Regarding the Season 1-3 shows...

[Shark]

I notice a couple of recent messages regarding the Season 1-3 shows.

Short answer: The best (well, ONLY) way to get complete versions of
these shows is to have access to Second City's archives. Unless they
are released on DVD at some point in the future, that's it.

I'm not an expert, but I believe the next closest thing would be the
Canadian repeats, which are not 100% complete, but much closer than
the US ones. (Which US ones? That question opens up a whole other can
of worms...)

I can tell you that there is a seller on ioffer.com claiming to have
the "Canadian versions" of the Season 1-3 shows and selling them on
bootleg DVDs. Unfortunately, I took a chance on this set and most are
the old US Blair syndicated shows. I haven't made it through the whole
set -- it's widely variable quality, most fair to poor, from slow-
speed home tapes recorded from some local US station in the 1980s.
These versions of the shows all had "cold openings" (a skit played
before the opening titles -- Season 1 did this in the original run,
but not Seasons 2 and 3). Most of the shows in this particular set are
clipped at the beginning AND the end, AND at breaks where someone cut
out the commercials (along with a few seconds of the show) and for the
opening skits, dialogue often begins in mid-sentence. This was
especially frustrating for me since the whole reason I bought this set
was to get material I didn't already have -- and as far as I can tell,
there is a grand total of ONE sketch in this set that met that
requirement ("The Dr. Braino Hour"). (The glowing reviews this set has
received boggle my mind.)

I did notice that one show (#23) is indeed the 1980s Canadian
syndicated version, so it's still not completely as originally aired,
but would be a couple minutes longer than the US version. (The quality
on that particular episode is terrible, though, as is the "Cisco Kid,"
which at least is the original US syndicated version with the original
opening -- or MOST OF the original opening, anyway.)

For other episodes that weren't included in the 1984 US syndicated
series, like "Gaslight," they actually copied those from the "Best Of
The Early Years" set. (As if it's not bad enough that Shout! didn't
release the whole series due to dwindling sales vs. licensing costs --
now someone is knocking off the stuff they did release, and copying
their cover artwork to boot!)

Anyway...someone asked what was actually missing from these shows. I'm
gonna go down the list according to Jeff Robbins' book (PLUG -- get
this book!) and hopefully I won't miss any...

First of all -- for 99% of these shows, the original show openings and
bumpers have all been changed. So let's get that out of the way. Now
on to the skits themselves...

I'll start with Season 1 and follow-up later with 2 and 3. The
following skits were missing from the Blair/Rhodes shows and therefore
from the pirated DVD set I mentioned above -- in cases where they are
different, I'll try and note that to the best of my knowledge...a lot
of this is from memory so please bear with me. (Please note -- in some
cases a skit missing from one show will be repeated in another show,
or sometimes moved to another show for the 1980s reruns.)

(It looks like later on in the season, they did a lot of repeats in
the original run -- probably scrambling to fill 26 half-hours --
whatever the reason, later in the season there isn't as much cut from
the revised US syndicated shows -- which I should point out, are
completely redone from the ground up and are different from the
ORIGINAL US Season 1 shows.)

#1
Evelyn Woods Speed Talking Commercial
Words To Live By: Joni Newton-Buffy

#2
Fat Chance For The Sub Sahara PSA
English For Beginners
England For Sale commercial
SCTV News: Paper shuffling

#3
Words To Live By: Dr. Ernest Bruter

#4
Words To Live By: Father Michael Meyer (edited)

#5
Sunrise Semester: Faking Orgasms
Words To Live By: Father John Duffy (Edited)

#6
Labrador Slugger commercial
SCTV News: Laughing Editorial

#7
Dialing For Dollars (Conclusion)

#8
Al Pro Dog Food (This is even cut from the Canadian reruns)
Margot Fontaine At The Russian National Circus

#9
Feedback

#10
SCTV News: Earl's editorial on terrorism

#11
An Evening With Colonel Sanders (Edited)

#12
SCTV News: Earl has coughing fit

#13
Dialing For Dollars (Conclusion) (Edited)

#14
SCTV Sports Central (Conclusion) (Edited)

#15
Dialing For Dollars: Moe calls Mrs. Green

#16
(I believe only 2 skits were missing from this episode, and both are
repeated in other episodes, so maybe this technically can be called
"complete")

#17
(See #16)

#18
Recriminalize Marijuana (this was in the Blair version and NBC Later
version, but not Rhodes)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacres (this was in the Rhodes version)

