SCTV Review: Ethnic Humor (1-3) / Crosswords (1-4)

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Before we begin: The “Ethnic Humor” episode makes multiple references to the Romani people by the exonym “Gypsies”; as this word is considered a pejorative/slur, I was trying to decide how to address this issue throughout my review. While ultimately I have decided to use the word in my segment descriptions and review points (sparingly), this only refers to the characters seen throughout this particular show.

RATINGS SYSTEM:
***** - Classic
**** - Great
*** - Good/Average
** - Meh
* - Awful

“Ethnic Humor” (season 1, episode 3, aired Nov. 18, 1976)

DISCLAIMER

  • Speaking for the management of SCTV, Harold Ramis warns that tonight’s show features racial and ethnic jokes, but they do not reflect the attitudes of the station.

  • A quick-hitter, with Candy and Thomas providing laughs by silently miming out punchlines to the jokes Ramis cites as examples, and a strong end with the television joke (which was set up by Ramis talking about being of Polish descent)

  • The Rhodes edit of this show that premiered in the U.S. the following year trims out the very beginning where Harold Ramis identifies himself, adding a superimposed caption to identify him as playing SCTV station manager Maurice Green. The very end of the opening (which fades into a bumper in my copy) also shows the show’s test-pattern title bumper appear on the television screen.

*** 1/2

SUNRISE SEMESTER: HUMANITIES 196 WITH ERNEST BRUTER

  • Dr. Ernest Bruter (Eugene Levy) discusses Gypsy mythology on the creation and destruction of humanity.

  • Right away, Eugene Levy’s nebbishy appearance alone is making me laugh, with his crooked tie and toothbrush mustache. This is also a great early example of how much Levy’s eyebrow movements add to a scene.

  • The theories about creation (the different races were God baking the first men and women like cookies but leaving them in too long or taking them out too soon) and destruction (one person of every race simultaneously licking the fuzz off an overripe peach) were pretty silly.

  • They reused the “due to a change in programming policy” exit from the Sunrise Semester in the first show, but at least this time they change it up by including a little more interaction between Levy and Thomas’s off-screen announcer (“Maybe you didn’t hear me so good”).

*** 1/2

THE LEUTONIAN HOUR

  • A foreign-language show features the Leutonians dancing to a polka and brawling with Gypsies.

  • The first appearance of SCTV’s all-purpose fake foreign nationality, later to be the country of origin for Happy Wanderers Yosh and Stan Schmenge. This is mostly Candy speaking in a foreign-sounding gibberish with some English words mixed in; Candy’s performance makes this work.

  • I’ve always remembered Candy’s enthusiastic “RINGENGO! RINGENGO!” before he calls the bingo numbers.

  • I’m not sure who outside of the cast are playing the Leutonians and Gypsies, though it looks like Robin Duke and Mary Margaret O’Hara are two of the other Leutonians.

  • The polka the Leutonians dance to is “Emilia’s/Always In The Way/Helena” by the Stanislawski Polka Band; this is also often used as a closing theme in the second 13-episode batch of shows this season.

  • The editing in this piece is pretty choppy; I wonder how much they had to take out of the sketch after it was taped.

***

PROMO: PLAINCLOTHES MOUNTIE

  • Curtis Edgett (Harold Ramis) may be out of the uniform, but he’s still stopping crime on horseback.

  • A classic promo: as if the visual of Ramis on the horse wasn’t funny enough, his deliberately awkward line readings makes this sketch (“It’s the…plumber! I’m here to fix your sink.”)

*****

OUT-PATIENT

  • Macho vasectomy patients (Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, John Candy) act big until the doctor (Andrea Martin) examines one of them.

  • This has a stage-show feel; maybe it’s just the cheap costume for Flaherty and sets. The sketch’s first part is alright, but it really takes off once Candy gets humiliated during his examination (“Well, that’s fine then, won’t you turn around and face me…” “I am facing you.”) and the others lose nerve.

*** 1/2

HINTS FOR HOMEMAKERS

  • Host Maria Acuzy (Andrea Martin) gives a recipe for “Amish food” to help save money.

  • Another quick hitter. Martin’s characterization is funny, as is the twist of the “recipe”.

***

NORTH AMERICAN STETHOSCOPY INSTITUTE

  • Start your way to one of many stethoscope-based careers today.

  • Not the funniest, but I did like some of the areas of specialization (particularly “analyzing a patient’s handwriting through X-rayed photos of his heartbeat”).

** 1/2

THEATRE NORTH AMERICAN

  • Lin Ye Tang (Dave Thomas) introduces the great Canadian dysfunctional family play “We're Gonna Be Alright, You Creep, Leaving Home and All, Eh?”, where hockey-hating son Johnny (John Candy) and the rest of the family confront their mean Scottish father (Joe Flaherty).

  • The first longer SCTV sketch to work well; this was another import from the Second City Toronto stage, with Flaherty, Candy, Levy and O’Hara playing the same roles they portrayed on stage (Dan Aykroyd also played Flaherty’s character, while Gilda Radner originally played the Catherine O’Hara character); Andrea Martin’s character was played by Rosemary Radcliffe.

