***NOTE*** forgive me if this is in the wrong subforum, but I'm not entirely sure if this forum is exclusively for UK sketch comedy alone. If it is, forgive me and have a mod throw it in the international section.
Okay. Any SCTV fans in here?
SCTV was a Canadian sketch comedy show (and bitter rival for SNL). The original SCTV cast consisted of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas. By far, that cast was the best, as the Martin Short years aren't that great.
What I loved about the show was the overt satire of the real behaviors of celebrities before it was chic; Andrea Martin doing Linda Lavin playing I Loves You Porgy to this day is so gut wrenchingly funny to me, in part because I remember Lavin being an absolute four letter word starting in c and ending in t on her show and firing any actress that had more popularity than her. John Candy's Jack LaLane segments were GOLD.
Of course, Benny Hill Street Blues is my all time fav sendup.
For a minute, this show dominated over SNL, especially after the 1980 season saw the entire cast leave en masse and it was those weird rebuild seasons prior to Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscapo getting on there. Ironically, two SCTVers went over there and washed out in those transition seasons.
If you haven't checked it out, you should; there is a lot of eppys on YouTube. Its a refreshing show that really had no boundaries and were left to do whatever they wanted and it worked. It was also one of the first sketch comedies on American television that had female lead writers.
Cheers!
