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| Second City Television | |
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| Also known as |
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| Genre | Sketch comedy |
| Developed by | |
| Starring | |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 135(List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time |
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| Original release | |
| Network |
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| Release | September 21, 1976 (1976-09-21) – July 17, 1984 (1984-07-17) |
Second City Television, commonly shortened toSCTV and later known asSCTV Network 90 (the NBC version) andSCTV Channel (the Cinemax version), is a Canadian televisionsketch comedy show about a fictional television station that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot fromToronto'sSecond City troupe. It moved to American television, where it aired onNBC from 1981 to 1983.
The show's premise is the broadcast day of a fictitious TV station (later network) in the town of Melonville. Melonville's location is left unspecified; the earliest episodes imply it is in Canada, but most later episodes place it in the U.S.
A typical episode ofSCTV presents a compendium of programming seen on the station throughout its broadcast day. A given episode could contain SCTV news broadcasts, sitcoms, dramas, movies, talk shows, children's shows, advertising send-ups hawking fictitious products, and game shows. Several "shows" are seen regularly on SCTV, includingSCTV News;soap operaThe Days of the Week; late-night movie featuresMonster Chiller Horror Theater andDialing For Dollars; andGreat White North (a public access show centered around two Canadian 'hosers'), among others. Many other SCTV shows are seen only once, such as the game showShoot at the Stars, in which celebrities are literally shot at likeshooting gallery targets, or full-blown movie spoofs such asPlay It Again, Bob, in whichWoody Allen (Rick Moranis) tries to getBob Hope (Dave Thomas) to star in his next film. Episodes also feature a range of SCTV-produced promotions (for imaginary future shows) and commercials, such as spots for "Al Peck's Used Fruit" or "Shower in a Briefcase",[1] or apublic service announcement that helpfully describes "Seven Signs You May Already Be Dead".
Also seen fairly frequently, particularly in later episodes, are behind-the-scenes plots focusing on life at the station/network. These often featureGuy Caballero (Joe Flaherty), SCTV's cheap, tyrannical owner and president who, despite being perfectly ambulatory, uses a wheelchair to earn "respect" (i.e., sympathy) from employees and viewers. Also seen regularly are weaselly, sweating station manager Maurice "Moe" Green (Harold Ramis), succeeded in the position by flamboyant, leopard-skin clad, foul-mouthedEdith Prickley (Andrea Martin); vain variety star Johnny LaRue (John Candy); washed-up entertainers such as singer Lola Heatherton (Catherine O'Hara) and comedian Bobby Bittman (Eugene Levy); news anchorsFloyd Robertson (Flaherty) andEarl Camembert (Levy), talk-show host Sammy Maudlin (Flaherty), cult-stardom-destined and beer-addled brothersBob and Doug McKenzie (Moranis and Thomas), and many others.
The small cast, typically six to eight members at any given time, play a wide variety of other station roles ranging from program hosts to commercial spokespersons. They also impersonate numerous popular celebrities appearing on the station's programming.
There is much dispute as to who actually created theSCTV series. The show itself bears no "created by" credit, although it gives "developed by" credits toBernard Sahlins andAndrew Alexander.
In 1974, Andrew Alexander bought the Canadian rights toThe Second City for one dollar,[2] and in 1976, he was the producer of Toronto's stage show, and was looking to expand his company into TV. He called together the current cast of the stage show (including Candy, Flaherty, Thomas, and Levy) to discuss a format for a Second City TV series. Also in attendance at the meeting were Second City veteransHarold Ramis,Sheldon Patinkin, andDel Close, along with business partner Bernard Sahlins.
According to Dave Thomas's account inSCTV: Behind The Scenes, various ideas were batted around, then — and here is where meeting attendees remember things differently — either Close or Patinkin came up with the idea of presenting programming from the world's smallest TV station. The cast immediately jumped on the idea as a workable model for presenting a virtually unlimited range of characters, sketches, and ideas, while still having a central premise that tied everything together. From there, the actual content of the show (the characters, the situations, the Melonville setting, etc.) was all the work of the cast, with contributions from Alexander and Sahlins.
Alexander remained as producer and executive producer throughout SCTV's run. Sahlins stayed for the first two seasons as a producer. Patinkin was a first-season writer andde facto editor and post-production supervisor. Close had no further involvement with the series.
