Customer Reviews

Christmas With SCTV

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

All I can say is it's about time!!! I have cherished my 20 year old vhs copy I taped of the christmas episodes. For all the years SCTV was around, in these few episodes was concentrated some amzing comedy. Even after several viewings with a friend, we were watching Martin Short as THE KID FROM DELIVERANCE (banjo dude) and she was laughing so hard, again, that she peed herself!!! Every one of the guys at SCTV in their prime.

I can't give this 5 stars because there are some things about SCTV that never worked. For one, the laugh track was a bad idea. But you get lots of great comedy in these two episodes that is priceless. Martin Short as the kid from "Deliverance" playing the banjo on the Count Floyd Christmas show; Rick Moranis as Richard Dreyfuss in Neil Simon's "Nutcracker Suite", John Candy as Divine singing "Santa Bring My Baby Back" with the Juul Haalmeyer Dancers on the Dusty Towne Christmas show; and Catherine O'Hara as Dusty doing some awful Rusty Warren-esque jokes. O'Hara is also great as Lola Heatherton in her special "The Love Spirit". Plus Candy as Orson Welles, Dave Thomas as Liberace, Moranis as Elton John, Andrea Martin as Marsha Mason, Pre-Teen World, and perhaps funniest of all, Candy and Eugene Levy as the Schmenge brothers ("The Happy Wanderers!")
There's commentary on both episodes but O'Hara and Short together get a little annoying at times.
It's great to relive a time when Andrae Crouch was the biggest thing in gospel music and the video revolution was in it's early stages (Moranis as Gerry Todd). And speaking of Crouch, how many shows today would showcase a full blown gospel number like "Soon And Very Soon" with a banner on the wall behind the singers stating "He is thy Saviour"? And do it purely for the sake of good entertainment?
A great DVD that any SCTV fan will want to watch year after year.

I really enjoyed the Liberace Christmas skit and Christmas with the Smenges. I love all of the SCTV skits and am not sorry I bought this one. They are all so talented and funny and very young - it's fun to see them so young.

If you already have the box sets of SCTV, then you have 1/2 of this dvd already. But the second Christmas episode is a must have for the real fan of SCTV. Episode #94 also on box set 2, the SCTV Staff Christmas Party is a great get together of all the favorite characters. But they really dig deep into some of those off track characters. If you know this show, then it's a fun treat. But if you only remember Bob & Doug, then you're not going to get a lot of the jokes. The real show stealer is John Candy as Johnny LaRue
forced to do his man on the street show "Street Beef" on Christmas eve. With the whole town closed for the holidays, Johnny is stuck wandering the empty snow filled streets looking for anyone to interview.To make it worse for himself Johnny is horribly drunk. But at the last hour Johnny finds there is a Santa Claus.(Candy really did film this at 4am in the freezing snow.)
The next Episode is from season 5 one year later. Martin Short joined the cast by then and Catherine O'Hara was guest starring. Episode #111 is a continuation of the Johnny LaRue story and a great Ed Grimly Christmas movie of the "The Fella who couldn't wait till Christmas." Martin Short is at his best with this character. But the real stand out segment is Count Floyd's Scary Little Christmas special and the dual televised live show of Bobby Bitman from New Jersey & Jackie Rogers Jr. from Las Vegas. This episode completes the Johnny La Rue story and probally the last of the SCTV box sets.
The SCTV box sets have come out not exactly in order. Box set one started at episode #79, the next two box sets continue up to the
4th season, then there is the 4th box set of the best of the early years. But there is no full 1st & 2nd seasons and there is no 5th season box sets. This is due to the SCTV group not happy with many of the early episodes and the constant moving of the show.
After Canadian televison, NBC and then Cinemax where it ended. Fans would rather have a full 5th season box set but this might be the only way to get episode #111.

It's not the "best of" SCTV...it's just a great holiday focus edition.

Fun to watch and remember some of the best comedy available.

