Better Late Then Never

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

With that said, I loved SCTV and everything about it. With THAT said, why on earth did NBC, when they took it from the Canadians, have to add a laugh track. SCTV when syndicated was absolutely brilliant and needed no crutches. For some bizarre reason, the morons running NBC felt a need to add a laugh track. It's on the DVD. WHY? It didn't NEED one. Even idiots could understand when it was funny and didn't need prompting.OK, I understand, TV execs are a special kind of idiot who need to be show how to use a urinal every time they have to use one, I get that. But the viewing public, as a rule, got the humor and didn't need prompting. I found the prompting insulting. But I digress.John Candy, Joe Flaherty and, well, the whole bunch were brilliantly off beat. As the station boss, Joe Flaherty played Guy Caballero, the station boss who always used a wheelchair. He didn't need it, he just used one. He HATED PBS and in an episode where the networks were at war, he ordered a hit on PBS. When told they had already hit them, he replied, "Well, hit 'em again. I hate that egghead network!" This is just ONE of the out of this world, insane characters who populated SCTV and there were so many.It translated well into a 'network' show in the US, but you could see there was a slight lack of edge, and of course the damn laugh track.If you've never seen it, do yourself a favor and watch an episode or two. It'll never hurt. It can't do justice to watch only a few, but you'll be glad you did...even with that damn laugh track. PLEASE, try to find one without it.On a side note, to the editors at IMDb, capitalization is not always yelling. Since it's impossible to emphasize things with underlining or bold type, caps is all that's left.END...sorry $end$ repression and censorship!

It's so darned funny! Who couldn't love "I Was A Teenage Communist"? There are millions of fans I suppose, but I felt like it was like an inside joke I shared with the cast. Silly, nonsensical, insane, insanely funny, comedy as high art.Dave Thomas playing Bob Hope as if he were Bob Hope in a parallel universe on parole with a shiv tucked in his pants. There was something dangerous about that show. Early on "Saturday Night Live" had an air of danger. As if I was watching something that threatened to spin loose and leave large bloody gashes in the audience. Later SCTV struck me in similar way. The difference was I was getting older and my sense of humor became sardonic.

Toronto's comedy scene in the 1970s had become intensely vibrant. So great that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) once devoted the awkward Saturday night half-hour+ time slot following "Hockey Night In Canada" and preceding national news, to the spirit of what would one day become the SCTV phenomenon.Speaking of which, IF anyone out there has a video copy of their hilarious version of the 1958 film, "Queen Of Outer Space", starring Paul Birch, LET ME KNOW! I remember Eugene Levy's voice and those of others dubbed over the actual soundtrack. This was the predecessor to the brilliant Mystery Science Theatre 3000! The spoof had to be just about the most brilliant, if not the funniest, thing I had seen to that point in my young life - it played some time in the mid to late 1970s. I've been told by reliable sources the show was called "Stay Tuned."It seems John Candy was the man NBC was originally interested in to form a new sketch comedy series, but this generous and kind giant invited his friends and colleagues from 1970s Toronto Second City to be involved and we comedy aficionados can be thankful he did. The result was the most intelligent, creative and funny television series on the North American continent.At this point in time, comedy in Canada had finally become comparable to anywhere in the world. For the writing/performing ensemble on "SCTV Network 90," they had reached the apex of brilliance during this time. Most of the cast went on to greater fame in later projects.The series raised the confidence for Canadians who pursued comedy as a career and now the nation can boast many top notch domestic comedy series. Comedy is now an industry in which Canadians rival the best in the world and the development of SCTV Network 90 was an important part of that process.

Thanks in large part to Comedy Central, sketch comedy is all over the place now. SCTV's influence can be seen in many of these new shows. Look at the cast -- just about all these talented actors have become household names and legends in the world of comedy. Their second to last season was their best; at that point, the writing was simply amazing and the ensemble work of the cast was at its best. Every character the many-faced actors came up with was hilarious and strangely believable.