SCTV parody shows include a parody of the
Western drama The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, retitled
Grizzly Abrams, which depicts Adams as the owner of a wild
tortoise that takes weeks to lead police to the skeletal remains of its master, trapped beneath a fallen log.
Battle of the PBS Stars is a parody of ABC television's
Battle of the Network Stars athletic competitions that pitted performers against each other in running and swimming events.
SCTVs version features a team of public television stars captained by
William F. Buckley Jr. (played by Flaherty) vs. a team led by
Carl Sagan (played by Thomas), with confrontations that include
Fred Rogers of ''
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' fame (played by Short) in a boxing match with chef
Julia Child (played by Candy). ''The People's Global Golden Choice Awards'' sends up award shows in which the industry honours itself. Presenters include
Elizabeth Taylor (played by O'Hara) and
Jack Klugman (Flaherty) reading off the nominees in each category, with
SCTV chief Guy Caballero secretly having conspired to guarantee that every award goes to his own network's stars.
SCTVs sketches also involve parodies of low-budget late-night advertisements, such as "Al Peck's Used Fruit" (enticing viewers to visit by offering free tickets to
Circus Lupus, the Circus of the Wolves; mocked-up photos depict wolves forming a pyramid and jumping through flaming hoops). They also created faux-inept ads for local businesses such as "Phil's Nails", "Chet Vet the Dead Pet Remover", and "Tex and Edna Boil's Prairie Warehouse and Curio Emporium." The laugh track used in early episodes was recorded using audience reactions during live performances in the Second City theatre.
Sketches and characters Popular sketches and recurring characters include: •
Mailbag,
SCTVs take on a
vox populi segment where near-apoplectic host Bill Needle (Thomas) answers viewer mail. The show's length is continually cut until Needle is down to mere seconds of airtime. Needle appears frequently in
SCTV shows that were canceled after one episode. •
Farm Film Report or
Farm Film Celebrity Blow-Up: Two
hicks named Big Jim McBob (Flaherty) and Billy Sol Hurok (Candy) (a spoof of
Billie Sol Estes and
Sol Hurok - citation?) interview celebrities and ultimately encourage them to explode (creating the catchphrase "blowed up good, blowed up
real good!"). Exploding guests include
Dustin Hoffman,
David Steinberg (both played by Short),
Bernadette Peters (Martin),
Meryl Streep,
Brooke Shields (both played by O'Hara), and a lispy
Neil Sedaka (Levy). •
Polynesiantown is a parody of modern-day film noir. In its attempt to emulate the movie
Chinatown, this extended one-shot sketch ends with a crane shot that pushes the show so over budget that the sketch's producers get in trouble with the network. The show's writers incorporate this behind-the-scenes drama into the show's long-term continuity, sending the career of actor/producer/superstar Johnny LaRue (Candy) into a tailspin as a result of this budget mishap. •
The Sammy Maudlin Show: Flaherty is the
Afro-coiffed, knee-slapping, overly effusive host welcoming a panel of "stars" who do nothing but heap lavish praise on each other and applaud their pointless profundities. The sketch originated as a parody of
Sammy Davis Jr.'s short-lived talk show
Sammy and Company. John Candy played the
Ed McMahon-style
sidekick/
sycophant William B. Williams, named for the actual sidekick on
Sammy and Company, radio personality
William B. Williams. Eugene Levy portrayed egomaniacal funnyman Bobby Bittman, with his repeated catchphrase "How are ya?". Bittman's younger brother, Skip Bittman, played by Moranis, also eventually appeared on
Maudlin. Andrea Martin parodied
Liza Minnelli and
Lorna Luft with "real terrific" combo-character Lorna Minnelli; Catherine O'Hara also portrayed a character that combined two personalities, Lola Heatherton, based on
Joey Heatherton and
Lola Falana. •
The Days of the Week is a soap-opera spoof, with the continuing saga of terminally ill rock star Clay Collins (Moranis) trying to marry slutty fiancée Sue Ellen Alison (O'Hara) in the few days left to him by his tactless doctor Elliot Sabian (Levy). A second plot hatched by corrupt doctor Wainwright (Candy) has small-time criminal Rocco (Flaherty) conning the wealthy Violet McKay (O'Hara) into accepting him as her long-lost son Billy, though Rocco is so inept that he mistakes Mojo the maid (Martin) for his mother. A third story has the suave swindler Harrington (Thomas) trying to seduce the suicidally depressed May Matlock (Martin) out of the land she owns. It is the only recurring segment throughout the series without a laugh track. The title is a parody of the title of one of the most famous soap operas,