#19
Words To Live By: Father Chick Murphy

#20
SCTV Boogie

#21
Dialing For Dollars: Sandy Moss

#22
Stay White

#23
Disco Farming

#24
(See #16)

#25
(See #16)

#26
(See #16)

Regarding "Beekeeping With Lin Ye Tang" and so forth -- I know the
SCTV Guide site lists that show as a "Best Of -- US" and calls it
#27us or something -- I am 99.9999999999% sure that is not correct.
The original US versions were compiled differently from the Canadian
running orders -- sometimes a matter of a skit or two being dropped,
sometimes completely different compilations that do not correspond to
a particular Canadian show, and this was one of those. But until
someone releases the original 1977-78 US cuts, or at least a list of
the original rundowns, this will remain a mystery. One clue -- they
were already dealing with the "Canadian content" issue -- I sort of
doubt a skit like "Corna-Bix" would have made the original US shows.

[j***@wisctv.com]

I hope you're going to try to get your money back from these bootleg
sets! Although that will probably prove to be difficult if not
impossible.

Regarding the Lin Ye Tang beekeeping sketch -- while I'm at work and
don't have my tape to check, I am pretty sure that Dwight is right
about the US "best of." That's the context the sketch is in on my tape
at home, I believe.

It really is a shame about the lack of releases of seasons 1-3,
although I couldn't really care less about the US cuts. I would just
like to see the original Canadian cuts released. I wonder when Shout!
Factory's rights expire, if ever. Not that's there's a great chance of
someone else picking them up, but at least then there might be SOME
chance.

What's interesting is Shout! still advertises the sets as if they are
current -- I just bought the 3-DVD set of The Secret Policeman's Balls
and the first disc starts off with a trailer for SCTV.

Does the season 3 show with Mel's Rock Pile Richard Harris include
Exercise Is Easy? I know that wasn't included in the Blair shows that
were shown where I lived at the time (Minneapolis).

[sctvguide]

In article

Post by j***@wisctv.com
Regarding the Lin Ye Tang beekeeping sketch -- while I'm at work and
don't have my tape to check, I am pretty sure that Dwight is right
about the US "best of." That's the context the sketch is in on my tape
at home, I believe.

Well the '27' designation is arbitrary - I have no idea where the ep
fell into the original US syndicated run. It seems like a best of given
the spread of Canadian episodes the sketches originally appeared in -
earliest 5, latest 21. But as SCTV didn't start airing in the US until
Sep 77 or so, after the first 13 shows had already aired in 76-77 on
Global, the US shows could have been compiled any which way.

[Shark]

Post by sctvguide
In article

Post by j***@wisctv.com
Regarding the Lin Ye Tang beekeeping sketch -- while I'm at work and
don't have my tape to check, I am pretty sure that Dwight is right
about the US "best of." That's the context the sketch is in on my tape
at home, I believe.

Well the '27' designation is arbitrary - I have no idea where the ep
fell into the original US syndicated run. It seems like a best of given
the spread of Canadian episodes the sketches originally appeared in -
earliest 5, latest 21. But as SCTV didn't start airing in the US until
Sep 77 or so, after the first 13 shows had already aired in 76-77 on
Global, the US shows could have been compiled any which way.
--
dh � sctvguide.ca

I'm sure you know more about SCTV in general than I do -- but I also
believe you are correct about the above: some of the US versions were
pretty much shorter versions of Canadian episodes, while others were
"built from the ground up" -- resulting in, obviously, lots of skits
shown in Canada and not in the US, and conversely, sometimes the
reverse.

For what it's worth -- there was a company called VERVE which was
distributing SCTV half-hours on video for rental only, through another
company called Films Incorporated in the early 1980s (before the
syndicated re-edits were done). There was a list of shows available at
one point, which as I recall, was only 46 episodes. They were very
cursory listings, like "1. Unnecessary Surgeon / 2. Wacky World Of
Poverty" etc. and not necessarily in any order. Anyway, I don't have
the list handy, but I do remember that the last two shows were listed
as:

Best Of Second City TV One (Broads Behind Bars)
Best Of Second City TV Two (Rock Concert)

Now what do you make of that???