SCTV began production in 1976 at theToronto-based studios of theGlobal Television Network, then a small regional channel simulcasting through southern Ontario. For the first six episodes, new episodes were seen once a month. For the next seven episodes (beginning in February 1977, and continuing through the spring of 1977) new episodes were increased in frequency to biweekly. In September 1977, Global ordered 13 additional episodes, which were seen once a week from September through December.
These irregularly scheduled 26 episodes (produced over a period of 15 months) were considered one "season" for syndication purposes. All of the original cast except Harold Ramis was from the Toronto branch of The Second City theatre improvisation troupe; Ramis was a Second City veteran, but with the Chicago troupe.
The originalSCTV cast consisted ofJohn Candy,Joe Flaherty,Eugene Levy,Andrea Martin,Catherine O'Hara,Harold Ramis, andDave Thomas. All also served as writers on the show, although Martin and O'Hara did not receive writing credits on the first four episodes. Ramis served asSCTV's original head writer, but only appeared on-screen as a regular during the first season (spread out over two years) and in a few select episodes in the second season before his main character, station manager Moe Greene, was written out. Ramis and Flaherty also served as associate producers. Sahlins produced the show; Global staffer Milad Bessada produced and directed the first 13 episodes. George Bloomfield became director as of episode 14.
With the exception of Ramis, every cast member of SCTV worked as a regular performer on another Canadian TV show concurrently with the first year of SCTV. Several (Flaherty, Candy, Thomas, and Martin) also worked together as regulars onThe David Steinberg Show, which premiered the same week asSCTV on the Canada-wideCTV Television Network and in American syndication.The David Steinberg Show also featured futureSCTV cast memberMartin Short, but did not use any of theSCTV cast as writers. It folded after a single season. Martin, Flaherty, and Levy were also cast members of the short-lived comedy/variety seriesThe Sunshine Hour, which finished its run less than a month beforeSCTV premiered (and while the firstSCTV episode was being filmed).
During the first season, Levy was also doing double duty; in addition to his work on SCTV, he was also a cast member of the CBC sketch comedy seriesStay Tuned, which aired weekly from October 1976 through January 1977.[3] At the same time SCTV debuted, Candy and O'Hara became regular cast members of the CBC comedy seriesComing Up Rosie. This gave Candy the distinction of appearing as a regular onthree TV series simultaneously, on three different Canadian networks.
For the second season (1978–79),SCTV became a weekly series on Global, and was seen in syndication throughout Canada and parts of the United States. After episode three of the second season, Ramis was no longer in the cast, but continued to receive credit as the show's head writer for most of the season.
In 1980, one year after the Toronto Global television station dropped SCTV due to high production costs,[4][5] show producer Andrew Alexander negotiated a deal to produce SCTV at CITV facilities, withEdmonton,Alberta broadcasterCharles Allard, owner of the independent stationCITV-TV and the Allarcom studios.[6][7]
Candy, O'Hara, and Ramis dropped out at this point, and Dave Thomas was promoted to head writer. Added to the cast (and writing room) wereTony Rosato,Robin Duke, andRick Moranis. Moranis, a friend of Dave Thomas, then known as a radio personality in Canada, was the only cast member not to have come from the ranks of The Second City. John Blanchard became the series director.
This season of the show was seen in Canada on theCBC, and in scattered American markets in syndication.
In May 1981,NBC picked upSCTV in a 90-minute format as a presumably inexpensive replacement for the canceled Friday music/variety showThe Midnight Special, enabling the show to air nationwide in the United States. This occurred mainly because that network had practically no time to prepare and develop a new American-produced program in the light ofMidnight Special producerDick Ebersol's emergency return toSaturday Night Live, which he co-created withLorne Michaels in 1975, in an effort to save it from cancellation, an effort that was successful.SCTV thus functioned as a solution to a serious scheduling bind for NBC, but, as things turned out, it was a temporary fix that only lasted two years.
Less than two months after season three ended,SCTV was back on the air for season four, airing first asSCTV Network 90, then as simplySCTV Network, late Friday nights (early Saturday mornings), airing at 12:30 a.m./11:30 p.m. Central. For this iteration, Rosato and Duke dropped out (ending up as cast members ofSNL during its rebuilding years followingJean Doumanian's stint as producer [see above]), and Candy and O'Hara returned. Because of the rush to generate material for the 90-minute format, several early season-four episodes consisted partially or entirely of sketches broadcast during seasons one to three. Ramis, Duke, and Rosato appeared in many of these sketches, uncredited and usually as extras or bit players (sketches in which they played a focal character were not featured in these repeats).
