SCTV Review: Star Wars (3-13) / Hollywood Salutes Its Extras (3-14)

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

“Star Wars” (season 3, episode 13, originally aired December 12, 1980)

SUNRISE SEMESTER: DO-IT-YOURSELF ADVERTISING

  • Phil the Garment King (Eugene Levy) teaches how to cut down on advertising costs by doing the commercials yourself.

  • Nice to see Phil again; while nothing can top the original Phil’s Nails commercial, it is always funny to watch Levy wildly move about, especially with his hands in his pockets and pants down.

  • Oof, that “can those dancing f*gs” line is really cringeworthy, especially now.

****

PROMO: CHICK MONK: ROADIE FOR THE DEFENSE

  • Chick Monk (Tony Rosato) deals with stray wires and other equipment issues while questioning a witness (Robin Duke).

  • A funny idea and Rosato is good in this (love that exposed beer gut), but I dock points for reusing the “falling speaker” gag from the other Chick Monk promo.

  • Music: “Sly” by Herbie Hancock.

***

TEASER: SCTV NEWS

  • Earl Camembert (Eugene Levy) promises a special surprise for his “close friend and colleague” Floyd Robertson (Joe Flaherty) which causes Floyd to walk off.

KANADIAN KORNER (#24)

  • Bob (Rick Moranis) and Doug (Dave Thomas) talk about Star Wars; Doug shows off his impressions of a phaser and Darth Vader.

  • The Darth Vader “impression” is worth the price of admission; it is a bit quaint to see Bob complain about not being able to see all the Star Wars movies at once or expecting that movie admissions will be $6 by the time the thirtieth film is out.

  • This week’s crawl is about how the show’s value can’t be measured by ratings or “Nielson-Ferns [sic]” ratings (actually a reference to a Canadian television production company; my great-uncle was the Nielsen) and that protecting the Canadian Identity is as important as the World Series, “now that Canada has two baseball teams, eh?”

*** 1/2

SCTV NEWS

  • Floyd Robertson (Joe Flaherty) reports on Togo setting a world record. Earl Camembert (Eugene Levy) plans to celebrate the anniversary of his partnership with Floyd with an editorial, but a message from a “new sponsor” dampens his mood.

  • A strong installment with Floyd humiliating Earl once again, this time in the form of a commercial for a Mr. Bill-style toy named “Mr. Earl”, which Floyd clearly has fun abusing (along with Peter Wugalter).

  • Great outro with Earl’s reaction, which Floyd clearly delights in (“You’re no friend of mine, Floyd!” “Well, you didn’t have to tell me that.”)

****

JONI MITCHELL’S FOR DOGS ONLY

  • Joni Mitchell’s (Andrea Martin) new album features vocal tricks that dogs can appreciate.

  • Nice touch with Martin singing over the instrumental parts of actual Joni Mitchell songs; I enjoyed the callback to Sunrise Semester at the end.

  • It looks like they ran out of ideas for real Mitchell song titles they could change to dog-related ones and just started doing any song that came to mind.

*** 1/2

BILL NEEDLE’S MAILBAG (#3)

  • Bill Needle (Dave Thomas) complains about his show, the letters he receives, and singers-turned-actors.

  • The debut of the station’s resident “angry commentator”, whose had five other shows cancelled before this one premiered. This one still feels like Thomas is feeling his way around before finding the comedic hook for the series.

  • This one was the third Mailbag produced; I’m curious what they did for the first two. In SCTV: Behind the Scenes, Dave Thomas mentioned he and Mike Short wrote these together and that a few of the sketches were nixed to avoid lawsuits; perhaps the whole business with Bill referring to the singer as “Coconut” is referencing this.

*** 1/2

SCTV PREMIERE: STAR WARS

  • Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) presents the premiere of the yet-to-be-released new Star Wars movie, sponsored by Videotech.

  • A pretty solid Caballero bit, notable for the debut of recurring SCTV advertiser Videotech (later to have Moranis’ character Gerry Todd as its spokesman). The sketch packs a lot into its runtime, ending with Caballero making a run for it after the authorities come after him for airing a bootleg.

  • Love seeing Dave Thomas as his sweating weasel William Morris character again.

