Eugene Levy sat down with Dave Thomas, Martin Short, Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara to watch their old show. On screen, Thomas did Walter Cronkite and Bob Hope. “We have to explain who all these people are,” Levy said. O'Hara died in January. The show they were watching began production in 1976, half a century ago.
SCTV began production in Toronto in 1976. It moved to Edmonton, then landed on NBC. The whole premise was a joke. It pretended to be a struggling Canadian TV station with shows that barely held together. The original cast, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty and Dave Thomas, wrote the show too. Harold Ramis took over as head writer. Rick Moranis joined, and much later Martin Short.
The new Netflix documentary, SCTV: The Greatest Show You've Never Heard Of, lands Friday, Oct. 30. Jason Hehir, who made The Last Dance, directed it. He rounds up the fans. Tom Hanks, Conan O'Brien, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Hader. Kathryn Hahn calls SCTV the “cooler older cousin” of Saturday Night Live. John Anderson, the Journal's TV critic, agrees with the film's case. SCTV bent the path of comedy, partly because it was TV poking fun at TV. He points to Schitt's Creek, Only Murders in the Building and Home Alone as its children.
The ones who are gone
Candy died in 1994. Ramis in 2014. Flaherty in 2024. O'Hara this past January. The survivors talk about the show in modest terms. Martin, whose Edith Prickley is one of the great TV characters, says she always felt lucky to be in that cast. That's the part that sticks with us. It was a scrappy, make-it-up-as-you-go shop where the performers wrote their own material. Many of them built careers that lasted far longer than the show did. The show has lasted too. It's been in syndication for years.
Our read
This is a Career story, and a quiet one about aging. The SCTV cast wrote the show as well as starred in it. Half a century on, the old episodes still run in syndication, and a new film has famous fans lining up to praise them. Most of us don't leave a TV show behind. But most of us do leave something behind at every job we pass through. Often it's a retirement account, and it keeps sitting there whether we think about it or not.
Here's the check this week. Think back to a job you left in the 1990s or 2000s. Find the retirement plan you left there. Old 401(k)s and pensions can sit untouched for years, often in a default fund. The beneficiary form may still name someone from another chapter of your life. Pull the statement and read the name on that form. Four of the names on that old cast list are gone now. The paperwork outlives us, so it may as well be right. You don't check the smoke alarm after the fire. A short review of old accounts is the easiest cleanup there is.