[sctvguide]

In article

Post by Shark
I'm sure you know more about SCTV in general than I do -- but I also
believe you are correct about the above: some of the US versions were
pretty much shorter versions of Canadian episodes, while others were
"built from the ground up" -- resulting in, obviously, lots of skits
shown in Canada and not in the US, and conversely, sometimes the
reverse.
For what it's worth -- there was a company called VERVE which was
distributing SCTV half-hours on video for rental only, through another
company called Films Incorporated in the early 1980s (before the
syndicated re-edits were done). There was a list of shows available at
one point, which as I recall, was only 46 episodes. They were very
cursory listings, like "1. Unnecessary Surgeon / 2. Wacky World Of
Poverty" etc. and not necessarily in any order. Anyway, I don't have
the list handy, but I do remember that the last two shows were listed
Best Of Second City TV One (Broads Behind Bars)
Best Of Second City TV Two (Rock Concert)
Now what do you make of that???

Rock Concert at least was included in both a US and Canadian best of for
series 2:

http://sctvguide.ca/episodes/sctv_s2.htm#Show_26

But a Broads Behind Bars best of would be another unknown US compilation
though. It's a bit ridiculous how many versions there are of the show.

And then there's the CBC compilation that was run before Series 3:

http://sctvguide.ca/episodes/sctvair.htm#cbc

presumably to remind people what the show was like after the one year
layoff between 2 and 3.

[dbf]

I taped all the SCTV's off of the Canadian Trio network back in 1996 or
so (unfortunately they didn't show Cisco Kid) - is that the closest
thing I can get syndication-wise?? I may transfer them to DVD sometime
soon, but wonder if there are better digitally-recorded off-air versions
available...

[Jim E. Ceb]

I'm in the middle of transferring my syndicated SCTV tapes to disc
myself. My tapes are mostly from the 1999 Comedy Network package
(Canadian syndication plus music licensing edits) so these are fairly
complete. I'm also taking the opportunity to catalogue the known
edits to the shows. Here's my list so far:

Season 1: generic opening with the season 2-cycle 1 of NBC theme music
(DeWolfe "Freestyle"), Cycle 2 logo/bumpers (electronic tone only, no
notes after). Credits have the castmembers names in yellow with clips
from the show for each castmember: LaRue By Night (Candy), Stop Those
Depressing Ads (Flaherty), SCTV News Promo (Levy), Only For Women
(Martin), Milk of Amnesia (O'Hara), Ethnic Humor disclaimer (Ramis),
Grumbles on Route 41 (Thomas). Random episodes have an Andrew
Alexander credit over the TVs falling from the balcony.

Most of season 1 is untouched although I did see some edits:

Episode 2: there is an extra bumper before Swami Banananda part 2
(maybe a few seconds were cut?)
Episode 8: Al-Pro is removed. Polardak camera from season 2 is added
Episode 13: Davy Crockett theme and Hat Fur commercial are cut. Bill
Needle's Mail Bag is added

Season 2: uses the season 1 opening for shows 27 and 29 (where Ramis
is on-camera), otherwise uses a similar opening where Ramis' clip is
removed, the other clips are a little longer (to fill time), and the
castmembers' names are now in beige block letters. Andrew Alexander
also has a credit over the falling TVs.

Episode 30: There is an obvious edit before "Ingots" (I think they
were singing to the tune of "Just The Way You Are"). Melba's Disco
Jeans is added to make up for the edit but they also remove Max Lax to
make room.
Episode 31: Piano music is dubbed in over Edith Prickley singing "Just
The Way You Are" in Palmoval although they do leave in her "Don't try
to change me...." before she dips her face into the bowl

I'll be cataloguing more edits as I come across them. I do remember
show 43 to be practically ruined by the edits (I would love an
untouched copy).

I've also got a few random original US syndication episodes. I have
the US version of Ethnic Humor with the Dining with La Rue, the
compilation with the Sunrise Semester on Beekeeping, most of the US
Hefty, the US Writer's Strike, the US Big Brother, the US Cisco Kid.
I also have a handful of episodes with ads after some SNL original
broadcast rexcordings. They are: The Occult (05/17/80 rerun- the
subtitles on Whispers Of The Wolf are in a different font than the
Canadian show), Bob Hope in China (11/15/80), and most of Cookery
Crock (I'm missing the segment after the last commercial break).

[Chris Odorjan]

Post by Jim E. Ceb
I'm in the middle of transferring my syndicated SCTV tapes to disc
myself. My tapes are mostly from the 1999 Comedy Network package
(Canadian syndication plus music licensing edits) so these are fairly
complete. I'm also taking the opportunity to catalogue the known
edits to the shows.

I taped those too, on the assumption that it might be my last chance to
get copies of SCTV. From what I remember it hadn't been on for a few
years on any channel I got. Turns out I was right, since that's about
the last time I've seen it on TV...

One of these days I'll copy them to DVD. I'd like to do a composite
version for myself, by taking the official DVDs and re-adding the bits
that were edited out of them from my tapes.

