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
You might want to have a drink handy for a toast: George Wendt died May 20, on the 32nd anninversary of the Cheers‘ series finale. His death at 76, peacefully in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles, will no doubt inspire editorial cartoons of his Cheers character Norm Petersen arriving at the pearly
Man it was fun heading down to Niagara last October and catching up with Canada’s coast-to-coast comedy sage, Ron James. He was shooting season two of his comedy series 1 Man’s Treasure, which is up now and streaming on Bell Fibe. If this podcast episode sounds different it is because it was shot outside in a
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
Those of us who grew up with SCTV have it deep inside our nervous systems. To this day, if Joe Flaherty and John Candy show up on Instagram, as they did for me yesterday, in a sketch as the two hopeless lads from “Goin’ Down the Road,” we watch it all again and love every
Tuesday was a warm and sunny October morn, a good day for a treasure hunt. To take advantage, I pointed the Swedish princess down the QEW to the Niagara region in search of comedy gold. My sherpa of silliness: none other than Ron James. The standup comedy standout is currently shooting the second season of