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Second City Television, or SCTV, was a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from the Toronto troupe of The Second City.

The show's cast included John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. All the featured cast went on to very successful careers in American film and television.

SCTV first aired on Global in Canada, and later moved to the CBC. It ran in Canada from 1976 to 1984. The show also aired on NBCSteff Geissbuhler. The feathers are said to represent the network's six divisions. NBC Universal Television is an American television network based in New York's Rockefeller Center. As of May 2004, it became part of NBC Universal. NBC supplies programming in the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, under the title SCTV Network 90, from 1981Events January-February January Sarawak Chamber found January 1 Greece enters the EEC January 1 Palau becomes self-governing January 4 Sheffield police arrests Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper January 16 Protestant gunmen shoot and wound Bernadette D to 1983Events January January 1 Beat Raaflaub became Basel Boys Choir's new conductor January 1 the ARPANET officially changes to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet. January 1 compulsory wearing of seat belts becomes law in the UK. January 2 The mu. In 1984, for its final season of existence, the show moved to pay-TV channel CinemaxCinemax is a cable television network that provides movies, special features, erotica programming for adults, and other services to consumers via subscriptions. Cinemax is owned by the Home Box Office Group (which is a subsidiary of Time Warner Incorporat in the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, changing the name slightly to SCTV Channel.

The basic premise of SCTV is that it is the television station for the city of Melonville. Rather than broadcast the usual TV rerun fare, the business, run by the greedy Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) who sits in a wheelchair only for effect, puts on a bizarre and humorously incompetent range of cheap local programming. This can range from a soap operaTIME cover devoted to soap operas: Dated January 12, 1976, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives are featured with the headline "Soap Operas: Sex and suffering in the afternoon". A soap opera or daytime serial is an ongoing, episodic wo called "The Days of The Week", to game shows like "Shoot The Stars", in which celebrities are literally shot at like targets in a shooting gallery, to full blown movie spoofs like "Play it Again, Bob" in which Woody AllenWoody Allen (b. December 1, 1935), original name Allen Stewart Konigsberg legal name Heywood Allen is one of the major American film directors and comedians of the second half of the 20th century. Introduction Following the example of Charlie Chaplin, he tries to get Bob Hope to star in his next film. In-house media melodrama was also satirised with characters like Candy's vain, bloated variety star Johnny La Rue and Martin's hatchet-faced, shrewish Edith Prickley, the station owner.

Parody shows included The Goose Girl, a Tarzan-style spoof in which Martin plays a girl,whose family have died in a plane crash, who has been raised by geese. A parody of the popular western drama Grizzly Adams -- retitled Grizzly Abrahams -- depicted the burly western hero as the owner of a wild tortoise, which took weeks to lead police to the skeletal remains of its master, trapped beneath a fallen log.

As one chronicler has noted, the TV station conceit gave the show the ability to parody virtually any TV genre, as well as advertising. Some of the most memorable sketches involved parodies of late-night low-budget advertising, such as the "Used Fruit Stand", in which viewers were enticed to come early with the offer of free tickets to 'Circus Lupus', the Circus of the Wolves (accompanied by mocked-up photos of wolves forming a pyramid and jumping through flaming hoops). Equally memorable were the hilariously faux-inept ads for local businesses like Ted and Edna Boil's Magic Mile of Organs.

Impersonations were also an integral part of the comedy, with almost every cast member playing multiple roles as well-known personalities. Memorable impressions include Short's Jerry Lewis, Candy's Orson Welles, Pavarotti and Herve Villechaise, O'Hara's Katherine Hepburn, Robin Duke's Streisand, and Flaherty's dazzling range of impersonations including Gregory Peck, Peter O'Toole, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Bing Crosby, William F Buckley, Heraldo Rivera, E Charles Bronson. Alan Alda, Gene Siskel, Richard Nixon, Jack Klugman, Slim Whitman, Larry Fine and Salvador Dali -- and of course, Levy's masterful Ricardo Montalban.

Other popular sketches and characters include:


Ironically, the most popular sketch was intended as throwaway filler. Bob & Doug McKenzie were the imaginary Canadian brothers in The Great White North sketch. The sketch was initially developed by Rick Moranis ("Bob") and Dave Thomas ("Doug") at the end of a day's shooting, as a sarcastic response to the CBC request for two minutes of "identifiably Canadian content". The brothers ultimately became icons of the very Canadian culture they were meant to parody, spinning off albums, a movie, commercials, and cameo appearances on TV and film. It has been said that Bob and Doug popularized the inaccurate stereotype that Canadians say "Eh" after every sentence, which is often poked at in American shows featuring Canadian characters.

Sketch comedy shows Canadian television series

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