Season four (25 episodes) was broadcast irregularly from May 1981 to July 1982. Beginning in January 1982, production of the series returned to Toronto for the remainder of its run, ending the year-and-a-half stay in Edmonton.
Writer/performer Martin Short joined the cast at the end of season four, taping three episodes before O'Hara, Thomas, and Moranis left; one of those episodes was aired as the season-four finale in July 1982; the other two were held for the start of season five (14 episodes), which began in October 1982. For the remaining 12 episodes of season five, the cast of Candy, Flaherty, Levy, Martin, and Short was augmented by supporting playersJohn Hemphill,Ron James andMary Charlotte Wilcox, neither of whom became an official cast member. Also, during season five, Ramis and O'Hara returned for one episode each as guest stars.
The last originalSCTV episode for NBC was broadcast in March 1983, with reruns continuing through June. For both seasons four and five, the show continued to air on the CBC in Canada as only an hour in length, edited down from the 90-minute NBC broadcasts.
The 90-minute NBC episodes were released in a series of DVD sets in 2004 and 2005, and selected sketches are also available in 90-minute collections.
In the fall of 1983, NBC wanted the late Friday-night time slot for the newFriday Night Videos;SCTV, despite its unexpected popularity among younger American audiences, was not a high priority with the network and essentially acted as a placeholder for two years while NBC reevaluated its late-night programming strategies.SCTV was offered a slot on early Sunday evenings by NBC (presumably 7 p.m./6 Central), but because the producers would have had to alter the show's content to appeal to "family" audiences (per a 1975 amendment to thePrime Time Access Rule), as well as faceCBS's dominant60 Minutes (against which several NBC shows had failed since the 1981 cancellation ofThe Wonderful World of Disney), they declined.
Instead, for its final season, the show moved to the premium cable channelsSuperchannel in Canada andCinemax in the United States, changing the name slightly toSCTV Channel. The running time was now 45 minutes, and new episodes (18 in total) were seen on alternating weeks from November 1983 to July 1984. For this final season, the cast consisted solely of Flaherty, Levy, Martin, and Short, although Candy, Thomas, and O'Hara all made guest appearances. Writer/performers Hemphill and Wilcox once again appeared semi-regularly.
After the show went out of production, severalSCTV characters continued to make appearances on Cinemax, with Flaherty reprising his roles as Count Floyd and Guy Caballero during free preview weekends in 1987 and 1988, and Bobby Bittman appearing in a standalone special chronicling his life and career under theCinemax Comedy Experiment banner.
On September 5, 1988,ABC aired a one-time special calledThe Best of SCTV. In the special, Flaherty and Martin returned as Caballero and Prickley. The two presented a look back atSCTV (using flashbacks) as they tried to convince theFCC to renew their license. A slightly different version aired in Canada, wherein the pair make their arguments to theCRTC; this necessitated a few changes to certain lines of dialogue and on-screen text, but the show content was otherwise identical. This special was ordered during the1988 Writers Guild of America strike and was not repeated.
The earliest three seasons, in Canada, were 30 minutes. NBC broadcast two seasons of 90-minute programs, including at the beginning material from the Canadian seasons. Some of these 90-minute shows were abbreviated to 60 minutes for the Canadian market. After the end of the NBC seasons, the material was repackaged into 30-minute shows.
SCTV received mostly positive reviews. Following the first episode, Margaret Daly of theToronto Star wrote, "Global TV may have just pulled off the comedy coup of this season ... the concept is as clever as the loony company members."[8] During its first season, Dennis Braithwaite of theStar wrote thatSCTV was "delightfully funny and inventive" and "the best satire seen regularly on North American television. No, I haven't forgotten NBC'sSaturday Night."[9] After it premiered on network TV in the US,Newsday'sMarvin Kitman wrote, "The premiere episode was quite simply the most superb half hour comedy…in a long time."[10] "SCTV is witty, grown-up, inventive and uproariously funny," Gary Deeb wrote in theChicago Sun-Times.[10]
SCTV is far from perfect—there are too many meandering remarks addressed directly to the camera, and the musical interludes tend to turn mossy—but it's the only entertainment show on TV that matters, that goes beyond comedy to create a loopily affectionate world of its own.
