SCTV Review: The Cisco Kid (3-25) / The Best of SCTV (3-26)

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

“The Cisco Kid” (season 3, episode 25, originally aired Mar. 6, 1981)

MESSAGE FROM PRICKLEY: THE CISCO KID

  • Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin) announces that the Cisco Kid will ride again tonight on SCTV.

  • Funny piece; Edith’s glee about tonight’s rerun and her crawling on the desk make this stand out.

  • Edith’s “To hell with original programming” line feels like a tacit admission that the end of the season isn’t going to have a whole lot of new content.

*** 1/2

MARLON PERKINS’ WILDLIFE DINNER RESTAURANT

  • Marlon Perkins (Dave Thomas) promotes a new concept in family dining, where you pick the food you want to see on your TV, and get exactly what you order.

  • Not bad; the ending with Perkins being dragged to the kitchen after the family has him on the TV was funny.

***

PROMO: NEIL JUNG, PSYCHIATRIST

  • Neil Jung (Rick Moranis) helps Tony Orlando (Tony Rosato) sing his depression away.

  • Brief, but a strong return for both Moranis’ Neil Young and Rosato’s Tony Orlando impressions; I particularly like that Neil’s singing most of his dialogue and that the couch has a microphone set up above it.

****

PROMO: THE LOVE BOAT

  • The five hour conclusion has the all-new cast sailing off course and running into the gang from The Deer Hunter.

  • Only about 20 seconds long, so it’s not really worth a rating, but I love how ridiculously lengthy it is, and that it’s billed as a comedy.

KANADIAN KORNER (#33)

  • Doug (Dave Thomas), calling himself “Mr. X” to evade the cops, shows off the new studio he started to build.

  • The last original Kanadian Korner of the season and also the only installment of the outdoor series to run in the U.S. versions; pretty much all the elements that make these segments work are here, and the business with the “door” was fun.

  • Thomas breaks character a bit when he says “You wrecked the studio!”

*** 1/2

THE CISCO KID: PART I

  • In Friendlyville, Cisco and Pancho stumble into a bank robbery by Canadianese Liberation Army members Bart, Duane, Patty and Pop. Cisco and Bart get into a confrontation.

  • This segment wasn’t actually produced for SCTV; it was originally a pilot for a series called Laugh Track from two years earlier, which presented a “lost” episode of The Cisco Kid (actually footage from a real episode, “Sleeping Gas”) featuring new dialog dubbed in by then-Second City Toronto cast members Steven Kampmann, P.J. Torokvei, Don Dickinson, and future SCTV cast member Martin Short.

  • By the time this finally appeared on SCTV, Kampmann and Torokvei had been hired as writers for WKRP in Cincinnati, and Short had already starred in two short-lived sitcoms, The Associates and I’m a Big Girl Now.

  • This is very densely packed with jokes, and Short’s voice is instantly recognizable as Pancho. Kampmann, who also co-wrote the pilot with Torokvei, does the silliest voices, Patty and Duane, and gets some of my favourite lines (“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, they’re handing out Bulgarian money today.”)

  • The SCTV version is edited down a fair bit, removing small pieces of dialogue here and there, as well as whole scenes with Patty meeting the first bank’s manager, Cisco and Pancho confronting Pop as he leaves town, Pop telling Patty about his run-in and Duane having an identity crisis. There are a number of jokes in the edited version that make more sense when you see the full thing, though the cut down version still works.

****

THE CISCO KID: PART II

  • Cisco survives falling off a cliff and Pancho learns that the bad guys are hitting a bank in Wellington. After thwarting the robbery, Cisco gets Duane and sends the CLA back to Canada.

  • Overall, this was a slight step down from the first part, but still has some worthwhile bits, such as the actor playing Bart trying to get the others’ attention after he gets injured in the fall, and the second bank manager willingly giving Patty the money when she blackmails him.

  • Kampmann and Torokvei reuse the “You make money and I make money, and nobody knows-” line in WKRP.

  • In the original Laugh Track credits, one of Short’s roles is listed as Ed Grimley, though no such character seems to appear.

*** 1/2

Final thoughts: This is mostly a curiosity thanks to the lack of original content (about 6 minutes), Joe Flaherty’s complete absence, Martin Short’s participation and its exclusion from the later rerun packages (the estate of Duncan Renaldo allegedly forbade Rhodes from reairing this episode), but for what is essentially a filler episode meant to pad out the season order, this is still pretty entertaining.

MVP:

  • Rick Moranis (new content) / Steven Kampmann (Cisco Kid)

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Marlon Perkins’ Wildlife Dinner Restaurant, The Love Boat promo

Allarcom version differences:

  • episode not included in package; Marlon Perkins’ Wildlife Dinner Restaurant moved to show 3-15/65C, The Love Boat promo moved to show 3-24/74C.

Blair version differences:

  • episode not included in package.

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.

“The Best of SCTV” (season 3, episode 26, originally aired Mar. 13, 1981)

MESSAGE FROM GUY: SATELLITE

  • Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) requests viewers to send their money; as he begins an explanation of the SCTV satellite, it falls apart as it lowers onto the desk and the signal is lost.

  • Not sure whether this warrants a rating (it’s only a minute long), but I do give credit for at least having a good lead-in to the compilation of sketches from earlier in the season.

SUNRISE SEMESTER: DO IT YOURSELF ADVERTISING (from 3-13)

PROMO: THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW (from 3-10)

KANADIAN KORNER (#24) (from 3-13)

PROMO: TAXI DRIVER (from 3-11)

THE DICK CAVETT SHOW (from 3-8)

PROMO: ELVIS ‘N COSTELLO (from 3-3)

K-TEL’S FAST-TALKING PLAYHOUSE (from 3-2)

PROMO: WHITE MAN, BLACK GIRL (from 3-14)

PROMO: MY FAIR LADY (from 3-1)

PROMO: MY LIFE, ONE MORE TIME (from 3-1)

MAMOREX VIDEO TAPE (from 3-19)

SIGNOFF: THE NATIONAL ANTHEM (from 3-12)

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Elvis ‘n Costello promo, White Man Black Girl promo

Allarcom version differences:

  • episode not included in package.

Blair version differences:

  • episode not included in package.

Screencaps of the show’s original content are available here.