R.I.P. Canadian screen great Catherine O'Hara, 1954-2026

Sadly, brilliant Toronto-born film and television star Catherine O'Hara has passed away at 71. She'll be greatly missed.

Have a Merry Shmenge Christmas!

Watch the Shmenge Brothers celebrate Christmas in Leutonia, salute John Williams and chat with David Letterman.

One For The Weekend: The Recess Monkeys

Here's Rick Moranis, John Candy and Eugene Levy performing a Chilliwack tune as The Recess Monkeys on SCTV. 

R.I.P. SCTV's Joe Flaherty, 1941-2024

Sadly SCTV's Joe Flaherty – aka Count Floyd, Guy Caballero, Big Jim McBob – has passed away at 82. He'll be greatly missed.

LINKS

New York Times Joe Flaherty, 'SCTV' and 'Freaks and Geeks' actor, dies at 82

Hollywood Reporter Joe Flaherty, original SCTV cast member, dies at 82

Rick McGinnis Photographs Joe Flaherty 2004

R.I.P. Canadian filmmaker Don Shebib, 1938-2023

Sadly, filmmaker Don Shebib – who made the Canuck classic "Goin' Down The Road" – has passed away. He'll be greatly missed.

Behind-the-scenes snaps of SCTV characters up for auction

Rare polaroids of SCTV cast members in costume are currently for sale to the highest bidder in a Waddington's auction.

Have a look at some of the photos available in the SCTV lot right here. 

Sound Library Gems: Freestyle by Frank McDonald & Chris Rae

The title track on Frank McDonald & Chris Rae's Freestyle album for DeWolfe in 1977 was used as the SCTV intro theme.  

You can listen to the entire Freestyle album right here.

One For The Weekend: The Queen Haters

In the midst of all the Platinum Jubilee hoopla, let's have a look at SCTV's UK punk parody feat. Martin Short & John Candy.

Celebrate Christmas Leutonian-style with The Schmenge Brothers

Yosh Schmenge (John Candy) and brother Stan (Eugene Levy) offer a glimpse of how they celebrate Christmas. 

Network 77's new Musique program is just what we need right now

Ever wonder what SCTV's Gerry Todd would do with his own 30-minute variety show?  It might look a bit like Rachel Lichtman's retro-fabulous Musique. 

Over the last few months, future media mogul Rachel Lichtman has been working on a music-oriented plank of her brilliant Network 77 platform which she just launched as Musique.

Drawing on the inspiration of both 70s TV variety shows and the commercial advertising spots which accompanied them, Musique presents swank period-perfect video clips for contemporary artists like Ted Leo, Juliana Hatfield, Joe Pernice, Eszter Balint and Liam Hayes – with cameos by Aimee Mann and Luther Russell – all gorgeously styled and every bit as sun-bleached and shag-carpeted plush as you would hope. The crazy rare vintage clip of Margo Guryan fits in seamlessly.

Musique seems like a godsend to independent and reissue labels looking for an appropriate outlet to reach culturally-sussed folks of a certain generation and everyone else right now who could use a tuneful, colour-saturated reverie to escape the shut-in doldrums of our shared pandemic predicament.

Now if only some visionary executive at Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO, Apple TV Plus or even say, PBS had the sense to see the enormous potential Musique offers... well, in the meantime, just watch the pilot episode of Musique right here.

Evidently, Rachel has quite a bit of great stuff which didn't make it into the pilot. So if you enjoyed the first episode of Musique and would like to help fund a second – Rachel bankrolled the whole shebang herself – you can make a donation through Network77.com (there’s a donate tab in the navigation). You'd think this would be something that that the shrewd operators behind labels like Light In The Attic, Numero Group, Omnivore, Sundazed, Vampi Soul, Ace Records, BBE, Drag City, Anthology Recordings, Cherry Red, Dust-To-Digital, Tompkins Square, Third Man, etc would be happy to support.

LINKS
WFMU-FM Evan Davies chats with Network 77's Rachel Lichtman about Musique

Happy Birthday Martin Short!

Celebrating the 64th birthday of Hamilton's own Martin Short with a Queen Haters clip.