Second City Television
Second City Television, commonly shortened to SCTV and later known as SCTV Network 90 and SCTV Channel, is a Canadian television sketch comedy show about a fictional television station that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot from Toronto's Second City troupe. It moved to American television, where it aired on NBC from 1981 to 1983.
Premise
The show's premise is the broadcast day of a fictitious TV station in the town of Melonville. Melonville's location is left unspecified; the earliest episodes imply it is in Canada, but most later episodes place it in the U.S.A typical episode of SCTV presents a compendium of programming seen on the station throughout its broadcast day. A given episode could contain SCTV news broadcasts, sitcoms, dramas, movies, talk shows, children's shows, advertising send-ups hawking fictitious products, and game shows. Several "shows" are seen regularly on SCTV, including SCTV News; soap opera The Days of the Week; late-night movie features Monster Chiller Horror Theater and Dialing For Dollars; and Great White North, among others. Many other SCTV shows are seen only once, such as the game show Shoot at the Stars, in which celebrities are literally shot at like shooting gallery targets, or full-blown movie spoofs such as Play It Again, Bob, in which Woody Allen tries to get Bob Hope to star in his next film. Episodes also feature a range of SCTV-produced promotions and commercials, such as spots for "Al Peck's Used Fruit" or "Shower in a Briefcase", or a public service announcement that helpfully describes "Seven Signs You May Already Be Dead".
Also seen fairly frequently, particularly in later episodes, are behind-the-scenes plots focusing on life at the station/network. These often feature Guy Caballero, SCTV's cheap, tyrannical owner and president who, despite being perfectly ambulatory, uses a wheelchair to earn "respect" from employees and viewers. Also seen regularly are weaselly, sweating station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, succeeded in the position by flamboyant, leopard-skin clad, foul-mouthed Edith Prickley ; vain variety star Johnny LaRue ; washed-up entertainers such as singer Lola Heatherton and comedian Bobby Bittman ; news anchors Floyd Robertson and Earl Camembert, talk-show host Sammy Maudlin, cult-stardom-destined and beer-addled brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie, and many others.
The small cast, typically six to eight members at any given time, play a wide variety of other station roles ranging from program hosts to commercial spokespersons. They also impersonate numerous popular celebrities appearing on the station's programming.
History
Show creation
There is much dispute as to who actually created the SCTV series. The show itself bears no "created by" credit, although it gives "developed by" credits to Bernard Sahlins and Andrew Alexander.In 1974, Andrew Alexander bought the Canadian rights to The Second City for one dollar, and in 1976, he was the producer of Toronto's stage show, and was looking to expand his company into TV. He called together the current cast of the stage show to discuss a format for a Second City TV series. Also in attendance at the meeting were Second City veterans Harold Ramis, Sheldon Patinkin, and Del Close, along with business partner Bernard Sahlins.
According to Dave Thomas's account in SCTV: Behind The Scenes, various ideas were batted around, then — and here is where meeting attendees remember things differently — either Close or Patinkin came up with the idea of presenting programming from the world's smallest TV station. The cast immediately jumped on the idea as a workable model for presenting a virtually unlimited range of characters, sketches, and ideas, while still having a central premise that tied everything together. From there, the actual content of the show was all the work of the cast, with contributions from Alexander and Sahlins.
Alexander remained as producer and executive producer throughout SCTV's run. Sahlins stayed for the first two seasons as a producer. Patinkin was a first-season writer and de facto editor and post-production supervisor. Close had no further involvement with the series.
Seasons 1 and 2: 1976–79
SCTV began production in 1976 at the Toronto-based studios of the Global Television Network, then a small regional channel simulcasting through southern Ontario. For the first six episodes, new episodes were seen once a month. For the next seven episodes new episodes were increased in frequency to biweekly. In September 1977, Global ordered 13 additional episodes, which were seen once a week from September through December.These irregularly scheduled 26 episodes were considered one "season" for syndication purposes. All of the original cast except Harold Ramis were from the Toronto branch of The Second City theatre improvisation troupe; Ramis was a Second City veteran, but with the Chicago troupe.