Days of Our Lives. • ''Mel's Rock Pile
is a knockoff of the Citytv dance show Boogie
and closely resembles American Bandstand and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert''. It is hosted by "Rockin' Mel" Slirrup (Levy), a nervous, bespectacled nerd who plays lame pop songs for surly in-studio teen guests. One memorable episode of ''Mel's Rock Pile
features an appearance by Sex Pistols-type band The Queen Haters'', featuring the entire Short-era cast in perfect '80s punk-band mode. Another features Thomas as
Richard Harris, performing "
MacArthur Park" live in the studio, complete with lengthy instrumental breaks. As Harris dances jerkily behind the microphone and his backing vocalist sits reading a book, Mel awkwardly tries to fill the otherwise-idle time in various ways such as talking with spectators and sending the show to a commercial. Once the song finally ends, a spectator throws a brick at Harris and hits him in the chest. • Martin Short's Jackie Rogers Jr. is an earnestly smarmy
albino Las Vegas headliner with a grating, lisping laugh in a manner similar to Sammy Davis Jr. Rogers is partial to sequinned jumpsuits,
Jack Jones-style song standards, and "eligible ladies". Later, Rogers runs for political office but drops out of the race when he realizes it is cramping his showbiz lifestyle. His father, Jackie Rogers Sr., (also played by Short) was a vaudeville star who fell on hard times after a child welfare officer took away the children he used in his act (including his own son). After his agent finds him boxing and urges him to get back into singing, Rogers Sr. sets up a comeback special called
Jackie Rogers Sr.: Swinging with Nature. Unfortunately, Rogers Sr. died when a cougar attacked him during one of his musical numbers. Jackie Rogers Jr., like Ed Grimley, was later seen on
Saturday Night Live when Short was hired there as a cast member. • Short's somewhat unclassifiable uber-nerd
Ed Grimley (later featured on
Saturday Night Live when Short became a regular) is an SCTV fixture, appearing on numerous assorted shows,
commercials, promos, and "behind-the-scenes" dramas. His hair is styled using an upside-down funnel, and he plays the
triangle, for which he took lessons. Grimley has an obsession with the game show
Wheel of Fortune and host
Pat Sajak. The
SNL version of the character is the same, except the sketches have Grimley getting involved in weird situations: meeting a perpetually unlucky man (played by
Ringo Starr), being targeted by the Devil (played by
Jon Lovitz), and having a near-death experience where his guardian angel (played by special guest host Chevy Chase) will not let him go to Heaven because he needs to get a life. As of 2012, Grimley is the only
SNL and
SCTV character to have his own children's cartoon show:
The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley from 1988 (an animated Count Floyd also had a regular segment in this series). •
Half-Wits and
High-Q are parodies of quiz shows
College Bowl and
Reach for the Top hosted by a highly irritable
Alex Trebek approximation named Alex Trebel (Levy). Over a decade later, Levy gave
Norm Macdonald permission to borrow the basic premise for the
Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches on
Saturday Night Live;
Will Ferrell likewise played an irritable, exasperated Trebek. •
The 5 Neat Guys, an absurdly clean-cut, '50s-style
vocal group (
à la The Four Freshmen), are portrayed by Candy, Flaherty (as the drunk one), Levy, Moranis, and Thomas. The "5" sing songs such as "I've Got a Hickey on My Shoulder", "Pimples and Pockmarks", and other unmemorable tunes. Several of their songs contrast with their squeaky-clean image, however, such as "She Does It", "Nancy Has the Largest Breasts in Town", and "Who Made the Egg Salad Sandwiches?". • Connie Franklin is a caricature of
Connie Francis portrayed by Andrea Martin. Franklin appears on the
