When SCTV celebrated its 50th birthday on September 21 of this year, there was no televised multi-day star-studded celebration the way there was last year with Saturday Night Live – which is completely fitting for the Canadian sketch comedy show that has always lived in the shadow of its glitzier U.S. counterpart. There was even a time when it aired at 1 a.m., after SNL on NBC. That said, in the last few years, there have been numerous homages paid to and celebrations of the SCTV cast members, including documentaries John Candy: I Like Me; Marty, Life is Short; and You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way), on how that historic 1972 theatre production became a launching pad for many of the SCTV stars.
Now, the famously low-budget Canadian hit is getting its own glossy Netflix tribute, SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of, produced by Jimmy Kimmel and directed by Jason Hehir, who also made The Last Dance about Michael Jordan. Kimmel stepped in after a documentary by fellow fan Martin Scorsese never got off the ground. For this new one, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Andrea Martin and Dave Thomas reunited in Toronto in May of this year – and Rick Moranis was interviewed on his own – to talk about the secret to their success. Fittingly, Thomas compares it to their New York competitors: “I went to SNL to visit Dan Aykroyd, and it was just so much different than SCTV. Even the drug use on the show was different. Everything was bigger … I found it to be very dark compared to SCTV, because SCTV was warmer. It was more of a family.” Sitting together for the doc, they watch old sketches and get misty-eyed remembering their late great castmates Candy, Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. O’Hara would die just eight months after the interviews were conducted.
The doc also features high-profile talking heads doubling down on their obsession with the show and characters, like Flaherty’s Guy Caballero, Martin’s Edith Prickley, Candy’s Johnny LaRue, O’Hara’s Lola Heatherton, Short’s Ed Grimley and Levy’s Bobby Bittman – not to mention Thomas and Moranis as Bob and Doug McKenzie. “I had seen SNL,” says The Studio actress Kathryn Hahn, “but SCTV was like its cooler older cousin who was out smoking cigarettes in the back.” Conan O’Brien once again proves he’s a lifelong superfan: “If someone tells me, ‘Yeah, I watched SCTV and it wasn’t for me. I didn’t get it,’ I kinda don’t want to know them. Life’s too short.” And SNL alum Bill Hader is doubled over, nearly in tears, remembering Levy’s impersonations of Gene Shalit and Perry Como. “It makes me laugh so hard.” But Tom Hanks is the biggest name in the doc, and the one who became the closest friend to the cast, from starring with Candy and Levy in Splash to vacationing with the gang at Short’s Muskoka cottage. “When I was doing Bosom Buddies with Peter Scolari,” he says, “we would record SCTV and then we would show up on Monday at rehearsal and parse out every single moment and character. We were studying [the show] like it was a comedic laboratory and we were trying to figure out how many beakers of certain chemicals they use in order to create genius.”
Zoomer continues to keep tabs on these legendary Canadian comedy icons – below are the greatest hits from our SCTV archives.
– FROM THE ARCHIVES –
THE SECOND COMING OF JOHN CANDY
“We live in a way too curated world now. John was around before any of that, and left in his wake a kindness and joy. He had a way about him that brought people together, and still does – nostalgia is the greatest drug on earth.”
–Ryan Reynolds
ANDREA MARTIN CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP
“Here’s the headline on Andrea: She is – and there is no disagreement on this, if you ask Eugene Levy or Paul Shaffer or anyone from those Godspell and SCTV days – Andrea was and is the funniest out of everyone. The funniest in the moment, the most original, the kind of comedic energy that I don’t think anyone had ever experienced.”
–Martin Short
CATHERINE O’HARA, A TRUE NORTH STAR
“I’ve always been more comfortable being ridiculous than being glamorous.”
–Catherine O’Hara
EUGENE LEVY IS OUT OF HIS COMFORT ZONE
“I don’t look at life the way a stand-up comedian does. I don’t look for the funny angle to try to get a laugh. I hang around with funny people, but I take a backseat to them. I’m a true ensemble player. When I’m in character, I’m comfortable looking for where the laughs are, and how to make something interesting. But I’m not the person in the front of the room entertaining the crowd. I’d much rather be the person in the back of the crowd, watching the person entertaining the crowd.”
–Eugene Levy
REMEMBERING JOE FLAHERTY
The surviving SCTV-ers got together virtually over a Zoom video call a week before Flaherty died. For an hour and 20 minutes, while Joe lay in bed, “we were all laughing and reflecting on all the characters we wouldn’t be allowed to do now on television.”
–Martin Short
