • Some funny jokes from Floyd, and of course Earl’s slanderous editorial (as well as Floyd’s reaction) is hilariously unprofessional.

  • Good way to handle the announcement of Edith Prickley’s promotion; I appreciate the continuity nods here to the jams and jellies commercial and Moe Green’s kidnapping. It also looks like the picture of Prickley is just make-up artist Beverley Schectman’s Polaroid of her for the Palmoval sketch.

  • Another small change to the news set this week; the SCTV station logo is replaced with the circular “SC” logo from the original show bumpers.

****

MESSAGE FROM GUY: EDITH PRICKLEY

  • Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) is proud to introduce new station manager Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin), who has some big changes planned.

  • Edith Prickley officially comes into her own here, being the first person we see actually standing up to Guy Caballero (literally shoving him out of her way), and also giving him someone to play off as an equal. A fine reintroduction to the character.

****

JAWS 23 PART 1

  • Mayor Vaughn (Dave Thomas) calls an emergency town meeting when a lack of sharks affects Amity’s tourism numbers.

  • An underrated and lesser-known movie parody, with the mayor resorting to using a physical contraption to “bite” someone, and the townspeople desperately taking a half-eaten Quint’s (Joe Flaherty) suggestion that a mackerel can be just as scary.

  • Of note is that this is the only time we see Billy Sol Hurok without Big Jim McBob; since Flaherty is playing Quint, Catherine O’Hara plays another hick who appears to be her Sharon LaPlante character from “Join The Shelley People” and the US-only “Consultation with Dr. Jake Sloan”.

****

SUNRISE SEMESTER: TOWN PRIDE

  • Paul Fistinyerface (John Candy) shows how to fight back when bad men try to make changes to your town.

  • The only Sunrise Semester sketch all season, which Jeff Robbins points out is strangely placed near the end of the show. It’s not amazing, but I still enjoy Candy playing the stern, well-meaning but wrong-headed Paul.

***

PROMO: SORE LOSERS

  • Ted Gordon (Dave Thomas) behaves childishly when the judge (Joe Flaherty) rules against his client.

  • Thomas’s Ted Gordon (from the first show’s Malpractice Lawyer promo) returns, this time even less professional than ever. Some funny escalation here, especially when he throws his client under the bus during his tantrum.

*** 1/2

WORDS TO LIVE BY: EDITH PRICKLEY

  • Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin) knows what the people want, and announces plans to get rid of the sermonettes, sports and news, then Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) arrives.

  • Good follow-up to the earlier sketch, with Mrs. Prickley having made herself at home and not intimidated in the least by Guy (making his last appearance of the season).

****

Final thoughts: A rebound in quality from the weak previous show, with some of the season’s best parodies (Shoot At The Stars, Jaws 23), another solid news segment, and of course, the solidification of Edith Prickley’s role at the station; yet as much as Andrea Martin makes Mrs. Prickley’s screentime count, Dave Thomas actually manages to steal tonight’s show from her with Jaws 2 and Sore Losers.

MVP:

  • Dave Thomas

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Sore Losers (moved to 2-25)

Blair version differences:

  • Removed: Sunrise Semester: Town Pride (moved to 2-22)

  • Added: Career Home Study (from 2-6), new syndication promo for SCTV 30th Anniversary Show (Robert Corness v/o)

Additional screencaps from this episode are available here.