Sammy Maudlin Show and also in a parody of mail-order record commercials. Her songs are universally depressing; one contains the lyrics, "I'm losing my hearing, I've lost sight in one eye. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, did you really say goodbye?" • Another Martin Short character, talk-show host Brock Linehan, is a parody of real-life Canadian interviewer
Brian Linehan. Linehan was famous for his meticulous interview preparation, often uncovering details that even his interview guests had forgotten about, which Short satirizes by going in the opposite direction. On
SCTVs version of the Linehan show, called
Stars in One, all the research compiled about any particular episode's guest is totally wrong, making for unhappy guests and a frustrated, uneasy host. • Harry, the Guy with the Snake on his Face (Candy), runs Melonville's adult book and
X-rated video stores. • "Video
deejay" Gerry Todd (Moranis) hosts an all-night "televised-radio" type of video show. Moranis's turtleneck-sporting, smooth-talking, radio-personality parody, complete with casually pronounced "vuddeeo", presages the first group of
MTV VJs. • Mayor Tommy Shanks (Candy) is Melonville's "easygoing" (i.e., corrupt) mayor, a man prone to sudden fits of rage and physical violence who still gives regular
fireside chats on
SCTV, while feeding treats to a stuffed dog that sits motionless by his side. Throwing out one
non sequitur after another, Shanks manages to convey absolutely nothing of relevance during his broadcasts. Eventually, he succumbs to mental illness and is institutionalized. While still in the institution, he runs for reelection with the campaign slogan "Get me outta here!" and wins by a landslide. Some sources erroneously claim the character is named after Edmonton jazz musician (and future senator)
Tommy Banks, but the character antedates
SCTV's move to Edmonton by two years (first being referenced in the Toronto-shot episode 2.8 "The Mirthmakers/Happy Endings", aired 4 November 1978) and does not resemble Banks. •
SCTV News (later
Nightline Melonville), anchored by Flaherty as mostly professional (but
alcoholic) newscaster
Floyd Robertson and Levy as geeky, clueless
Earl Camembert, a model of oblivious self-importance. The members of the SCTV news team are named after Canadian news anchors
Lloyd Robertson and
Earl Cameron, respectively, but otherwise bear no resemblance to their real-life counterparts (Camembert was in fact based on American newsman
Irv Weinstein). Unlike the
Saturday Night Live news parody
Weekend Update, which typically uses actual news headlines as setups for more satirical humour,
SCTV News uses more absurdist humour, with news stories often focusing on events in Melonville. Another source of humour for this segment is the contrast between the hapless Camembert (whose name is inexplicably pronounced "Canenbare") and the more respected Robertson, who usually ends up playing straight man to Camembert's antics. A running gag involves the news team's tendency to give the hard news items to Robertson (such as the latest earthquake to hit the tiny nation of
Togoland) and the trivial or poorly prepared stories to his co-anchor (such as a fire at a
doily factory). •
Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: This fright-film showcase is hosted by Flaherty's character
Count Floyd — a "vampire" who mysteriously howls like a wolf. Floyd is unable to pick genuinely scary movies, and at times has to introduce movies he has never seen, about whose content he has no clue. The show features laughably non-frightening
Z movies like ''Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses
, 3-D House of Beef
, and Tip O'Neill's 3-D House of Representatives''; 3-D movies are burlesqued. Many of the movie's feature "mad scientist" Dr. Tongue (Candy) and his hunchback assistant Bruno, played by Woody Tobias Jr. (Levy). As revealed in his first appearance, Count Floyd is actually
SCTV News anchorman Floyd Robertson working a second job. This character note was then ignored for several years before being picked up again as a plot thread toward the end of the show's run. Floyd's double duty is a comic homage to the early days of television, where the kiddie-show hosts at smaller TV stations were often members of the local news staff in costume. • ''Mrs. Falbo's Tiny Town'' is an educational television show parody. Wanda Falbo (Martin) talks to the children's viewers about different things as her visit to Melonville Maximum Security Prison and even introduced the kids to
