SCTV Review: Midnight Express Special (3-19) / Cookery Crock (3-20)

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

“Midnight Express Special” (season 3, episode 19, originally aired Jan. 23, 1981)

SUNRISE SEMESTER: BASIC PHOTOGRAPHY

  • Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin) shares her formula for perfect passport photography, and demonstrates on her cousin Shirley (Robin Duke).

  • A good use of Edith Prickley and her boisterous, take-charge personality. I also enjoyed Duke having a few mild Prickleyisms and constantly drinking more wine as the shoot goes on.

  • I love “We’re talking music with a beat, we’re talking music you can move to…we’re talking Bartok!”

*** 1/2

MAMOREX VIDEO TAPE

  • Reproduction so real, even Ella Fitzgerald (Tony Rosato) can’t tell if Tom Waits (Rick Moranis) and Rickie Lee Jones (Robin Duke) are live or videotaped.

  • Rosato’s Ella Fitzgerald is still a big yikes, but I thought this one worked better due to the added absurdism, with Ella concluding that she herself must be tape.

  • I also like that Waits and Jones are recording Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story. By the time this sketch aired, Waits had already married Kathleen Brennan, who would be his creative collaborator.

  • The tapes pictured are U-Matic format.

***

KANADIAN KORNER (#26)

  • Bob (Rick Moranis) and Doug (Dave Thomas) discuss the problem with going bowling loaded; Doug has Bob do his “little guy” voice and uses him as a ventriloquist dummy.

  • The usual loose but entertaining stuff with Bob and Doug hassling each other, clearly just playing off one another.

  • No crawl this week.

***

PROMO: TOMORROW, TODAY, TONIGHT

  • SCTV’s three magazine shows are back.

  • I’m not going to assign a rating but the confusing titles and times were pretty funny.

BILL NEEDLE’S MAILBAG (#9)

  • Bill Needle (Dave Thomas) gets dragged away as he complains about being cut to three seconds.

  • The other people (including Peter Wugalter) pulling Bill off was a nice escalation from the last installment.

*** 1/2

MESSAGE FROM GUY: MIDNIGHT EXPRESS SPECIAL

  • Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) announces the SCTV Satellite System will bring viewers a special live from Turkey, and begs for more money.

  • One of the funnier Guy Caballero messages; this one feels pretty improvised. Guy asking for “$10,000…per person” was hilarious, as was the reference to the “sister station” in Istanbul (“I think it’s called ITV”).

*** 1/2

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS SPECIAL: PART I

  • Abbott (Eugene Levy) and Costello (Tony Rosato) get into trouble with customs and try to introduce The Band; John Denver (Rick Moranis) and Anne Murray (Robin Duke) get interrupted by drug-seeking Turkish guards.

  • One of SCTV’s best multi-layered parodies, mixing Abbott and Costello (who appear to be in present day despite being on scratchy black-and-white “film”), the 1978 film Midnight Express, and NBC’s late night music showcase The Midnight Special, complete with Moranis playing Wolfman Jack as a real lycanthrope and making shady deals with one of the Turkish agents (Dave Thomas).

  • This is also a great showcase for Tony Rosato’s Lou Costello; he and Levy do a great job transposing the “Who’s On First” routine with The Band, The Who and Yes.

  • Writer Dick Blasucci plays one of the guards; the other is played by Second City Edmonton cast member Jan Randall.

  • The music performance segments just feature the cast lip syncing to the recordings, but the angle with them being prisoners in a Turkish jail and getting attacked by drug-seeking guards (“Snow!”) was funny.

*****

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS SPECIAL: PART II

  • Abbott (Eugene Levy) tells Costello (Tony Rosato) those weren’t chocolate bars he received; guards stop Randy Newman (Dave Thomas) from taking off his “Pants”; another passenger’s (Robin Duke) package causes more hassles for Costello.

  • Levy and Rosato work well together as Abbott and Costello; the bits require a specific rhythm and timing, so this really plays to their strengths as performers.

  • The 1999 WIC version and DVD replace the Randy Newman song with generic music and cut it so the guards drag him out before he gets to sing a word, which blunts the bit somewhat.

*****

Final thoughts: A strong show, particularly boosted by its centerpiece sketch, the great Midnight Express Special, one of the best example of SCTV’s ability to combine disparate elements into a cohesive parody.

MVP:

  • Tony Rosato

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Kanadian Korner 26

Allarcom version differences (show #69C):

  • Removed: Tomorrow Today Tonight promo (moved to 3-16/66C)

Blair version differences (show #24A):

  • Removed: Kanadian Korner 26 (moved to 3-15/25A), Tomorrow Today Tonight promo (moved to 3-15/25A), Bill Needle’s Mailbag 9

  • Edited: Midnight Express Special part I

  • Added: The Freddie de Cordova Show promo (from 3-20), new promo for The Irwin Allen Show (Robert Corness v/o)

1999 WIC version differences:

  • Edited: Midnight Express Special part II (“Pants” edited out)

DVD version differences:

  • Edited: Midnight Express Special part II (“Pants” edited out)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.

