Uncle Scoopy's world-weary musings about naked celebrities, sports, humor and other important, manly things.
My, those years do slip by.
This is the first time I have seen a detailed article about Lohan in which she seems like a normal person. Good for her. As the saying goes, better late than never.
Who knows, maybe even Britney will re-join the human race some day.
Bonus inquisition humor from the Pythons:
It’s an interesting question. Which films have caught, if not the essential nature of America, at least the zeitgeist of America at a particular time.
There are some odd selections among these ten, including some mediocre-to-poor films, and films that say absolutely nothing accurate about America.
I’ve always argued that Casablanca is the film that best reflects what we want to be, and Idiocracy is the one that portrays what we really are.
I would include, as a joint entry of films that accurately portray America as I knew it in the time of my youth and childhood, two comedies by Bob Clark: Porky’s and A Christmas Story.
We want to show the world the Hitler you knew, the Hitler you loved – the Hitler with a song in his heart!
– Max Bialystock, The Producers
Sure, I knew Jesus. He came in the store all the time. Never bought anything.
– The 2000-year-old Man
I’m going to bother you a bit with the reminiscences of an old man, albeit one much younger than Mel. There may be some things from his early career that you don’t know, or have forgotten. In the 1960s, although Mel was already known for his records with Carl Reiner, and mainstream appearances on big-time venues like The Tonight Show, it was not at all surprising to see him drop in on local talk shows, or syndicated shows. On those less formal shows, he was a loose cannon like Robin Williams, totally impossible for the host to control. They just had to go with his improvisations, and try to build on his ideas if they were witty enough (Steve Allen was good at this). Mel would break into absurd song parodies, obscure showbiz stories, bizarre impersonations (Jimmy Cagney’s Aunt Hilda), and even a spot-on Frank Sinatra where he crooned America the Beautiful as a saloon song. (Although it was rarely demonstrated, Mel was a remarkably good singer, and an accomplished drummer.)
By the time the audience caught up with one of his odd concepts, he would be off to another, impersonating Humphrey Bogart’s sister, or singing a risque version of a Lestoil commercial.
As I mentioned, he was Robin Williams before Robin was.
He moved from Brooklyn to Hollywood around 1960, but for people from the Outer Boroughs, Mel was our guy, and his success was our success.
And, as Sid Caesar, Peter Sellers and Steve Allen readily conceded, Mel was the funniest mofo on the planet.
It’s Joe Flaherty’s birthday, or it would have been. He would have turned 85 today. He was the oldest of the SCTV group.
Pretty scary, eh, kids?
Joe’s hilarious impersonation of William F. Buckley Jr.
Variety’s obituary here.
Joe became the third of the seven original cast members to pass away, following John Candy and Harold Ramis. Catherine O’Hara recently became the fourth to pass. Only two of the guys are still with us: Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas. The other living member is Andrea Martin, who went on to a pretty good career in film and TV, but really found her niche as a huge Broadway star (6 Tony nominations, with two wins). Levy and Martin are still working constantly, but Dave Thomas has sort of dropped off the radar lately.
That original cast is pictured below.
Although SCTV was originally a Canadian show, that original cast featured three Americans: Ramis (Chicago), Martin (Portland, Maine) and Flaherty (Pittsburgh). That was the maximum allowed, because the rules prevalent at the time demanded that at least 50% of the performers had to be Canadian.
(Canadians Martin Short and Rick Moranis joined the cast later.)
Did you know that Martin Short and Andrea Martin became in-laws when they married siblings?
Below, Joe Flaherty discusses the early days of SCTV with Jen Candy, John’s daughter. What a great, nostalgic visit with a charming man! When the hour was up, I wanted another two hours. I was deeply disappointed that Jen never got him on for a second appearance. (Curse you, pandemic.)
As Joe points out in that interview, he took an unusual path toward Second City stardom. He was the classic late bloomer. After some college, the Air Force, and acting classes, he was already 28 when he joined Second City Chicago – as a stage manager! It was quite a while before he got to perform, and that happened only because the rest of the cast refused to work with Gerrit Graham on a road show, so Joe was plugged in as a desperation choice.