- —James Wolcott, January 10, 1983[11][12]
During its network run on NBC, the show garnered 15Emmy nominations (often with multiple episodes competing against each other).[13]
In 1982, the episode "Moral Majority"[13] won anEmmy Award forWriting for a Variety or Music Program. During Joe Flaherty's acceptance speech, award presenterMilton Berle repeatedly interrupted with sarcastic retorts of "That's funny". Flaherty then turned to Berle and said, "Sorry, Uncle Miltie...go to sleep" (a parody of Berle's famous closing line to children at the end of hisTexaco Star Theater programs, "Listen to your Uncle Miltie and go to bed"). A flustered Berle simply replied, "What?" The incident became comedy fodder forSCTV, as the next season contained a bit where Flaherty beats up a Berle lookalike while shouting, "You'll never ruin another acceptance speech, Uncle Miltie!"[13]
In 1983, the episode "Sweeps Week" won theaward again.
In 2002,SCTV was inducted intoCanada's Walk of Fame.
SCTV parody shows include a parody of theWesterndramaThe Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,retitledGrizzly Abrams, which depicts the burly wilderness hero as the owner of a wildtortoise that takes weeks to lead police to the skeletal remains of its master, trapped beneath a fallen log.
Battle of the PBS Stars is a parody of ABC television'sBattle of the Network Stars athletic competitions that pitted performers against each other in running and swimming events.SCTV's version features a team of public television stars captained byWilliam F. Buckley Jr. (played by Flaherty) vs. a team led byCarl Sagan (played by Thomas), with confrontations that includeFred Rogers ofMister Rogers' Neighborhood fame (played by Short) in a boxing match with chefJulia Child (played by Candy).
The People's Global Golden Choice Awards sends up award shows in which the industry honours itself. Presenters include stars ranging fromElizabeth Taylor (played by O'Hara) toJack Klugman (Flaherty) reading off the nominees in each category, withSCTV chief Guy Caballero secretly having conspired to guarantee that every award goes to his own network's stars.
Some ofSCTV's most memorable sketches involve parodies of low-budget late-night advertisements, such as "Al Peck's Used Fruit" (enticing viewers to visit by offering free tickets toCircus Lupus, the Circus of the Wolves; mocked-up photos depict wolves forming a pyramid and jumping through flaming hoops). Equally memorable are the faux-inept ads for local businesses such as "Phil's Nails", "Chet Vet the Dead Pet Remover", and "Tex and Edna Boil's Prairie Warehouse and Curio Emporium."
Popular sketches and recurring characters include:
Ironically, the most popular sketch in the program's eight-year history was intended as throw-away filler. Bob and Doug McKenzie, the dim-witted, beer-chugging, andback bacon-eating brothers in a recurring Canadian-themed sketch calledGreat White North, were initially developed by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as a sardonic response to the CBC network's request that the show feature two minutes of "identifiablyCanadian content" in every episode. The two-minute length reflects the fact that American shows were two minutes shorter than Canadian ones (to allow morecommercials), leaving two minutes needing content for the Canadian market. The Bob and Doug McKenzie segments first appeared in 1980 at the start of season three and continued in every episode until Thomas and Moranis left the series.
The characters ultimately became icons of the veryCanadian culture they parodied, spinning off albums, a feature film (Strange Brew), commercials, and numerous TV and film cameos. Bob and Doug helped popularize the stereotypical Canadian trait of adding "eh" to the end of sentences, a facet of Canadian life often gently ridiculed in American shows featuring Canadian characters. Lines from the sketch, such as "Take off, you hoser!", became part of North American popular culture. Thomas later revealed in his 1996 bookSCTV: Behind the Scenes that the other members of the cast grew envious and bitter at the immense financial and popular success of the Bob and Doug McKenzie albums, ultimately leading to Thomas and Moranis leaving the show in 1982.[18] Flaherty and Candy accused Thomas of using his position as head writer to increase the visibility of Bob and Doug, though the original segments were largely unscripted.[19] AnSCTV episode even poked fun at the duo's popularity. Guy Caballero declared that they had become SCTV's top celebrities, supplanting Johnny LaRue. This led to the pair being given a Bob and Doug "special" withTony Bennett as their guest, which wound up being a disaster.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]
Moranis and Thomas recreated Bob and Doug in the form of a pair of moose in the animated featureBrother Bear fromDisney. During Canadian rock bandRush's 2007 Snakes And Arrows tour, Moranis and Thomas reprised their Bob and Doug Mackenzie roles in an introductory clip projected on the rear screen for the song "The Larger Bowl".[35] Previously, Rush used Flaherty as Count Floyd to introduce their song "The Weapon" during their 1984Grace Under Pressure Tour. Rush vocalistGeddy Lee sang the chorus on the hit single "Take Off" from the 1982Mercury Records albumThe Great White North by Bob and Doug McKenzie. On March 27, 1982, "Take Off" reached number 16 on theBillboard Hot 100. It is the highest-charting single of Lee's career; Lee was an elementary-school classmate of Moranis as a child.
Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson were the show's first guest stars.[36][37]
The show's NBC years brought with them a network edict to include musical guests (in part because of their use onSaturday Night Live, which NBC executives considered the model forSCTV, despite their being very different shows). At first, theSCTV cast, writers, and producers resisted special guests, on the theory that famous people wouldn't just "drop into" the Melonville studios, but they soon discovered that by working these guests into different shows-within-shows they could keep the premise going while also giving guest stars something more to do than show up and sing a song.
As a result,Dr. John became a featured player in the movie "Polynesiantown",John Mellencamp (at the time, known as John Cougar) was Mister Hyde toEd Grimley's Doctor Jekyll in "The Nutty Lab Assistant",Natalie Cole was transformed into a zombie by a glowing cabbage in "Zontar", andthe Boomtown Rats were both blown up on "Farm Film Celebrity Blow Up" and starred in theTo Sir, with Love parody "Teacher's Pet".James Ingram appeared on3-D House of Beef, and violinistEugene Fodor inNew York Rhapsody.Hall & Oates appeared on a "Sammy Maudlin Show" segment promoting a new film calledChariots of Eggs, a parody of bothChariots of Fire andPersonal Best, and showed scenes from the faux movie as clips. Canadian singer-songwriterIan Thomas (the real-life brother of cast member Dave Thomas) was the "topic" on aGreat White North sketch.Carl Perkins,Jimmy Buffett,Joe Walsh,The Tubes, andPlasmatics also appeared on the "Fishin' Musician", hosted by Gil Fisher (Candy).
This, along withSCTV'scult status, led to the show's celebrity fans clamouring to appear.Tony Bennett credited his appearance onBob and Doug McKenzie's variety-show debacle "The Great White North Palace" for triggering a significant career comeback.Carol Burnett did an ad for the show in which an alarm clock goes off next to her bed, she rises up suddenly and advises those who couldn't stay up late enough (the NBC version aired from 12:30 to 2 a.m.) to go to bed, get some sleep, then wake up to watch the show. Burnett later briefly appeared in a climactic courtroom episode of "The Days of the Week".
Former Chicago Second City player,Saturday Night Live cast member, and film actorBill Murray also guest-starred on a "Days of the Week" installment as a photography buff scrambling to make it to the wedding of singer-songwriter Clay Collins (Rick Moranis) and town slut Sue-Ellen Allison (Catherine O'Hara) in time to take pictures of the event. In the same episode, he played two other roles: Johnny LaRue's biggest fan, who is subsequently hired to be LaRue's bodyguard (and who pushes his homemade LaRue T-shirts whenever possible), andJoe DiMaggio in a commercial for DiMaggio's restaurant, where he offered a free meal to anyone who could strike him out. (The strikeout challenges then took place in the middle of the dining room, with many patrons injured by speeding baseballs.)
Robin Williams guest-starred in a sketch calledBowery Boysin the Band in which hisLeo Gorcey-like character tries to hide a gay lifestyle from hisHuntz Hall-inspired pal (played by Short). Williams also mimicked actorJohn Houseman eloquently reading the Melonville telephone book.
In a rare acting role, singerCrystal Gayle guest-starred in a January 1983 episode in the sketch "A Star is Born", a spoof of the 1976 film version of the movie, playing an up-and-coming singer trying to make it big under the tutelage of her boyfriend and mentorKris Kristofferson (played by Flaherty).
Canadian actors, includingJayne Eastwood, Dara Forward, Monica Parker, andPeter Wildman, appeared on the show occasionally as guests. Catherine O'Hara's sister, singer-songwriterMary Margaret O'Hara, also appeared in a bit part in the episode "Broads Behind Bars".William B. Davis, still a decade away from his signature role asThe X-Files' "Smoking Man", also has a bit role in one 1983 episode.