G. Gordon Liddy (Thomas). She is assisted by Mr. Messenger (Candy). Wanda Falbo was later featured in segments of
Sesame Street from 1989 to 2000, where she worked as the Word Fairy. • The Shmenge Brothers (Candy and Levy) are the leaders of a
polka band from the fictional Eastern European country of Leutonia, called The Happy Wanderers. Based upon
Czechoslovak-born,
Edmonton-based polka cable show host Gaby Haas, the Shmenges appear during seasons three and four. Like
Bob and Doug McKenzie, the Shmenges were
breakout characters and their popularity resulted in the
HBO special
The Last Polka (a parody of
Martin Scorsese's
The Last Waltz). In one episode, the Shmenges perform a memorable tribute to composer
John Williams. The band's name is based on the Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller song "
The Happy Wanderer", which is frequently performed by polka artists. The hosts make a point of thanking the hostesses, in each episode, for the cabbage rolls and coffee provided. Later, Candy played another polka clarinetist in
Home Alone, which also starred O'Hara. • Harvey K-Tel is portrayed by Thomas. K-Tel, a parody of rapid-fire, mail-order commercial announcers, speaks in a rapid patter both on and off the air. The character's name is derived both from Canadian mail-order commercial company
K-tel and actor
Harvey Keitel. • The famous CCCP1-Russian television episode has SCTV taken over by Soviet programming. At first, nothing seems out of the ordinary at the station; on the air, Levy plays
Perry Como in a promo for
Still Alive, a TV special in which Como's trademark relaxed style is taken to ludicrous extremes as the singer performs most of the
disco-inspired set lying down (at one point performing "
I Love the Nightlife" curled up in bed). Then, after
The Great White North, and during a live broadcast of
Caesar featuring Bobby Bittman, SCTV experiences a
broadcast signal intrusion as a Soviet propaganda channel's signal overtakes SCTV's. The station calls itself "three-C-P-one", referring to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which is abbreviated USSR in English, but CCCP in
Cyrillic. The "shows" are Russian-themed spoofs: ''Tibor's Tractor
, a situation comedy about a talking tractor similar to My Mother the Car—only with the voice of Nikita Khrushchev; a game show, What Fits into Russia?'', in which the host mocks other countries by comparing them to
USSR's massive size;
Upo-Scrabblenyk, a crossword game show where ridiculously long words are considered abbreviations; and
Hey, Giorgy, a sitcom about "everybody's favorite Cossack" modeled on the Canadian TV series
King of Kensington, with the memorable line "Uzbeks drank my battery fluid!", uttered when Moranis's
Lada will not start outside an alehouse. (Popping the hood reveals the old-style battery's six cells sporting bendy straws.) The CCCP1 episode is shot with a "new Soviet mini-cam", a massive electronic device the size of a small car that has to be dragged around by three technicians and burns up early in the show. The piece makes it clear on several occasions that CCCP's enemy is the
Uzbeks, a reflection of the Soviet Union's ongoing struggle with Uzbek nationalism. At one point, Guy Caballero attempts to get parent network NBC to address the intrusion, only for
Fred Silverman to inquire if the Soviet programs are ratings hits. • A
Jazz Singer parody reverses the story by having musical guest
Al Jarreau play a popular jazz singer who wants to become a cantor (
hazzan). His father is a disapproving pop-music impresario played by Levy's befuddled Sid Dithers. Dithers, four feet tall and cross-eyed behind Coke-bottle glasses, speaks with a thick early
vaudeville-style
Yiddish accent ("San Fransishky? So how did you came: did you drove, or did you flew?"). The payoff of this parody makes for a classic SCTV moment: Jarreau has become a
synagogue cantor, fulfilling his dream against his father's wishes, and he wonders if his father will ever speak to him again, until, during the service, he is interrupted by a disco-clad Dithers standing in the doorway in dancing shoes, spangled jacket, and corn-rowed hair. • ''Tex & Edna Boil's Organ Emporium'' (or "Prairie Warehouse and Curio Emporium") is a series of parodies of local car-dealer TV ads with Tex and Edna (Thomas and Martin) imploring viewers to "Come on down!" to buy their wares. •
Thursday Night Live is an atrociously low-budget ripoff of
