Main Cast: Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Eugene Levy
Release Year: 1978
Country: CA
Run Time: 30 minutes
Plot
An outgrowth of Chicago's Second City comedy troupe, which was created in 1959, the Toronto branch of Second City invaded Canada's CBC in the fall of 1976 with a weekly, half-hour sketch comedy series, making up in talent and energy what it lacked in budget and production polish. Taped in Edmondton, Alberta, Second City TV had an angle which its spiritual predecessor, NBC's Saturday Night Live, lacked. Each episode purportedly took place during a typical broadcast day at Channel 109, in the "SCTV Studios"; thus, the satire and spoofery were aimed almost exclusively at popular television of the late '70s, with savage lampoons of vapid variety programs, glitzy game shows, pretentious miniseries, pompous newscasters, cheesy children's shows, and dopey do-it-yourself programs. Each member of the series' brilliant repertory company essayed a variety of roles, some of them recurring, but most of them hilarious one-shots. The cast included Joe Flaherty, often seen in the guise of the studio's shamelessly crooked owner, Guy Caballero; Andrea Martin, whose best-known characterization was obnoxious station manager Edith Prickley, who only got the job by default when her predecessor, Moe Green, was kidnapped; Harold Ramis as that selfsame Moe Green, along with several other characters; Eugene Levy, best known as self-important news anchor Earl Camembert; John Candy, who was usually cast as the station's lazy, overweight physical fitness guru Johnny LaRue; Catherine O'Hara, a specialist at playing such strident, superficial faux celebrities as Lola Heatherton; Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, best known for their appearances as the beer-guzzling McKenzie Brothers, hosts of "The Great White North" (a sequence contemptuously added to the proceedings when the CBC demanded that Second City TV include three weekly minutes of "exclusively Canadian content"); and in a variety of characterizations, Tony Rosato and Robin Duke. Second City TV was syndicated in the U.S. beginning in the fall of 1977, its exposure initially limited to the NBC-owned stations. After three seasons and 78 episodes produced between 1976 and 1980, the series was picked up by NBC and retooled in an expanded format (including guest stars and musical numbers) as SCTV Network 90. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
SCTV: Season 01 SCTV: Season 02 SCTV: Season 03 SCTV: 1984-Big Brother SCTV: Alfred Hitchcock Presents SCTV: Alpha Channel SCTV: Backstage SCTV: Bad Acting in Hollywood SCTV: Ben Hur SCTV: Best of 1 SCTV: Best of 2 SCTV: Best of 2 (US Version) SCTV: Best of 3 SCTV: Broads Behind Bars SCTV: Christmas with SCTV SCTV: Consumer Action Line SCTV: Cookery Crock/Cartoon Coroner SCTV: Crosswords with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud SCTV: Death Motel SCTV: Death of a Salesman SCTV: Death Takes No Holiday SCTV: Dialing for Dollars SCTV: Dick Cavett SCTV: Dr. Tongue's House of Wax/SCTV Boogie SCTV: Edith Prickley Station Manager SCTV: Ethnic Humour SCTV: Fantasy Island SCTV: Farm Film Report/Arabs SCTV: Fighting Air Dogs SCTV: Galaxy 66 SCTV: Gaslight SCTV: Gene Shalit's America SCTV: Goodbye America SCTV: Hollywood Salutes the Extras SCTV: Kidnapping of Moe Green SCTV: Leave It to Beaver SCTV: Lee A. Iaccoca's Rock Concert SCTV: Lust for Paint SCTV: Madame Blitzman SCTV: Man's Ability to Imitate SCTV: Match Unto My Feet SCTV: Mel's Rock Pile SCTV: Mel's Rock Pile/Macarthur Park SCTV: Memoirs of Anton Chekhov SCTV: Midnight Express Special SCTV: Municipal Election SCTV: Murder at SCTV SCTV: My Factory, My Self SCTV: Night Gallery SCTV: Officer Friendly SCTV: On the Waterfront Again SCTV: Philosophy Street/A Fistful of Ugly SCTV: Pipeline SCTV: Play It Again Bob SCTV: Relaxing With Raoul/Dining with LaRue SCTV: Repeats SCTV: Rock Concert SCTV: SCTV Disco SCTV: SCTV Solid Gold Telethon SCTV: SCTV's 30th Anniversary Show SCTV: Season Two Premiere SCTV: Shock Theater SCTV: Star Wars SCTV: The $129,000 Question SCTV: The Bob Hope Desert Classic SCTV: The Cisco Kid SCTV: The Flaming Turkey SCTV: The Grapes of Mud SCTV: The Hefty Neil Story SCTV: The Irwin Allen Show SCTV: The Lone Ranger Show SCTV: The Man Who Would Be King of the Popes SCTV: The Mating Game SCTV: The Mirthmakers/Happy Endings SCTV: The Sammy Maudlin Show SCTV: The Sammy Maudlin Show - Bob Hope in China SCTV: The Taxidermist SCTV: Therese et Joe SCTV: Thursday Night Live SCTV: Two Way TV/Pit Bulls SCTV: Undersea World SCTV: Whispers of the Wolf/The Occult SCTV: World at War SCTV: Writer's Strike