The original SCTV cast consisted of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas. All also served as writers on the show, although Martin and O'Hara did not receive writing credits on the first four episodes. Ramis served as SCTVs original head writer, but only appeared on-screen as a regular during the first season and in a few select episodes in the second season before his main character, station manager Moe Greene, was written out. Ramis and Flaherty also served as associate producers. Sahlins produced the show; Global staffer Milad Bessada produced and directed the first 13 episodes. George Bloomfield became director as of episode 14.
With the exception of Ramis, every cast member of SCTV worked as a regular performer on another Canadian TV show concurrently with the first year of SCTV. Several also worked together as regulars on The David Steinberg Show, which premiered the same week as SCTV on the Canada-wide CTV Television Network and in American syndication. The David Steinberg Show also featured future SCTV cast member Martin Short, but did not use any of the SCTV cast as writers. It folded after a single season. Martin, Flaherty, and Levy were also cast members of the short-lived comedy/variety series The Sunshine Hour, which finished its run less than a month before SCTV premiered.
During the first season, Levy was also doing double duty; in addition to his work on SCTV, he was also a cast member of the CBC sketch comedy series Stay Tuned, which aired weekly from October 1976 through January 1977. At the same time SCTV debuted, Candy and O'Hara became regular cast members of the CBC comedy series Coming Up Rosie. This gave Candy the distinction of appearing as a regular on three TV series simultaneously, on three different Canadian networks.
For the second season, SCTV became a weekly series on Global, and was seen in syndication throughout Canada and parts of the United States. After episode three of the second season, Ramis was no longer in the cast, but continued to receive credit as the show's head writer for most of the season.
Season 3: 1980–81
In 1980, one year after the Toronto Global television station dropped SCTV due to high production costs, show producer Andrew Alexander negotiated a deal to produce SCTV at CITV facilities, with Edmonton, Alberta broadcaster Charles Allard, owner of the independent station CITV-TV and the Allarcom studios.Candy, O'Hara, and Ramis dropped out at this point, and Dave Thomas was promoted to head writer. Added to the cast were Tony Rosato, Robin Duke, and Rick Moranis. Moranis, a friend of Dave Thomas, then known as a radio personality in Canada, was the only cast member not to have come from the ranks of The Second City. John Blanchard became the series director.
This season of the show was seen in Canada on the CBC, and in scattered American markets in syndication.
Seasons 4 and 5: 1981–83
In May 1981, NBC picked up SCTV in a 90-minute format as a presumably inexpensive replacement for the canceled weekly Friday late-night music/variety show The Midnight Special, enabling SCTV to air nationwide in the United States. This occurred mainly because NBC had practically no time to prepare and develop a new American-produced program in the light of Midnight Special producer Dick Ebersol's emergency return to Saturday Night Live, which he co-created with Lorne Michaels in 1975, in an effort to save it from cancellation. SCTV thus functioned as a solution to a scheduling bind for NBC, but turned out to be a temporary fix, lasting only two years.Less than two months after season three ended, SCTV was back on the air for season four, airing first as SCTV Network 90, then as simply SCTV Network, late Friday nights, airing at 12:30 a.m./11:30 p.m. Central. For this iteration, Rosato and Duke dropped out, and Candy and O'Hara returned. Because of the rush to generate material for the 90-minute format, several early season-four episodes consisted partially or entirely of sketches broadcast during seasons one to three. Ramis, Duke, and Rosato appeared in many of these sketches, uncredited and usually as extras or bit players.
Season four was broadcast irregularly from May 1981 to July 1982. Beginning in January 1982, production of the series returned to Toronto for the remainder of its run, ending the year-and-a-half stay in Edmonton.
Writer/performer Martin Short joined the cast at the end of season four, taping three episodes before O'Hara, Thomas, and Moranis left; one of those episodes was aired as the season-four finale in July 1982; the other two were held for the start of season five, which began in October 1982. For the remaining 12 episodes of season five, the cast of Candy, Flaherty, Levy, Martin, and Short was augmented by supporting players John Hemphill, Ron James and Mary Charlotte Wilcox, none of whom became an official cast member. Also, during season five, Ramis and O'Hara returned for one episode each as guest stars.
The last original SCTV episode for NBC was broadcast in March 1983, with reruns continuing through June. For both seasons four and five, the show continued to air on the CBC in Canada as only an hour in length, edited down from the 90-minute NBC broadcasts.
The 90-minute NBC episodes were released in a series of DVD sets in 2004 and 2005, and selected sketches are also available in 90-minute collections.