SCTV: Behind the Scenes
by Dave Thomas with Robert Crane and Susan Carney

Publisher:  McClelland & Stewart/Tundra Books
ISBN:  0771085664

The last thing any good book reviewer would do is reveal an ending. Well, I ain't much of a reviewer; so at the bottom of the last page of this tremendous volume, cast member and series writer Joe Flaherty sums up 1976 to 1983, the SCTV years, "We will never have that chance again. We will never get that kind of a shot at it."

Sadly, he's right. The brilliant ensemble of television's funniest satirists such as Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Flaherty and a few short-timers like Robin Duke, Tony Rosato and Harold Ramis -- have mostly been evilly misused, ignored or forgotten since the fictional SCTV broadcast facility in picturesque Melonville beamed its final hurrah into the ether.

But what a spectacular run of comic invention, performance and hilarity these players and associates unleashed in the various formats SCTV struggled to fulfill. Pound for pound, ounce for ounce, there has never been as rich a whirligig of burlesque, parody, minutia, intelligence, anarchy, nerve, flop sweat and bravado to air from beneath hot lights to homes across North America and a rabid cult of appreciative, howling, jaw-dropping audiences. The laughs weren't only tasty; they were often complete meals.

SCTV: Behind the Scenes by cast member Dave Thomas recalls this truly great production and those wild times spent, astonishingly, slapping the programs together. One of its creative cornerstones, Thomas, has compiled this anecdotal gold mine along with photographs, memorabilia, press clippings, trivia and most welcomed new interviews with the cast and crew.

Fans will be delighted to simply hold the manuscript in their hands, then soon launch into giggles and grins reuniting with nutty characters Ed Grimley, Edith Prickley, Lola Heatherton, Johnny LaRue, Guy Caballero, Bob and Doug McKenzie, Sammy Maudlin, Jackie Rogers, Jr., Bobby Bittman, Billy Sol Hurok and Big Jim McBob, Count Floyd and a carnival of others.

Newbies will enjoy the abundance of showbiz stories and sketch memories, soon hungering to experience SCTV, perhaps enticed by not only the loopy original personas, but also the biting stings exhibited by the actors' crackerjack celebrity impersonations.

Thomas may have been the first performer to successfully mimic the elusive Bob Hope voice, an amazement on any level. However, Thomas distinctly portrayed the young 1940's hip Bob Hope AND the elderly burnt-out legend with savage ease and separate body languages.

Other glitterati gleefully skewered and recalled include O'Hara's Brooke Shields, Levy's Perry Como, Martin's Liza Minnelli, Moranis' Woody Allen, Short's Kid Jerry and Telethon Jerry Lewis, Flaherty's Gregory "You talkin' to me?" Peck, and -- you gotta see it to believe it -- Candy's Divine.

Reviewers exactly like me will feel blessed to be reminded of our top treasured moments: TV's first veejay Gerry Todd, those polka dolts, The Schmenge Brothers and SCTV's trademark surrealism at its loopiest in The Merv Griffith Show with Merv becoming Andy of Mayberry interviewing Aunt Bea, Barney, Opie, Gomer and Floyd the Barber (the extremely inside post-stroke Floyd).

SCTV: Behind the Scenes is a must-have piece of page-flipping nostalgia, the kind of book you'll want to buy a coffee table to stick under.

And turn off the television.

Mike Durrett, your Guide for Humor