“Cookery Crock” (season 3, episode 20, originally aired Jan. 30, 1981)

SUNRISE SEMESTER: DISASTERS IN THE HOME

  • Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin) tries to assist her neighbour (Robin Duke) with what to do in case of a wastepaper basket fire

  • The second show in a row to begin with an Edith Prickley-hosted Sunrise Semester co-starring Robin Duke.

  • This one wasn’t quite as strong as the photography lesson, even though Andrea Martin’s Edith Prickley has some funny bits. Part of it is because Prickley is so confident and competent that her causing more trouble by getting carried away with making jokes seems a little out of character for her.

  • The 1999 WIC version has a small cut to remove Prickley singing “Come on baby, light my fire” as she uses the torch to ignite the garbage.

***

NASEX NASAL DEODORANT

  • Prevent offensive nasal breath by starting your day with the nasal spray.

  • I’m enjoying Levy and Moranis’ characterizations here, especially Moranis having a particularly nasal voice.

  • The random diagram of the nose in the bedroom was great.

  • Nice sight gag with the area around Moranis’ nostrils being red after using the product.

****

BILL NEEDLE’S MAILBAG (#10)

  • Bill Needle (Dave Thomas) gets muffled and dragged out after he says his name.

  • Even though it was pretty obvious that the other sketches were leading up to this, it still worked.

***

KANADIAN KORNER (#20)

  • Bob (Rick Moranis) and Doug (Dave Thomas) discuss things that bug them, like people honking when you stop to look at an accident, and express lanes at Canadian Tire.

  • This is even funnier when you watch right after the one that aired in 3-10, since this is a redo of that one; Moranis says his opening spiel really fast in order to make sure he gets it in while Thomas interrupts.

  • Canadian Tire is a major chain of stores focusing on automotive, hardware, sports, leisure and housewares, best known for its Canadian Tire money.

  • This week’s crawl advises that the show is protected by the Canadian Identity Crisis Centre and reproduction is prohibited, but viewers are encouraged to act like Bob and Doug, eat back bacon, drink beer, and wear toques, and are given an address for an organization called H.O.S.E.R. in Edmonton.

*** 1/2

PROMO: THE FREDDIE DE CORDOVA SHOW

  • Everybody’s favourite talk show producer (Joe Flaherty) interviews his guests from off camera in his new show.

  • Another season-long runner culmination here; it helps more if you understand who Fred de Cordova was and have seen the other bits, but it stands on its own.

  • Tony Rosato is playing Robert Blake, but I’m not sure who Robin Duke’s character (“Bubbles”) is supposed to be.

***

COOKERY CROCK

  • Angus Crock (Dave Thomas) brings out guest Gregory Peck (Joe Flaherty) in character as Dr. Josef Mengele, makes scones with an audience member, and plays the Scottish blues with his band.

  • A great use of Angus Crock. This has a little bit of a “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” quality to it, but it hangs together better than the Cooking With Marcello at the Vatican.

  • The Gregory Peck sequence, playing off his role in The Boys From Brazil, is so random and dark that it’s funny. Dave Thomas writes in SCTV: Behind The Scenes that the dogs that chase Flaherty off set “were not trained show-biz dogs. They were just two Dobermans from some ranch in Edmonton that were insane enough to chase anyone.”

  • The sequence with him flirting with a 15-year-old audience volunteer is a little creepy, but there are some laughs from him criticizing the number of raisins she puts in a scone.

  • One thing that amused me is how Crock’s band starts playing faster as he races to pull the burning scones out of the oven.

****

QUINCY: CARTOON CORONER

  • Quincy (Joe Flaherty) searches for the truth when Sylvester is brought in flatter than a pancake.

  • The debut of Flaherty’s Jack Klugman impression in a sketch so shamelessly silly that it’s a classic. Flaherty has a particularly impressive 2-minute run where he tells the entire story of what happened to Sylvester while maintaining the impression.

  • I love the detail of the “cases” just being comic strips on the boss’s (Dave Thomas) desk. I also enjoyed the low-budget way they get around Quincy interviewing Tweety and Spike.

  • Tony Rosato playing Robert Ito’s character Sam is a little iffy, but the extent of the makeup just seems to be eyeliner, so I’ll let it slide.

*****

Final thoughts: Another very good show, with a particularly strong back half. The back-to-back run of Cookery Crock and Quincy: Cartoon Coroner has some particularly inspired moments; Flaherty’s performance in the latter alone is an all-time great.

MVP:

  • Joe Flaherty

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Kanadian Korner 20

Allarcom version differences (show #70C):

  • Removed: Nasex Nasal Deodorant (moved to 3-23/73C), Kanadian Korner 20

  • Added: Eskimo Arts (from 3-21), Message From Guy: Satellite Orbit (from 3-6)

Blair version differences (show #81A):

  • Removed: Bill Needle’s Mailbag 10, The Freddie de Cordova Show promo (moved to 3-19/24A)

  • Added: new promo for New York Rhapsody (Robert Corness v/o)

1999 WIC version differences:

  • Edited: Sunrise Semester (“Light My Fire” quote removed)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.