[Jim E. Ceb]

Just burned more of the tapes and saw these edits:

Episode 37: They freezeframe on the Yellowbelly title and loop the
humming at the end of the theme song to eliminate the song to the tune
of Ballad of Davy Crockett. They also rerun Palmoval with the piano
dubbed over (quite poorly; you can hear Edith sing faintly for a few
seconds).
Episode 43: Cooking With Prickley has one of the worst excuses for
editing I have ever seen. To eliminate "Macho Man", they reverse
footage of Edith moving to make it look like she's doing a dance, then
cut to extremely sped-up footage of her stuffing the bird so as to
disguise her mouth movements. As well, Rock Concert just goes
straight to explosions for most of the acts (only Freddy Fender and
Helen Reddy actually sing). To fill time, they play the end credits
at half-speed with the music looped. They did manage to clear Herbie
Hancock's "Chameleon" for Mind Games, though.

I've also checked end credits for a bit of a timeline. Harold Ramis
is script supervisor through episode 38 (The Occult) and is still in
the writing credits as of episode 43. The first episode where he
doesn't have the script supervisor credit is also the point where they
start to run the credits over a freeze-frame. Schectman and Hart are
on board at the top of the season as is Patrick Whitley, Judy Cooper-
Sealy begins on episode 42.

[Jim E. Ceb]

The only othe major edit I saw in season 2 was in episode 46 (with
SCTV Disco). Oddly enough, it doesn't sound like SCTV Disco itself
was the sketch they had trouble clearing; the one that's affected is
Captain O'Shaunessey's table top smoke alarm. As the alarm plays
generic music, instead of the regular season 2 announcer (John
Stocker), the voiceover is done by Robert Corness, the ITV Edmonton
announcer whose voice is used in all the syndication intros. I wonder
which song was used in the original ad that couldn't be cleared.

Ramis may have been gone but he was credited right to tne end of the
season. Fisher and Staahl were only credited for episodes 46 and 48;
I wonder what they were responsible for on these shows. I used to
think that the creative decline was related to their writing but it
just seems more like burnout/low morale. Towards the end they seemed
to be using the exact same sets over and over again too (Greek
columns, living room, apartment hallway).

I also wonder if they had a few unused sketches that were filmed
earlier but they ended up putting in the last few season 2 episodes
because they had to get them ready for air. The "Save Guns" PSA had a
Box 1978 instead of Box 1979 like in Women Say The Darndest Things and
Graft Cheese so I wonder if it was a holdover from earlier,

[Shark]

Post by Jim E. Ceb
I'm in the middle of transferring my syndicated SCTV tapes to disc
myself. �My tapes are mostly from the 1999 Comedy Network package
(Canadian syndication plus music licensing edits) so these are fairly
complete. �I'm also taking the opportunity to catalogue the known
Season 1: generic opening with the season 2-cycle 1 of NBC theme music
(DeWolfe "Freestyle"), Cycle 2 logo/bumpers (electronic tone only, no
notes after). �Credits have the castmembers names in yellow with clips
from the show for each castmember: LaRue By Night (Candy), Stop Those
Depressing Ads (Flaherty), SCTV News Promo (Levy), Only For Women
(Martin), Milk of Amnesia (O'Hara), Ethnic Humor disclaimer (Ramis),
Grumbles on Route 41 (Thomas). �Random episodes have an Andrew
Alexander credit over the TVs falling from the balcony.

Okay, now may be a good time for me bring up this "mystery" .....

I never saw any of the Canadian re-edited syndicated shows until I
traded some tapes with a few folks in the early part of this decade/
century/millenium (like 2000-2001-ish). At that time I saw the re-
cobbled opening you described above for the first time. In the US,
they handled it completely differently. The US syndicated shows (Blair/
Rhodes) had the Russ Little syndication theme on all the re-edited
shows, including the Season 1-3 shows. It was practically identical on
all shows, but longer on certain ones, depending on how many cast
members were named. Because they didn't have a 1980s NBC-era head shot
of Harold Ramis, they added him at the end (via a short clip, usually
from a skit in that particular half-hour) and said "and featuring
Harold Ramis!" Also -- the US running order was completely different
from the Canada running order (see the syndication page at the SCTV
Guide site). And furthermore -- for the Season 1 and 2 shows, the
majority of them had the freeze-framed closing credits (with the Russ
Little theme) at the end as well, and the final skit in a show often
would be edited or dropped altogether to eliminate the original
closing credits for that show. But (and this is the part I don't
understand), this wasn't done every time -- there would be a few
isolated cases where the original closing was left alone, at least
until just before the point where there would have been any references
to "Rewlex Productions" or "Executive Producers For The Second
City." (Galaxy 66, Bad Acting In Hollywood, Dream Interpretation are a
few I recall off the top of my head, while others like the Season 2
season premiere were "freeze framed" with the new credits
superimposed). I had assumed the reason for changing all the openings
and the credits in the first place may have had something to do with
legalities concerning the Second City name -- but that seems to not be
an issue today.