  • This is the first appearance of Dave Thomas’s Lin Ye Tang; as problematic as the character is (Thomas acknowledges as such in SCTV: Behind the Scenes), I’ve always liked Thomas’s characterization of him (particularly his quick turns into annoyance here).

  • While Eugene Levy’s bad gay poet character is particularly memorable (That wig! Those leather pants! Gene’s body hair!), Catherine O’Hara’s Colleen steals the sketch a few times with her high-pitched squealing during the arguments and the scene where she smooshes her face through a piece of bread (I suspect Flaherty’s “poppin’ through the bread” line was an ad-lib). As Gilda Radner originated the role, with the character originally supposed to be mentally disabled instead of just on drugs like she is here, I suspect she played the role as her catatonic Colleen character from SNL.

  • John Candy’s hair is much shorter in this sketch than in the rest of the show; there are also some set, prop and lighting differences between most of the sketch and the last scene where the Gypsies enter (the edit between these scenes is particularly abrupt). I wonder if the sketch was partially re-shot some time after it originally aired.

  • Eugene Levy’s “You son of a bitch!” line is muted in the Rhodes version.

****

GOLDEN HITS OF THE 11TH CENTURY

  • Sister Mary Innocent (Catherine O’Hara) plugs an album of the old favorites you can’t hear now that Mother Church is anglicizing her masses.

  • There are a few good jokes (the cost of the original manuscript for the chant), but I suppose this would be funnier to people who grew up before the Second Vatican Council.

  • It looks like the bit with the fly getting into O’Hara’s face (making her mess up her "temporary indulgence” line) was a real blooper they just left in.

** 1/2

WORDS TO LIVE BY: DR. ERNEST BRUTER

  • Dr. Bruter (Eugene Levy) questions the existence of the Ten Commandments before joining in a hora with the Gypsies and the Leutonian host.

  • A strong ending for tonight’s show. Again, Levy is good here, with some particularly funny lines (“I would love to covet my neighbour’s wife, she’s a gorgeous woman. But for now, it’s hands off”).

*** 1/2

Final thoughts: The show is starting to get a little more consistent, and even though there are some artifacts of being early in the series’ run (Harold Ramis introducing the show as himself, some more stagey scenes), this episode didn’t have any of the sluggishness that plagued parts of the first two. As much as tonight’s runner was (admittedly) insensitive, it actually worked better than the attempted storylines in the first two episodes.

MVP:

  • Eugene Levy

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Out-Patient, Hints for Homemakers, North American Stethoscopy Institute (moved to 1-5), Golden Hits of the 11th Century (moved to 1-10)

  • Added: The Amanda II (from 1-5), Dining with LaRue: Jimmy’s Parthenon (US only), Silver Bullet Suppositories (from 1-10), Baa Baa Black and White Sheep (from 1-5)

Blair version differences:

  • Removed: Words to Live By

  • Added: new promo for Crosswords (with Corness v/o)

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.

“Crosswords” (season 1, episode 4, aired Dec. 16, 1976)

THE SAMMY MAUDLIN SHOW

  • Sammy Maudlin (Joe Flaherty), William B. Williams (John Candy), Lorna Minelli (Andrea Martin) and Bobby Bittman (Eugene Levy) trade effusive praise, but Trish Nutley (Catherine O’Hara) calls out their phoniness.

  • The very first appearance of another SCTV staple, this was a parody of Sammy Davis Jr.’s Sammy & Company; as Dave Thomas recounts in SCTV: Behind the Scenes, “[Davis] was so obsequious toward his guests that we all found it funny.” Even though the show it parodies has long faded into obscurity, the Sammy Mauldin sketches still hold up pretty well as a spoof of show-biz oiliness.

  • Catherine O’Hara gives a good performance as the one person not buying into the love-fest, though Trish Nutley would eventually be supplanted by O’Hara’s Lola Heatherton character (who fit the Maudlin show better).

  • A lot of the running bits that appear in later Maudlin sketches appear here: the show being joined in progress, Bobby Bittman’s “As a comic, in all seriousness…” catchphrase, and a bigger-name guest getting bumped (“We don’t have time for Queen Elizabeth? No.”)

  • John Candy looks pretty young here compared to the other times he plays William B. Williams.

*****

SUNRISE SEMESTER: CLASSICAL GREEK

  • Alki Stereopoulos (Joe Flaherty) discusses the dialogue between Pericles and Menelaus.

  • The first appearance of another recurring character, Flaherty’s sleazy Alki Stereopoulos. I always liked this one, where the “dialogue” is reduced to a lunch order (“Toast that kaiser!”).

  • The line that would become Alki’s catchphrase (“Hey bebey, what’s a-heppening”) is used in the dialogue.

*** 1/2

SPRAY-ON SOCKS

  • Prevent embarrassing droop around the ankles with the new product from the Oven Cleaning People.

