He might grumble about the title, but cranky TV critic Bill Needle (played by Dave Thomas) would give at least three thumbs up for SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of. The long-awaited documentary premieres Friday on Netflix.
Allow me to add my thumb to the review. The TV shows that stay with you are the ones that hit you at a certain time in your life. For me, SCTV was required viewing when I was entering university. These were formative years spent with friends laughing at the same crazy things. Johnny LaRue, Guy Cabalero, Edith Prickley, The Schmengies, Bob & Doug, Doctor Tongue, Lola Heatherton and Mommy Theresa – it was like asking who got into my head and spun such satire out of ten thousand hours mis-spent in front of the Clairtone?
Now, 50 years later, this documentary arrives just months after six seasons of the original SCTV series — albeit re-tracked and slightly sanitized — comes flooding back into view. This Netflix one-two is like a comedy damn has burst and years of pent up anticipation for anything to do with John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis and Martin Short are now just a remote click away.
Set aside that this was a story that was supposed to be told eight years ago. Director Martin Scorsese, who, in the late ‘70s was trying to make “Raging Bull” and living by all accounts a highly pharmaceutical life, stumbled upon SCTV. Apparently it helped him through a rough time. He started paying it back with an announced documentary and a giant first step cast reunion in Toronto. Those of us who were there at the Elgin Theatre will never forget it and will also never fully understand why that reunion footage remains under wraps.
Some of it has to do with ownership, politics, lawsuits, changing tastes and simply the fact that Scorsese, at nearly 84, only has so many more minutes left to devote to other projects. Whatever the reason, the SCTV train got derailed. Jimmy Kimmel, who flew to Toronto to moderate the 2018 gathering, lobbied hard for Netflix to let him finish the project. More years went by before they let him.
Kimmel, whose Kimmelot production company brought you those Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials where Norman Lear scripts were performed by contemporary actors, swung into action. When I spoke with him for a podcast a few weeks ago, the super fan agreed that he could have done a two or three or six part documentary on SCTV. Instead, we get 90 minutes, and let me tell you, it is brisk.
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You get to see Martin Short in, yes, Martin Scorsese’s Jerry Lewis Live at the Champs-Elysees. You can laugh again at Eugene Levy as Perry Como-tose lying on a stage floor singing, “Kiss the day goodbye….” You crack up as Rick Moranis jumps in a Galaxy 500 and speeds to a recording studio just in time to sing “Such a long way to gooo…” as busy Michael Macdonald.
What Kimmel and director Jason Hehir (Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance) deliver is a 90 minute trailer for re-watching, or discovering, one spectacularly unique series. To guide you there, Kimmel called in some friends – Tom Hanks, Conan O’Brien, Bill Hader, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt, Kathryn Hahn and others whose blood type is SCTV. Hanks in particular shares how he raced from the set of the sitcom that was his first big break – Bosom Buddies – just so he can download another episode of SCTV from his first VHS machine. As Kimmel says, these are all people who, like him, have seen every episode 11 times. It is in their DNA; it explains who they are and who they became.
What’s missing from the documentary? Happy Marsden, Sammy the Goose, and Don Mills in episodes of Six Gun Justice. Hey, they couldn’t cram in everyone’s favourite sketches in 90 minutes — plus some worked best at one-in-the-morning.
I also would have welcomed insight from Joe Flaherty from that first Toronto cast reunion in 2018. Kimmel elected to ditch what Scorsese had shot (by Toronto’s Insight Productions) and reassemble the surviving cast in 2025. That, mercifully, included Catherine O’Hara. The beloved comedian passed away earlier this year. Sitting in with her, Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas and, in a separate interview, Rick Moranis, seemed even more touching with the passing of time. We watch them witness what they did in their twenties with wonder and surprise. It is sweet, moving and still so remarkably damn funny.
SCTV is not the Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of. It is the Greatest Show of Friendship Over 50 Incredible Years. Do I wish Scorsese had joined the others in talking about why he almost made this documentary? Would I like to have heard from another Canadian who knows comedy, Lorne Michaels? Yes, but as Ken Burns once said to me (when I interviewed him about his Muhammad Ali doc), when you do your documentary, you can do it your way.
In the meantime, watch this doc, find the original six-seasons worth of episodes and then go back and revisit Jerry Todd, The Battle of the PBS Stars and Yorgi the Cheerful Cossack on CCCP1– and tell then Johnny LaRue sent you.
