SCTV, on Global (s1-2) / CBC (s3-5) / Superchannel (s6) (Canada) // syndication (s1-3) / NBC (s4-5) / Cinemax (s6) (USA)
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This ran from 1976-84. It's also known as Second City TV; and in season 4, "SCTV Network 90"; in season 6, "SCTV Channel." But all that is before my time, or at least, I was too young and completely unaware of it until many years later. (I eventually saw a few reruns, and now I don't even remember when that was; probably in the late 90s or something.) Anyway, the show is about this TV station called SCTV. The various comedy sketches were supposedly shows that aired on that fictional channel. My favorite characters were Bob & Doug McKenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas), whom I must have been aware of well before I ever saw reruns of the show. Because in 1981, they put out an album called "The Great White North," though it was probably some years later before I became aware of that. I remember in the late 80s hearing Bob & Doug's version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" on the radio, but it was probably the mid 90s before I ever got the album (I bought the CD at a flea market). Other than Bob & Doug, my favorite character was probably Count Floyd (played by Joe Flaherty), this guy dressed as a vampire to host a monster movie show. And... I don't remember much else about the series, because I never did see very much of it. And most of what I did see, I couldn't manage to care about. I really wanted to like the show, but... I dunno. I just didn't get very into it. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing more of it, someday. Especially since there were lots of good stars whose work I had enjoyed in things they'd done after this, before I ever saw any of this. In addition to the people I've already named, there were John Candy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Harold Ramis, and... at least a couple other people whom I don't think I know. So anyway, it's definitely been influential in comedy. And that's all I can think to say.

Except that, in 1983, there was a Bob & Doug movie called Strange Brew (which I didn't become aware of until the mid-90s).


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