The laugh track used in early episodes was recorded using audience reactions during live performances in the Second City theatre.[38]
SCTV had a 90-minute format, unique for a dramatic or comedy series, but more common on talk shows. Such shows are typically hard to fit into an ordinary commercial television schedule, and the market was limited. The original 90-minute shows were never rebroadcast in their entirety.
Instead, in 1984, after production on the series ended, theSecond City Television syndicated half-hour episodes andSCTV Network 90-minute episodes were reedited into half-hour shows byBlair Entertainment (formerly Rhodes Productions, which distributedSCTV in the U.S. during its original run) for a revised syndicated package, which consisted of 156 reedited half-hours. In 1990, a separate package of 26 half-hours (edited from the pay-TVSCTV Channel episodes) aired onThe Comedy Channel (and laterComedy Central) in the United States. Like the original syndicated series, the American and Canadian versions of the 1984 package differed, with the Canadian half-hours a couple of minutes longer; the running order of episodes also differed between the two countries. By the late 1990s, the reeditedSCTV Channel episodes were added to the regular SCTV syndicated package; three additional half-hours (all from the 1980–1981 season) were restored to the package, knocking the episode count up to 185 half-hours. By this time, distribution rights had passed toWIC Entertainment, which bought Allarcom in the late 1980s (WIC also distributedSCTV in the U.S. after Blair Entertainment shut down in 1992); distribution subsequently passed toFireworks Entertainment after its then-parent company,CanWest, purchased WIC's television stations and production/distribution assets in 1999.
The syndication package was picked up by NBC following the cancellation of its late-night talk showLater on January 18, 2001, but to retain continuity with the latter, it was aired with an introduction voiced byFriday Night and occasionalLater substitute hostRita Sever and was known asLater Presents: SCTV. It aired untilLast Call with Carson Daly took over the time slot on January 4, 2002, from Monday to Thursday;Late Friday (which also had a title change the same weekSCTV was picked up) aired on Fridays. Once again, as had been the case during the 1981–83 run,SCTV amounted to placeholding schedule filler.
For years,SCTV was unavailable on videotape or DVD (apart from one compilation,The Best of John Candy on SCTV), or in any form except these reedited half-hour programs. Due to difficulty obtaining music rights for DVD releases,Shout! Factory edited music in certain sketches or even left out sketches like "Stairways to Heaven."[39] Dave Thomas acknowledged: "We were true guerrilla TV in that when we wanted background music we just lifted it from wherever we wanted. Consequently, today, to release the shows on home video, it would cost millions to clear the music."[40]
Sony Music Entertainment has released some ofSCTV on DVD inRegion 1. All episodes from Season 4 and 5 (which aired onNBC) have been released in 4 volumes, and a "best-of" DVD features episodes from Seasons 2 and 3.
| DVD name | # of Ep | Release date |
|---|---|---|
| SCTV – Vol. 1: Network 90 | 9 | June 8, 2004 |
| SCTV – Vol. 2 | 9 | October 19, 2004 |
| SCTV – Vol. 3 | 9 | March 1, 2005 |
| SCTV – Vol. 4 | 12 | September 13, 2005 |
Other releases
On May 5 and 6, 2008 most of the cast reunited for a charity event, 'The Benefit of Laughter', at the Second City Theatre in Toronto.[41]Eugene Levy,Martin Short,Andrea Martin,Catherine O'Hara,Robin Duke, andJoe Flaherty took part; Dave Thomas reportedly bowed out due to illness. The event was a fundraiser for The Alumni Fund, which helps support former Second City cast and crew members facing health or financial difficulties. The performances have not been released.
In 2017, several members of the troupe, alongside members ofThe Kids in the Hall, performed at a benefit show for Spinal Cord Injury Ontario, after Jake Thomas, the son of Dave Thomas's brotherIan, was injured in a snowmobiling accident.[42]
To honor the 50th anniversary of The Second City,SCTV Golden Classics aired nationwide in the United States on public television stations beginning March 2010[43] featuring some memorable sketches from the comedy television series.
AlthoughSCTV was never directly adapted as a film, the characters of Bob and Doug McKenzie, popularized on the series, were featured in their own film, 1983'sStrange Brew. A sequel was planned in the late 1990s but never produced.
In April 2018,Netflix announced thatMartin Scorsese would direct an original comedy special exploring the legacy of the show.[44] In May 2018, it was announced the special would be titledAn Afternoon with SCTV and air on CTV in Canada and Netflix worldwide.[45]
As of June 2025[update], the reunion special still has not aired, seemingly due to Scorsese's many commitments.