  • The crawl for Star Wars Part XXXIV: Return to Planet of Empires is hilarious: “The Empire is in ruins. Darth Vadar [sic], aided by Evil Luke Skywalker, have captured Queen Leah [sic], whose drunken husband, King Hans [sic] Solo (he kept his name) has been on a bender with Yodo [sic] for seven light years.”

  • The 1999 WIC edit just mutes the audio outright during the Star Wars movie, including the sirens and Caballero’s dialogue reacting to the “not to be copied” message, with the sound restored as soon as it goes back to the shot of Caballero.

****

DIALING FOR DOLLARS

  • Walter Cronkite (Dave Thomas) haggles with a viewer (Rick Moranis) who made a small mistake guessing the title of the movie.

  • Some fun interplay between Thomas and Moranis, especially after Cronkite tries to pull a fast one on the viewer by hanging up before he could give his address.

  • Thomas’ book lists this as the third Dialing For Dollars sketch shot; number two will air in 3-18.

***

Final thoughts: A pretty solid and fun episode throughout, with one of the best SCTV News segments of the season, a particularly funny Guy Caballero sketch, and the first appearance of Bill Needle.

MVP:

  • (tie) Joe Flaherty / Eugene Levy / Dave Thomas

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Bill Needle’s Mailbag 3

Allarcom version differences (show #63C):

  • Removed: SCTV News teaser

Blair version differences (show #88A):

  • Removed: Bill Needle’s Mailbag 3

  • Added: new promo for Sammy Maudlin’s 23rd Anniversary (Robert Corness v/o)

1999 WIC version differences:

  • Edited: SCTV Premiere: Star Wars (music removed)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.

“Hollywood Salutes Its Extras” (season 3, episode 14, originally aired December 19, 1980)

MESSAGE FROM PRICKLEY: EXTRAS

  • Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin) invites the audience to tune into tonight’s special and brings out some extras of her own (Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis).

  • The usual from Prickley, but that’s not a bad thing. The bossing around the two extras was enoyable.

  • Prickley’s wearing different glasses this time around; white frames instead of her customary black ones.

***

MAMOREX CASSETTE TAPE

  • Audio reproduction so clear, even Ella Fitzgerald (Tony Rosato) can’t tell it from David Seville (Rick Moranis) performing live.

  • Hoo boy…the whole blackface and drag thing is iffy to begin with, but Rosato also makes Ella sound like later period Tom Waits (who she sounded nothing like).

  • The premise itself (a parody of Ella Fitzgerald’s real Memorex commercials) is alright, particularly due to how seriously Moranis sings when recording the song, which turns out to be a Chipmunks track.

  • I vaguely remember seeing some of those old-style Memorex tapes with the cases that open from the side in my parents’ collection, but they had been using the normal-style cases by the time I was born.

**

BILL NEEDLE’S MAILBAG (#5)

  • Bill Needle’s (Dave Thomas) show has been cut from two minutes to one, but he finally got some mail.

  • This is where the thread of the show being cut in half begins, and also refers directly to the segment used in the previous episode (I’m guessing #4 didn’t really move the plot any further).

  • I enjoy that the announcer has a bit of a disdainful tone in his voice-over.

*** 1/2

PROMO: TAXI DRIVER

  • Dick Cavett (Rick Moranis) wants to know “Are you talking to me?”

  • Fun use of Moranis’ Dick Cavett impression (the swivel chair was a nice touch).

*** 1/2

KANADIAN KORNER (#14)

  • This week’s topic is exercise; Bob (Rick Moranis) doesn’t have a lot to say but Doug (Dave Thomas) shows how to work out with a wolf pelt.

  • Anther pretty loose installment, with Moranis somewhat caught off-guard and Thomas having fun with that (he makes Moranis laugh with his “give me back our dog” line at the end).

  • This week’s crawl is about the demand from the fan club for toques exhausting their supply (made by an Inuit family on Baffin Island), and that future applicants will receive “wallet-sized pieces of back bacon personally selected by Bob and Doug”.

*** 1/2

HOWARD’S BRISTOL CREAM

  • A forward woman (Robin Duke) overshares while having a special man (Eugene Levy) over for a drink.

