FAVOURITES

I agree! Dave as Richard Harris is the funniest.

let the bad color not be seen. it attracts them.

I'm glad to see others mention Pirini. Andrea Martin is just so completely into that character - the eyes, the movements of hands, arms, just hysterical. I've just been watching the DVDs - hadn't seen the show since the late 1970s when I lived in Boston (so these 90 minute NBC shows on DVD are entirely new to me), but I remembered that character very well.

Still, I just can't pick a favorite. The truth is my favorite is whatever one I'm watching at the time! I just can't think of any (and I mean ANY - including e.g., the "straight parts" such as Catherine O'Hara's in some of the scenes with the Pirini character) that didn't strike me as wonderfully inspired.

This show was just so ingenious. One thing I loved was that the characters they created were not run into the ground as I always felt watching the charcters created on Saturday Night Live and trotted out in program after program after program.

Another was that the skits seemed to build fantastically from the premise - whereas again on SNL, they usually seemed to just meander from the premise - trusting that people would just find the premise so funny that they'd continue to laugh.

A third was that there were SO many sketches in each program - none seemed to run for more than about 3 minutes (except the major two or three parodies).

One of the things this show seemed to aim at - and do superbly - was simply the juxtaposition of unfamiliar things - which I think characteristic of television. (How often in the 1960s did I see strange combinations on television - e.g., an Andy Warhol star like Viva sitting beside say, comedian London Lee, watching Sergio Franchi perform a duet with Mike Douglas on his show - on the Mike Douglas Show, it was terribly awkward - on SCTV, Lola Heatherton Sammy Maudlin and Mother Theresa was hilarious).

I find the commentaries on the DVDs fascinating - e.g., why IS Flaherty so deferential to Eugene Levy? What MAKES Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara SO modest (and self-conscious watching themselves) compared to the others? They're both comedy geniuses - and I don't think they realize the level of affection in which they are held by truly tens of millions of people over almost 30 years).
Why does Rick Moranis not seem to be participating in the DVDs? (He was as funny as any of them - the Gerry Todd charcter is priceless - as is Edith Prickley, just too many to name.

I loved the Communist accountant played by Harold Ramis. I loved the Japanese talk show host played by Dave Thomas. I loved the Angry Young Man - I guess Dave Thomas again - what impersonations! I thought the Catherine Meehan character pricelss - and Eugene Levy's game show host perfect). I loved John Candy's Gyorgi - and the whispering "Uzbeks" part of the Russian program.

This show was truly inspired, the stuff of genius.

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