SCTV is (back) on the air!

Let's face it. Canadian sitcoms stink. Remember King of Kensington? And how about the execrable Little Mosque on the Prairie?

You probably haven't seen or heard of either of those, even if you live north of the border. King was created by a Canadian Norman Lear wannabe. It tried to be sensitive and funny at the same time and succeeded at neither. As for Little Mosque, it starts with a ridiculous premise -- the title says it all -- and goes downhill from there.

It's not that Canadians have no sense of humour. There's a lot more good-natured irreverence in Canada than in the counterpart society to the south. Unlike their American cousins, Canadians know theirs is a nitwit country, and they're not afraid to laugh at themselves. Who do you think writes all those Canadian (and other) gags for The Simpsons and South Park?

Walt thinks the problem is that most Canadian sitcoms are commissioned by and for the deadly dull Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a public (i.e. government-owned) broadcaster so politically correct that it's impossible to poke fun at any identifiable group except maybe the Church.

Yet making fun of racial, ethnic and religious characteristics of one group or another is the essence of most of the jokes you'll hear around the water cooler or at the watering hole. Sketch comedy, fortunately, is another matter. Some would say that sketches are a lower art form, but in reality they require better writing and better, funnier ideas than sitcoms. There's a lot more to creating a funny TV sketch than dressing some actors up in funny clothes and makeup (e.g. Coneheads) and letting them do slapstick for a couple of minutes.

Canadians do sketch comedy superbly. And one of the best Canadian sketch comedy shows, SCTV, is back on the air. Incredibly, SCTV (Second City Television) was originally broadcast on the CBC from 1976 through 1984.

That network's insistence on political correctness led to the creation of the famous "Great White North" sketches, featuring Bob and Doug Mackenzie (Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis), which begat a movie, Strange Brew.

Even Americans found the Mackenzie Brothers hilarious. Thomas and Moranis said in an interview that they didn't think Americans realized the characters were Canadian, "only a couple of dumb guys". Here's a sample.



Check the cable and satellite listings for the comedy channels and you'll likely find SCTV somewhere. It's still funny, a quarter of a century later.

Postscript: These days the CBC would never allow the "Great White North" segment. God forbid that Canadians should ever say that theirs was a white society. That would imply that people of non-whitish hues don't belong. We couldn't have that...eh...