Let me preface my review by saying I may be a bit biased. Okay, really biased. I loved watching SCTV back in its hey-day. Or at least I think I remember loving it. Sometimes things you think you remember being funny long ago aren't so much when viewed years later. "Get Smart" is one of those for me, but that's another issue. SCTV by all measures fulfilled my expectations of chuckles, yucks and guffaws. Is it "timeless?" I don't know. I don't think it's humor that everyone "gets", much like Monty Python. If you watched the show years ago and liked it I believe you will like it today. I did, however, watch it with my 11-year-old son and I wasn't sure how it would be received. He is a Monty Python fan, so I was hopeful. Although I kind of balked at the sado-masochistic guy in the tank-top santa suit whipping Dave Thomas as Liberace, it was a big hit with him. It rounds out nicely my collection of off-beat Christmas video and I think it will do the same for you as well.

Thanks to whatever entity re-released this. Loved being able to get a clean version of the Shmenge Christmas segment. The exchanging of the socks is a classic. Would like to see all the shmenge segments on one DVD.

The DVD includes a lot of SCTV based Christmas favourites including The Boy Who Couldn't Wait For Christmas, Christmas at the Driftwood Inn, New Year's Eve at the Driftwood Inn, Christmas with the Schmenges The Happy Wanderers, the Juul Haalmeyer Dancers and Johny LaRue's Street Beef Polynesiatown Christmas.

What this does not include is Oliver Grimley and It's A Wonderful Film as those are on SCTV season 6, which is so far unreleased on DVD.

The episodes on SCTV Christmas can be found on the SCTV DVD set Volumes 1 - 4. One of them is on Volume 2 and the other one is on Volume 4. Ergo, if you don't want to spend the good part of $50 on SCTV Volume 2 as well as another almost $50 for SCTV Volume 4 and you just want to spend about $10 or so dollars for a really good one hour Christmas special, this is the DVD to get.

This compilation of SCTV christmas skits is an excellent addition to our Christmas movie collection. Each skit is fun, quirky, and of course hilarious. We're definately going to add this to our holiday tradition. The Juul Haalmeyer Dancers make it worth the money alone.

If you're a fan of SCTV, or of any of the great actors who got their start there, this is an absolute must-have. Our family has watched the episodes contained on these discs every Christmas for years, so when it was put out all together on one jam-packed DVD, we were thrilled. It's a collection of the funniest holiday-themed sketches done by some of Canada's most hilarious comedy exports.

Particular classic bits include Martin Short's "The Fella Who Couldn't Wait For Christmas", a sketch featuring much of the regular cast (Short, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, and the late great John Candy) called "Pre-Teen World" (truly the most terrible - and therefore hilarious - rendition of "Carol Of The Bells" I've ever seen), and my personal favourite: "Dusty Towne's Sexy Holiday Special". Catherine O'Hara's delivery of her very off-colour version of "The Night Before Christmas" never gets old, and the support she gets from her "guests" (Andrea Martin in a side-splitting turn as a Solid Gold dancer, John Candy as "Divine", a drag queen who rightly claims to be Dusty's "biggest" fan, and a background cameo by Rick Moranis as one of Dusty's musicians) all add to the timelessness of the laughs. It's not all limited to Christmas humour, either - Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara also perform an amusing faux talk show sketch centred around Hanukkah. And, naturally, we get to stop in for a Christmas visit with Bob and Doug "Take Off, Eh?" McKenzie (Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis).

Extras include commentary by the likes of O'Hara and Martin, among others, and there's a short documentary of sorts (which will appeal mostly to those of us who've followed SCTV for years) explaining why and how Catherine O'Hara turned her costume designer into the head of the now-infamous Juul Haalmeyer Dance Troupe.

If you've only ever seen these fantastic actors in their later movie careers, you'll love seeing where they came from. This DVD is chock full of brilliant moments that make it clear why so many of the Toronto SCTVers went on to have success in Hollywood, and it's one that everyone should own to make it part of their holiday tradition, just like it has been in my family for the last two decades!