You’ll find SCTV on every list of the greatest sketch comedy shows in history. But you won’t find SCTV on streaming; they show has been very hard to see for a very long time.
That changes in September, as Netflix is getting the show starting next month. Search for the series on Netflix and it directs to a page saying the show begins streaming there starting on September 1.
SCTV — short for “Second City Television” was an off-shoot of the Toronto outpost of the long-running Second City comedy group. (The original Second City is in Chicago.) Though the cast varied somewhat over the course of its six seasons on the air, at various points SCTV featured many of the greatest comedians of its era, including Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, and the late John Candy, Harold Ramis, and Catherine O’Hara. The premise of the show was that it was the output of a fictional TV station, from fake TV shows, to commercials, to news reports.
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SCTV initially aired on Canadian television, then was imported to the U.S. by NBC. Shortened episodes aired in syndication for many years, but the show has been very difficult to find on home video for much of its history because of issues with the music used on the TV show. Even the show’s official DVD release from Shout! is truncated because of the music.
We’ll have to see whether the key moments involving music are reedited or removed entirely for the episodes on Netflix. Still, for generations who’ve heard about the show but never watched it, it’s great that the show will finally have a very accessible home.
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