This work offers a complete episode guide and comprehensive history of Second City Television. The influential Canadian sketch comedy series created dozens of memorable characters (i.e. station president Guy Caballero and showbiz mogul Johnny LaRue) and featured well-known performers such as John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, and Martin Short, at the height of their comedic careers. Presenting a thorough summary and review for each of SCTV’s 135 episodes, the author traces the initial appearance and evolution of some of comedy’s best known television characters and sketches. Two appendices provide guides to the program’s compilation shows and recently released boxed sets on DVD.

Jeff Robbins works in programming for Television Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. He also writes on entertainment and sports for the company’s Web sites. He lives in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin.

Jeff Robbins
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 291
Bibliographic Info: appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3191-5
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5533-1
Imprint: McFarland

Foreword by Sheldon Patinkin      1
Preface      5

Part One. The Half-Hour Shows (1976–1981)      11
THE FIRST SEASON      12
THE SECOND SEASON      44
THE THIRD SEASON      71

Part Two. The Ninety-Minute Shows (1981–1983)      103
Part Three. The Forty-Five-Minute Shows (1983–1984)      227

Appendix A. The Compilations      253
Appendix B. SCTV on DVD      257
Bibliography      259
Index      263

“exhaustive”—Isthmus

“excellent…a must-have companion to this beloved late-night comedy series”—ComicsWorthReading.com

“recommended…excellent”—John Kenneth Muir’s Reflections on Film/TV