Fridays and
Saturday Night Live created by Guy Caballero, who wants to go hip by making this show. It is a long collage of uncontrollable laughter and hooting from the rowdy audience, and many unconvincing samplings of profanity and corny drug jokes. The guest host is Earl Camembert, who during the monologue, does a bad impression of Steve Martin, saying, "Well, I beg your pardon!" •
Towering Inferno is a satire of the 1974
Irwin Allen film, with each cast member playing multiple roles, trying to escape "the world's thinnest, tallest building" after it catches on fire. Martin is at this point the only female cast member, so they are forced to use doubles when two women appear in the same shot. As Dr. Tongue, Candy actually says, "You take the Edith Prickley double and I'll take the other girl and get out of here", acknowledging the fake as a wink to the audience. Also, a nuclear reactor is on the top of the building, with a spinning restaurant above it. •
Doorway to Hell with
Lin Ye Tang (Dave Thomas) is a program similar to
The Twilight Zone. • Moranis portrays singer
Michael McDonald in a sketch parodying his prevalence as a backing vocalist during the 1970s and 80s. In it, he's shown speeding to a studio set to
Christopher Cross's Ride Like the Wind, where he spends the minute-long session between repeatedly singing his six words of the song ("such a long way to go") and arguing royalties with the producer. After he's finished, the producer tells him he'll probably call him in next week for another recording and McDonald runs back to his car to rush to the next studio.
Bob and Doug McKenzie Ironically, the most popular sketch in the program's eight-year history was intended as throw-away filler. Bob and Doug McKenzie, the dim-witted, beer-chugging, and
back bacon-eating brothers in a recurring Canadian-themed sketch called
Great White North, were initially developed by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as a sardonic response to the CBC network's request that the show feature two minutes of "identifiably
Canadian content" in every episode. The two-minute length reflects the fact that American shows were two minutes shorter than Canadian ones (to allow more
commercials), leaving two minutes needing content for the Canadian market. The Bob and Doug McKenzie segments first appeared in 1980 at the start of season three and continued in every episode until Thomas and Moranis left the series. The characters ultimately became icons of the very
Canadian culture they parodied, spinning off albums, a feature film (
Strange Brew), commercials, and numerous TV and film cameos. Bob and Doug helped popularize the stereotypical Canadian trait of adding "
eh" to the end of sentences, a facet of Canadian life often gently ridiculed in American shows featuring Canadian characters. Lines from the sketch, such as "Take off, you hoser!", became part of North American popular culture. Thomas later revealed in his 1996 book
SCTV: Behind the Scenes that the other members of the cast grew envious and bitter at the immense financial and popular success of the Bob and Doug McKenzie albums, ultimately leading to Thomas and Moranis leaving the show in 1982. Flaherty and Candy accused Thomas of using his position as head writer to increase the visibility of Bob and Doug, though the original segments were largely unscripted. An
SCTV episode even poked fun at the duo's popularity. Guy Caballero declared that they had become SCTV's top celebrities, supplanting Johnny LaRue. This led to the pair being given a Bob and Doug "special" with
Tony Bennett as their guest, which wound up being a disaster. Moranis and Thomas recreated Bob and Doug in the form of a pair of moose in the animated feature
Brother Bear from
Disney. During Canadian rock band
Rush's 2007 Snakes And Arrows tour, Moranis and Thomas reprised their Bob and Doug Mackenzie roles in an introductory clip projected on the rear screen for the song "The Larger Bowl". Previously, Rush used Flaherty as Count Floyd to introduce their song "The Weapon" during their 1984
Grace Under Pressure Tour. Rush vocalist
Geddy Lee sang the chorus on the hit single "Take Off" from the 1982
Mercury Records album
The Great White North by Bob and Doug McKenzie. On March 27, 1982, "Take Off" reached number 16 on the
Billboard Hot 100. It is the highest-charting single of Lee's career; Lee was an elementary-school classmate of Moranis as a child.