  • Robin Duke is great in this spoof of Harvey’s Bristol Cream commercials; her characterization of the talkative but somewhat socially awkward woman is fantastic. Eugene Levy also gets some good non-verbal acting in as her increasingly uncomfortable date.

****

SNEAK PREVIEWS

  • Gene Siskel (Joe Flaherty) and Roger Ebert (Dave Thomas) pan the newest Star Wars film (Part XCV: Empires Are A Girl’s Best Friend) and the “dog of the week”, Robert Altman’s adaptation of the comic strip Henry.

  • An early parody of the iconic pair (it’s kind of refreshing that they don’t use any “fat one” tropes about Ebert); the real laughs come from how crappy the two movies are, with a particularly cheap space fight and a dig at Altman’s recent Popeye movie.

  • The 1999 syndicated version and the DVD version both replace the John Williams Star Wars music, but while the former just uses a generic orchestral soundalike (“Toward Magic Mountain” by Demons), the latter uses the replacement polka music from “The Happy Wanderers Salute to John Williams” on the season 4 DVD set, which is actually pretty funny in this context.

****

PROMO: HAWAII FIVE-HO

  • Chin and Dano’s (Rick Moranis) new boss Don Ho (Tony Rosato) solves crimes and the lack of an opening act for Frank Sinatra.

  • Good quick piece, with a funny laid-back performance from Rosato.

  • The DVD version replaces the Hawaii Five-O theme, which ruins the final joke of Don singing the song with the words “hookie pookie” as lyrics.

***

HOLLYWOOD SALUTES ITS EXTRAS: PART I

  • Kirk Douglas (Joe Flaherty) hosts a tribute to the space-fillers of film and television.

  • While it’s nice to see Flaherty’s Kirk Douglas impression again (“Stars like ME!”), and the characterizations were funny, the idea is only mildly funny at best and just doesn’t come together.

**

PROMO: WHITE MAN, BLACK GIRL

  • I’m not going to assign a rating (it’s just graphics and a voiceover from the season 3 staff announcer) but it’s an amusing break with a nice escalation.

HOLLYWOOD SALUTES ITS EXTRAS: PART II

  • Investor Sid Dithers (Eugene Levy) and special business extra Miles “Dustin” Hoffer (Tony Rosato) give their perspectives on the profession.

  • Still kind of eh, despite Sid Dithers getting a “San Francisky” story in. While there is some humour coming out of the thinly-veiled disdain for the extras and the name-dropping, the piece is too stretched out to work.

  • The show closes with a fast-paced montage of film clips mixed in with a few scenes from other sketches, including Earl Camembert’s vacation, My Factory, My Self, the Participaction parody, and The Irwin Allen Show (including some of the stock footage used for the promotional announcements), followed by a pan across the whole cast dancing in character, all to “Hooray For Hollywood” (replaced on the DVD with the Ira Newborn theme). The last part must have been shot at the same time they taped the New Year’s Eve 1983 party since everyone is playing the same characters as they were in that sketch.

**

Final thoughts: A subpar episode, once again thanks to the longest sketch also being the worst. There are some strong pieces, especially in the middle of the show, but this is one of the season’s weakest shows.

MVP:

  • Robin Duke

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Bill Needle’s Mailbag 5, Taxi Driver (moved to 3-12)

Allarcom version differences (show #64C):

  • Removed: Howard’s Bristol Cream (moved to 3-3/53C)

  • Added: Jackie Stewart’s Wide World of High Voices (from 3-23)

Blair version differences (show #63A):

  • Removed: Bill Needle’s Mailbag 5, Taxi Driver

  • Added: new promo for Great White North Palace (Robert Corness v/o)

1999 WIC version differences:

  • Edited: Jackie Stewart’s Wide World of High Voices (“Staying Alive” and “Needle and the Damage Done” removed); Sneak Previews (Star Wars music replaced)

  • Added: Quick-Wash Dish-Laundry (from 1-15).

DVD differences:

  • Edited: Sneak Previews (Star Wars music replaced); Hawaii-Five Ho (Hawaii 5-0 theme replaced); Hollywood Salutes Its Extras: Part II (“Hooray For Hollywood” replaced)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.