If I had a nickel for every time there’s been an SCTV-related documentary released this year, I’d have two nickels. This past summer saw the intimate Martin Short-focused Marty, Life Is Short, whose career started on the Canadian sketch show that birthed the careers of John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin, and the late Catherine O’Hara, to name a few. Now, with compiled footage filmed prior to some of the subject’s passing (O’Hara, god, it still feels horrible to say, screw this year) comes an entire doc dedicated to it. Well-made for the people who never grew up with it and so niche it had to be called SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of. Canadian X-ers are already putting up their maple-colored gloves and fighting us Americans for naming it.
The Little Canadian Sketch Show That Could
SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of chronicles the lengthy history of the Canadian sketch comedy series, Second City Television, which aired from 1976 to 1984. For those unfamiliar, the series satirized the encompassing media of the time, with riffs on commercials, popular movies, genre shows, starlets and stars, and late-night talk show hosts, etc. All brought to life by up-and-coming comedians who were just having fun. The show was the launchpad for sheer generational talent that many Gen-Z and possibly several late millennials are aware of but never investigated where they got their start. Before Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek, Father of the Bride, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, you name it, there was SCTV! Director Jason Hehir conducts several talking-head interviews with some of the cast, most notably a session with Short, O’Hara, Levy, Thomas, and Martin all together on a couch in July 2025, six months prior to O’Hara’s passing, watching old clips, BTS footage, and recollecting memories about each other and themselves. Also featured are Moranis and the late Joe Flaherty, who passed in 2024, in talking-head interviews.
The doc tells the story of the show’s entire lifespan and the various cultures it spurred in comedy during its run. At first a direct competitor to SNL, then the show poached John Candy and Dave Thomas. Then how the show ran out of funding and was saved by billionaire Dr. Charles Allard, who had them shoot in Edmonton, Canada, in a studio he owned. The wealth of characters each cast member played, and how Bob and Doug McKenzie became the breakout stars, with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas launching into superstardom and Strange Brew, the movie. Then the neglect of the show was treated, and when they got brought out by NBC and went from up north to NYC, changing the format from 30 minutes to 90, and how hands-on the execs were, to the point their intention to turn it into something family-oriented was the straw that broke the camel’s back and everyone leaving.
As someone who’s only seen a handful of sketches (the Mr. Rogers vs. Julia Child boxing one lives rent-free in my mind), the doc is an enlightening and detailed deep dive into how one show — with a cast who saw each other as family, some lifelong friends to the very end (RIP Catherine O’Hara) — endured so many iterations and pioneered the culture of sketch comedy.
Tearful Reunions, Honest Regrets, and Comedy Nerds Geeking Out
It’s definitely a walk down memory lane for fans who were there from any juncture of their lives, and shows how it inspired some household names in their comedic careers. It works effectively because of the former cast members’ honest storytelling, mature introspective reflections, and the breaking points. It’s gut-wrenching seeing the cast mates in contemporary time looking at their younger selves, tearing up. O’Hara even goes on to say how the show was the perfect comedic outlet for being in your 20s, “Because you’re cocky at that age. And at Second City, you have a place to express it in a funny way, and you’ve been told you’re funny enough to be here.” One highlight sequence involves how youthful and reckless fame came to the young stars, with Moranis revealing how he and Thomas ostracized their castmates by buying expensive vehicles, and regretting it today.
Talking heads relay their love, with Bill Hader and Bob Odenkirk especially pouring their geekiness on their sleeves. There’s nothing more speaking to Hader’s demented signifier than him laughingly recalling seeing the darkly comedic sketch “Yellowbelly” as a kid—which involved Candy’s onscreen actor persona Johnny LaRue as a convict who shot women and children in the back, onscreen, played for laughs—and Hader being shocked by it. He and Odenkirk, who lauds the series as “fucking brilliant,” reflect on Joe Flaherty’s upbeat talk show host character Sammy Maudlin, with Odenkirk thinking about him when he’s on a talk show press circuit.
Mourning the Lost Art of Sketch TV
Even though the series was before my time, I found myself getting bummed about how widespread sketch comedy television used to be, across varying demographics. There used to be a time when sketch comedy series were like the Lernaean Hydra: you cut one head off, three more spawn—some for adults, some for young adults, many for kids—but the medium was still alive. Between I Think You Should Leave and A Black Lady Sketch Show both not being around anymore, all we’re really left with are SNL and its UK counterpart. We just got Drunk History revived, but as an online short-form series for Comedy Central’s YouTube channel. If that doesn’t tell you enough how dour it is out there.
I get it, the framework of comedy has evolved with YouTube being so vital, and mostly improv with Smosh and Dropout leading the pack—but man, I miss the traditional opportunities for comics and comedy writers on a global basis to exercise their prowess via sketch TV. All these platforms have the resources to invest in more sketch television, and there should be something of the same ilk as SCTV or Mr. Show around. It can’t all be the monolith that is SNL.
Entertaining and short, SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of is a sweet, earnest tribute to an unsung pillar of sketch TV that deserves its flowers as much as the celebrated cast many love today. Considering SCTV is available to stream on Netflix right now, the doc is a perfect complement, if not a prelude, for a whole-series binge. Heck, it genuinely motivated me to watch an episode or two following the doc. Hell, if you won’t do it, your automatic queue will.