Special guests and musical guests Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson were the show's first guest stars. The show's NBC years brought with them a network edict to include musical guests (in part because of their use on
Saturday Night Live, which NBC executives considered the model for
SCTV, despite their being very different shows). At first, the
SCTV cast, writers, and producers resisted special guests, on the theory that famous people wouldn't just "drop into" the Melonville studios, but they soon discovered that by working these guests into different shows-within-shows they could keep the premise going while also giving guest stars something more to do than show up and sing a song. As a result,
Dr. John became a featured player in the movie "Polynesiantown",
John Mellencamp (at the time, known as John Cougar) was Mister Hyde to
Ed Grimley's Doctor Jekyll in "The Nutty Lab Assistant",
Natalie Cole was transformed into a zombie by a glowing cabbage in "Zontar", and
the Boomtown Rats were both blown up on "Farm Film Celebrity Blow Up" and starred in the
To Sir, with Love parody "Teacher's Pet".
James Ingram appeared on
3-D House of Beef, and violinist
Eugene Fodor in
New York Rhapsody.
Hall & Oates appeared on a "Sammy Maudlin Show" segment promoting a new film called
Chariots of Eggs, a parody of both
Chariots of Fire and
Personal Best, and showed scenes from the faux movie as clips. Canadian singer-songwriter
Ian Thomas (the real-life brother of cast member Dave Thomas) was the "topic" on a
Great White North sketch.
Carl Perkins,
Jimmy Buffett,
Joe Walsh,
The Tubes, and
Plasmatics also appeared on the "Fishin' Musician", hosted by Gil Fisher (Candy). This, along with
SCTV's
cult status, led to the show's celebrity fans clamouring to appear.
Tony Bennett credited his appearance on
Bob and Doug McKenzie's variety-show debacle "The Great White North Palace" for triggering a significant career comeback.
Carol Burnett did an ad for the show in which an alarm clock goes off next to her bed, she rises up suddenly and advises those who couldn't stay up late enough (the NBC version aired from 12:30 to 2 a.m.) to go to bed, get some sleep, then wake up to watch the show. Burnett later briefly appeared in a climactic courtroom episode of "The Days of the Week". Former Chicago Second City player,
Saturday Night Live cast member, and film actor
Bill Murray also guest-starred on a "Days of the Week" installment as a photography buff scrambling to make it to the wedding of singer-songwriter Clay Collins (
Rick Moranis) and town slut Sue-Ellen Allison (
Catherine O'Hara) in time to take pictures of the event. In the same episode, he played two other roles: Johnny LaRue's biggest fan, who is subsequently hired to be LaRue's bodyguard (and who pushes his homemade LaRue T-shirts whenever possible), and
Joe DiMaggio in a commercial for DiMaggio's restaurant, where he offered a free meal to anyone who could strike him out. (The strikeout challenges then took place in the middle of the dining room, with many patrons injured by speeding baseballs.)
Robin Williams guest-starred in a sketch called
Bowery Boys in the Band in which his
Leo Gorcey-like character tries to hide a gay lifestyle from his
Huntz Hall-inspired pal (played by Short). Williams also mimicked actor
John Houseman eloquently reading the Melonville telephone book. In a rare acting role, singer
Crystal Gayle guest-starred in a January 1983 episode in the sketch "
A Star is Born", a spoof of the 1976 film version of the movie, playing an up-and-coming singer trying to make it big under the tutelage of her boyfriend and mentor
Kris Kristofferson (played by Flaherty). Canadian actors, including
Jayne Eastwood, Dara Forward, Monica Parker, and
Peter Wildman, appeared on the show occasionally as guests. Catherine O'Hara's sister, singer-songwriter
Mary Margaret O'Hara, also appeared in a bit part in the episode "Broads Behind Bars".
William B. Davis, still a decade away from his signature role as
The X-Files' "
Smoking Man", also has a bit role in one 1983 episode. == Syndication and music rights ==