Also -- there were many instances of skits being swapped between
different episodes of Seasons 1 and 2. It's a little like the
differences between the Beatles' UK albums and their American albums.

One other thing -- in the original run (in the 1970s), the Season 1
shows always had a "cold opening" with the first skit followed by the
opening titles. I note the 1980s US (Blair/Rhodes) syndicated shows
all had a "cold opening" like that (all the recut syndicated shows and
all the NBC cut-downs) but the Canadian versions of Season 1 I've seen
begin with the revised intro, then the first skit (which abruptly cuts
to the NBC-era bumper -- they at least had a smooth fade-in and fade-
out in the old Blair/Rhodes US versions).

(Fairly) recent US repeats on NBC Later and TV Land seemed to clean up
a lot of the issues I mentioned above (from the Blair/Rhodes edits)
with the scrambling of skits from one show to another (and restored
many of the "show-closing skits"), but they also were subject to some
of the music-rights related edits mentioned in an earlier post. (I
specifically remember seeing certain ones mentioned above, like the
break-dancing Edith Prickley "Rhythm Ace" edit.) The TV Land showings
had the remade openings with the "Freestyle" theme song. So I guess
what I'm wondering is this: When the recut re-syndicated shows first
appeared, were the Canadian versions similar to the US ones back then,
only to be revisited later -- or was the REALLY severe butchering
reserved for the US only?

Post by Jim E. Ceb
Episode 2: there is an extra bumper before Swami Banananda part 2
(maybe a few seconds were cut?)

In the US syndicated version of that show, the first part of that skit
serves as the "cold opening" and then it continues after the opening
titles -- as I recall, according to Dave Thomas's book, that's how it
originally was (except it would have had the original Season 1 opening
in between).

Post by Jim E. Ceb
Episode 8: Al-Pro is removed. �Polardak camera from season 2 is added

From what I understand -- not a music-related edit, but a content-
related one (domestic violence)

Post by Jim E. Ceb
Episode 13: Davy Crockett theme and Hat Fur commercial are cut. �Bill
Needle's Mail Bag is added
Season 2: uses the season 1 opening for shows 27 and 29 (where Ramis
is on-camera), otherwise uses a similar opening where Ramis' clip is
removed, the other clips are a little longer (to fill time), and the
castmembers' names are now in beige block letters. �Andrew Alexander
also has a credit over the falling TVs.
Episode 30: There is an obvious edit before "Ingots" (I think they
were singing to the tune of "Just The Way You Are"). �Melba's Disco
Jeans is added to make up for the edit but they also remove Max Lax to
make room.
Episode 31: Piano music is dubbed in over Edith Prickley singing "Just
The Way You Are" in Palmoval although they do leave in her "Don't try
to change me...." before she dips her face into the bowl
I'll be cataloguing more edits as I come across them. �I do remember
show 43 to be practically ruined by the edits (I would love an
untouched copy).
I've also got a few random original US syndication episodes. �I have
the US version of Ethnic Humor with the Dining with La Rue, the
compilation with the Sunrise Semester on Beekeeping, most of the US
Hefty, the US Writer's Strike, the US Big Brother, the US Cisco Kid.
I also have a handful of episodes with ads after some SNL original
broadcast rexcordings. �They are: The Occult (05/17/80 rerun- the
subtitles on Whispers Of The Wolf are in a different font than the
Canadian show), Bob Hope in China (11/15/80), and most of Cookery
Crock (I'm missing the segment after the last commercial break).

Hey, contact me if you'd like to trade some of this stuff -- the shows
I have are ruthlessly re-cut and scrambled, but between different
versions I've been able to reassemble a good chunk of them.

[elaich]

Post by Shark
I can tell you that there is a seller on ioffer.com claiming to have
the "Canadian versions" of the Season 1-3 shows and selling them on
bootleg DVDs. Unfortunately, I took a chance on this set and most are
the old US Blair syndicated shows.

I hope you left appropriate bad feedback to protect future buyers.