October 29, 2006
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Mrs. Falbo’s Tiny Town
A couple days ago I went to Scarecrow Video because I wanted to get something funny. Something really, really funny. And when I got there, the choice was simple: SCTV Season 3.
Season 3 is when they got picked up by NBC. Previously they’d only been in Canada. And the reason I chose it is because there was one bit I for sure wanted to see: Mrs. Falbo’s Tiny Town (a children’s show) goes to visit the inmates at a prison.
Watch it now (remember that this was on NBC, at a time when Saturday Night Live was totally floundering):
I remember seeing this sketch when it first aired. I didn’t know there was an SCTV, and I turned on the TV in the middle of the night. Suddenly I was watching *that.* It was the funniest thing I had ever seen, in no small part because I wasn’t expecting it.
So I’ve been in SCTV-land for a couple days, putting it on while I sort laundry and that kind of thing. Also just watching it. It’s completely hilarious, even having seen most of it before. They’re masterful at taking every little detail and making it as funny as possible, even if it’s not all that funny in and of itself.
Well worth seeing if you were born after 1980.
Comments (5)
I didn’t think it was THAT funny, but I can see how, if you weren’t expecting it, and you happened to land on the right channel, that this would spark some laughter. Like Sean, I really miss John Candy.
SCTV was great, but like SNL, it tended to drag out a joke way too long sometimes. Timing always seemed to be a problem with improv. I’ve been watching Monty Python, now that PBS is rerunning it. With a few exceptions, they used lean editing and didn’t beat a joke to death, moving more quickly from sketch to sketch.
“And now for something completely different …”
Hmmm. I agree that it’s probably “as funny as possible”, since that’s a completely relative state of funniness.
I really miss John Candy though.
Now I’m sad.
I love, love, love SCTV–it is third in my list of extinct species behind Monty Python, The Young Ones, and then SCTV. I wish I could pick up the complete series of “Fridays” or whatever it was, just to see Kramer (I forget his real name) in his early action too.
Count Floyd–oh, that’s scary!
SCTV was a fun show…