Second City Television

Second City Television (SCTV) is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984. The basic premise of SCTV is that it is an independent television station in the city of Melonville, in an unknown province or state. Rather than broadcasting the usual TV rerun fare, the station produces a bizarre and humorously incompetent range of cheap local programming. This can range from a... more

Second City Television (SCTV) is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984. The basic premise of SCTV is that it is an independent television station in the city of Melonville, in an unknown province or state. Rather than broadcasting the usual TV rerun fare, the station produces a bizarre and humorously incompetent range of cheap local programming. This can range from a soap opera called "The Days of the Week" ("Monday...Tuesday...Wednesday...these are...the days of the week"), to game shows like "Shoot At The Stars" in which celebrities are literally shot at like targets in a shooting gallery, to full blown movie spoofs like "Play it Again, Bob" in which Woody Allen (Rick Moranis) tries to get Bob Hope (Dave Thomas) to star in his next film. In-house media melodrama was also satirized with characters like John Candy's vain, bloated variety star Johnny La Rue, Dave Thomas's acerbic critic Bill Needle, Joe... less