Back in the ‘70s there was this hippie musical Godspell that ran for over a year in Toronto. The cast was mainly unknown at the time but wouldn’t stay that way for long. Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, Jayne Eastwood, Rudy Webb, and future Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer
Eight years ago today, the surviving cast members from SCTV – everyone except John Candy and Harold Ramis – gathered in Toronto at the Elgin Theatre for what was supposed to be the opening scenes of an upcoming documentary. That idea seems to have slid right off director Martin Scorsese’s to-do list. Instead, individual members
On March 3, Prime Video in Canada started streaming all six seasons of one of Canada’s most groundbreaking and influential sketch comedy series, SCTV. And just like everything else on TV a half century ago, not all of it holds up. There are, however, plenty of laughs. There is also great joy in seeing these
One of the emotional highlights of the recent documentary “John Candy: I Like Me” is a scene where Catherine O’Hara is delivering the eulogy at Candy’s funeral. O’Hara stood at the podium at St. Basil’s church at St. Michael’s College on the University of Toronto campus and delivered a heartfelt remembrance of her friend. Candy
If you grew up watching SCTV, or John Hughes films such as “Uncle Buck” and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” and especially if you grew up in Canada, John Candy is part of your family. Thirty-one years after his death in 1994 at 43, he’s still your Uncle Buck, the guy who makes you laugh the
I grew up with the classic Match Game daytime series, the one Gene Rayburn hosted with that telescoping mic. It featured Bret Summers, Charles Nelson Reilly and Richard Dawson, all served on a bed of orange shag carpeting. A decade ago a revival featured Alec Baldwin as host, complete with that goofy antenna mic. The
Edmonton TV station Global turned 50 this month. That news may not mean much to anyone outside of Global Edmonton’s reach – and considering the sad state of local TV, it might not mean that much in Edmonton either – but without Global Edmonton the classic sketch comedy series SCTV wouldn’t exist. CITV, later shortened
This week on brioux.tv: the podcast — Dave Thomas pays tribute to his late, great writer-producer-performer friend, Joe Flaherty. Thomas and Flaherty produced SCTV in its second season, taking their cue from original (sort of) showrunner Harold Ramis and putting more of a spotlight on the cast’s ability to morph into famous celebrities. They also