SKETCHES: 0:13 Hearing - Part 1 1:14 Slinky...Toy From Hell 2:03 Jerry Lewis Live on the Champs Elysees 4:49 High Q 9:54 Sophia Bath Oil 11:32 Yellowbelly 12:23 Shower In A Briefcase 13:44 Perry Como: Still Alive 15:48 Katharine Hepburn - "My First Time" 17:39 Lola Heatherton's "Way to Go, Woman!" 19:56 Hearing - Part 2 22:51 SCTV Movies Montage 30:14 Hearing - Part 3 31:38 Ben-Hur Opening 32:23 Al Peck's Used Cars 34:20 Ben-Hur Continued 35:27 Moose Beer 36:05 Ben-Hur Continued (2) 36:53 Stairways to Heaven 39:02 Ben-Hur Conclusion 40:06 Hearing - Part 4 41:42 Biller Hi-Lite 43:06 Hollywood Dirt Tonight 49:37 SCTV Newsbreak 50:46 SCTV Special Report: The Space Shuttle 53:04 Hearing - Part 5 54:32 The Gene Shalit Critic's Special 56:33 Sophia's Meatball Hut 58:27 The Ramblers Greatest Hits 59:53 Leave It to Beaver 25th Anniversary Party 1:04:21 Tammy Bakker for Mayberline Mascara 1:05:27 The Women Who Donahue Forgot 1:07:36 Convert-A-Toup 1:08:58 SCTV After School Special: How "Nosy" the Short-Haired Terrier Dog Got His Name 1:10:27 Harry Filth 1:11:45 Great White North: Mouse in a Bottle 1:13:57 Hearing - Part 6 1:15:42 SCTV Foreign Programming Montage 1:21:03 Long Distance 1:23:20 Hearing - Part 7 1:24:19 The Fella Who Couldn't Wait for Christmas 1:26:29 Happy Hour with Happy Marsden 1:29:07 Hearing - Part 8 1:29:30 Sophia's Muffler Shop 1:31:02 Hearing - Part 9 1:33:59 SCTV Signoff: Mel Tormé In the Fall of 1988, amidst a writers strike, ABC aired this special in which Joe Flaherty and Andrea Martin reprised their roles as Guy Caballero (owner/president of SCTV) and Edith Prickley (station manager), respectively. The premise: SCTV has lost their license to broadcast and a hearing/investigation (conducted by Don Lake, John Hemphill and Bruce Pirrie) is being held by the FCC to determine whether or not to reinstate the license. Guy and Edith are accused of malfeasance in the operations of their television station, to which the duo rebuts by presenting several segments of clips of the various types of "quality programming" SCTV offers its viewers. In between the segments, Caballero and Prickley resort to some pretty ridiculous tactics (including an impromptu singalong) in an attempt to persuade the FCC to renew their license. This was recorded on September 5th, 1988 (26 years ago today!) by yours truly. I apologize for the not-so-great VHS quality, as my brother and I literally wore this tape out watching it repeatedly as kids. You'll also notice that a minute or so of the opening is missing, and that my attempts to edit out the commercials were not exactly spot-on either. What can I say? I was a child operating a VCR. But, 99% of the program is here, intact, and completely unedited! I captured this almost 2 years ago and had plans to edit it, but then I did something else instead. So, I hope you enjoy that 10 or 12 seconds of static at the opening (or actually just skip over it if you want). Anyway, needless to say I'm still a huge fan of SCTV/The Second City and all of their alumni and works - including this one. It's still just as funny as I remember it being as a kid. Some sketches in this program were edited for time and content. Who knows whether it was done when SCTV was picked up as a 'Nick at Nite' show, or if ABC was responsible for the edits? But some of the segments are not in their original form. For instance, in the "Leave it to Beaver 25th Anniversary Party" sketch, there's a scene missing where Eddie Haskell (Dave Thomas) lets Wally Cleaver (Eugene Levy) know that he's gay. -Maybe a little too risque for prime time TV in the 80s..? Definitely not appropriate for youngsters watching 'Nick at Nite', right? So, I can see why that might've been cut. But, in the "Perry Como - Still Alive" sketch, during the scenes where random concertgoers are being interviewed, there is a missing scene in which John Candy has a punk haircut & makeup, and gives a very mild-mannered, positive review of the concert, ending with an awkward look into the camera and an upbeat "Oi." Hilarious! I'm assuming it was cut for time..? Or maybe it was done when the original episodes got chopped up for syndication. (You can read about that by going to the website in the paragraph below.) Anyway, these are just a few examples of some known changes to the original sketches. If you're interested in the original SCTV shows, check out http://www.sctvguide.ca for pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about this awesome, classic sketch show. There are DVD sets containing all the original shows from NBC, as well as some of the pre-NBC stuff. I highly recommend these if you're a fan of sketch comedy and/or a young comedy writer. I decided to share this video in hopes that it might give the person(s) watching it as much pleasure and as many laughs as it has given me over the years. Thanks for watching (and reading this ridiculously long dissertation!) and I truly hope you enjoy it!

• published: 07 Sep 2014
• views: 11