  • Another memorable commercial parody; I particularly liked the close-up of the foot being covered in pink guck as Levy’s voiceover cheerfully exclaims “Spray-On really works!”

  • Songs: “You Make Me Feel Brand New” by The Stylistics, “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate

****

THE $211,000 TRIANGLE

  • Bobby Bittman’s (Eugene Levy) general lack of knowledge frustrates his teammates.

  • SCTV’s first game show parody is pretty solid, and feel like a spiritual predecessor to the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches (which themselves were admittedly inspired by SCTV’s later-series game show sketch Half Wits).

  • Unlike the first two shows’ attempts at bringing back characters in the same show, Bobby Bittman is a perfect fit here, and he has some of the best lines when trying to give clues to a frustrated Flaherty ([Cosi Fan Tutte] “Uh, rhymes with rosy and fruity…”).

  • I also liked the randomness of Catherine O’Hara’s country singer having an intricate knowledge of philosophy.

****

COOKING WITH LARUE

  • Johnny LaRue (John Candy) offers a recipe for the unemployed involving cat food.

  • Johnny LaRue returns for the first time since his breakdown in the first episode; here, he’s a little more developed as this sketch shows him to pretend to care about the plight of the less-fortunate by making an absolutely disgusting recipe (while plugging his own brand of cat food), and tries to force an audience member (Catherine O’Hara) to eat it (at least it wasn’t the one he put his cigarette out in).

****

BACKSTAGE

  • Lorna Minelli (Andrea Martin) auditions for a producer (John Candy).

  • Lorna Minelli and Trish Nutley reappear in this, the final installment of Backstage; this works better than the one in the first show because it’s just the one scene, and it continues the joke of Minelli continuously name-dropping her mother Judy Garland while saying she wants to be judged on her own merits.

  • The punchline felt a little obvious.

***

MASTERPIECE THEATRE: CROSSWORDS: PART I

  • Alistair Cooke (Joe Flaherty) introduces Harold “Spike” Pynther’s backstage vignette, wherein Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson try to make plans for the next day after a failed rendezvous.

  • The background story of this sketch was recounted in SCTV: Behind the Scenes; executive producers Bernard Sahlins and Andrew Alexander got Gielgud and Richardson, who were appearing in Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land at the time, to do the show, but the two thespians rejected the writer’s sketch ideas, and assigned them to write a sketch based on their hobbies. While Thomas dismisses the final results (“After all this, the sketch stunk”), I find the whole conversation about the difference between a tower and a zoo kind of had a Monty Python quality to it.

***

PROMO: THE EXORCIST OF OZ

  • Lorna Minelli (Andrea Martin) fights demonic possession while singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

  • Very short and simple, continuing the running gag of Minelli singing her mother’s famous song with periodic demonic rants. The cheapness makes this sketch (particularly the zero-special-effects version of the rotating head).

****

MASTERPIECE THEATRE: CROSSWORDS: PART II

  • Ralph helps John with a difficult crossword clue.

  • This part didn’t have as much going for it as the first, but then again, Thomas mentions this one was a difficult one to write their way out of (crediting Ramis with sticking with it long enough to finish).

**

SHAKESPEARE’S GREATEST JOKES

  • Sheldon Patinkin (Joe Flaherty) and Bernard Sahlins (Dave Thomas) plug a record album of the Bard’s funniest routines, plus a corresponding volume of footnotes.

  • Another sketch that was rejected by Gielgud and Richardson; this was a better premise than Crosswords but I’m glad Flaherty and Thomas were the ones to perform it.

  • I love the visual gag of the giant volume of footnotes “to help you get the jokes you get.”

***

WORDS TO LIVE BY: FATHER MICHAEL MEYER

  • Father Michael Meyer (Dave Thomas) reads one of Paul’s more boring letters to the Ephesians and the story of creation from the book of Caucasians.

  • I’m a sucker for irreverent religious humor, and I’ve always liked the creation story in this one (“In the beginning, there was nothin’. Then the Lord said, ‘Let there be light’, and…there was still nothin’, but you’s could see it.”).

  • What kind of accent is Thomas doing?

  • The last 45 seconds are just Thomas as Meyer telling the director to get the camera off him.

***

Final thoughts: A particularly strong show, especially in the first half; the second peters off a little bit due to the Gielgud/Richardson vanity piece, but pretty much everything surrounding it is enjoyable, and we’re starting to get a little further into the world of what SCTV would become. Oddly enough, Harold Ramis hardly appears in this particular episode (he’s one of the other dancers in Spray-On Socks but doesn’t appear in anything else).

MVP:

  • (tie) Eugene Levy / Andrea Martin

Rhodes version differences:

  • Removed: Spray-On Socks (moved to 1-5), Backstage

  • Added: Stan Musial’s Greatest Hits

Blair version differences:

  • Removed: Cooking with LaRue (moved to 1-2)

  • Added: Ronco No-Sweat Sauna Air Conditioning System (from 2-18), new promo for Match Unto My Feet (with Corness v/o)

  • Edited: Words to Live By

Additional screen captures from this episode are available here.