Some television shows become hits. Others quietly change comedy forever. SCTV somehow managed to do both while still leaving plenty of people asking the same question all these years later: Wait, what was SCTV?
That is exactly what Netflix is digging into with SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of, a new documentary looking back at the wonderfully strange Canadian sketch series that ran from 1976 to 1984 and helped launch an almost ridiculous amount of comedy talent.
We are talking John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis and more.
That is not a bad group to have wandering around one television station.
SCTV created characters people never forgot
The basic idea was beautifully simple. SCTV took place around a fictional television station in Melonville, which gave the cast an excuse to parody just about anything that could possibly appear on TV.
And they took full advantage of it.
There was John Candy’s wonderfully overconfident Johnny LaRue. Andrea Martin gave viewers the unforgettable Edith Prickley. Catherine O’Hara could turn Lola Heatherton into an event. Joe Flaherty had Count Floyd, while Martin Short introduced audiences to Ed Grimley before later bringing the character to Saturday Night Live.
Then, of course, there were Bob and Doug McKenzie.
Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas turned the beer drinking Canadian brothers and their Great White North segments into one of the show’s biggest cultural breakthroughs. The characters became so popular that they eventually escaped the television set entirely and made the jump to movies.
That was SCTV. A joke could start as a weird little idea inside a fake TV station and somehow become part of pop culture.
The talent that came out of SCTV is almost unbelievable
Looking back now, the cast list almost feels made up.
Candy went on to become one of the most beloved comedy stars of his generation. O’Hara built an extraordinary career that stretched from Beetlejuice and Home Alone to Schitt’s Creek. Levy became a comedy institution. Short is still making people laugh decades later. Moranis, Thomas, Martin, Ramis and Flaherty all left their own marks on comedy.
There is also a bittersweet side to looking back now. John Candy, Joe Flaherty and Catherine O’Hara are no longer with us, making the archival footage and memories in the documentary even more meaningful.
Netflix says the film includes rare material, previously untold stories and an emotional reunion in Toronto as the cast looks back at the friendships and creative partnership behind the show.
Jimmy Kimmel helps bring the comedy story back to television
The documentary is directed by Jason Hehir, whose credits include The Last Dance, with Jimmy Kimmel serves as an executive producer. Kimmel has a long connection to this particular reunion as well. He moderated the Toronto SCTV cast reunion filmed in 2018, footage that became part of the road leading to this documentary.
For longtime fans, it is a chance to spend time with that cast again.
For everybody else, the title may turn out to be pretty accurate. You may never have heard of SCTV.
But you definitely know what happened after it.
Check out the trailer below.
SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of premieres October 30 on Netflix.
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