Thus, eventually giving birth to Count Floyd.
Arooooooooooooooooooo!
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By the way, Prime Video in Canada is now streaming all six seasons of SCTV.
From the comment area:
Michelle Wild will be in the next episode of Birodalom (both the character, and also the real Michelle in a cameo)
Here is Viola Lotti Gombo playing Michelle Wild in episode 3:
A great comedy bit from Amazon Women on the Moon (1987). David Alan Grier did a great job at singing the whitest songs ever written. The premise behind it was a benefit to support the cure for the black people who were tragically born without soul. John Landis, director of Animal House, created the segment.
TRIVIA: How did David Alan Grier learn to be so white? He has a Master’s degree from Yale where he studied Shakespeare, and presumably, had ample opportunity to study white people in their natural habitats, like Sunday brunches, yard sales, antiquing, and performing in barbershop quartets.
I wonder whether he was a Wiffenpoof, possibly the whitest thing in human history.
One of the best, maybe the best, of commencement speeches. These orations are usually filled with empty platitudes and truisms. Not this one. It is witty and about as edgy as such as thing can be.
There is a 2010 film called Dark Shields which virtually nobody has seen (no votes at IMDb, no external reviews).
But what caught my eye was the cast of characters. Check out the last name on the list.
From the comments:
This begs a question, probably not the first time it’s been asked, where did “Uncle Scoopy” come from? My guess, you once owned a Baskin Robbins?
It’s Scoop, as in a news exclusive, not as in an ice cream shape.
Just before my internet days, I was wondering around the world doing marketing analysis for various oil companies. In my reports back to the office, my serious analyses and observations were always accompanied by the reports of a fictional reporter that I created, a certain N. Robert “Scoop” Parking who supposedly traveled with me, and told of his foreign experiences through his own eyes, those of an ignorant good ol’ boy from Texas. His first name was actually No. His momma named him No Parking so he would always have a sign designating his parking space, like a big shot. Of course he was from Texas, where a double first name is required by law, so No Robert Parking became “No Bob.” When he decided he was a famous travel correspondent, ala Charles Kuralt, he needed a more distinguished name than No Bob. After all, nobody called the other guy Chuckie Kuralt. So our boy became N. Robert Parking. He added “Scoop” because he was a reporter, and that sounded like a big-time reporter name, like in his dad’s old comics. (Scoop Scanlon worked as an investigative reporter for a newspaper called the Bulletin in DC comics during the late 1930s and early 1940s.)
So that’s how N. Robert Parking became “Scoop.” Because I played first base in my softball leagues, the name seemed appropriate for Greg as well, and it stuck.
When I started my first web page, I basically lifted the name of the Fun House as a play on, and tribute to, a TV special called “Uncle Andy’s Funhouse” (Andy Kaufman), the obvious direct inspiration for Uncle Scoopy’s Fun House. That was the first time that “Scoop” had undergone the metamorphosis to “Scoopy,” and it happened only because it fit the meter in place of “Andy.”
In the first year or so, the Fun House was written by Scoop Parking in his character voice, but people have a difficult time with that kind of parody. They think that the things said ironically, in the words of a character you’re making fun of, are what you truly believe. Even Stephen Colbert had a problem with this on his old show, when he would get inundated with mail and comments from people who really believed he was an ignorant, right-wing bigot. And I don’t have the fame or subtlety of Stephen Colbert, so I just decided to drop the character voice and write as me. The old persona was soon forgotten, and I’m guessing that nobody reading these words even remembers those days, but the moniker endured.
The Scoop, like the Dude, abides.
Google’s AI bot says:
As of now, House of Ashur has not been officially renewed for a second season by Starz, despite high ratings [92% on Rotten Tomatoes] and a “resounding success” in viewership. However, creator Steven S. DeKnight has already written the entirety of a potential Season 2 and is highly optimistic about its return.
If the show is a “resounding success” in both viewership and critical success, what is the hold-up? Give DeKnight his money and let him go nuts. (I actually wrote to Starz to add my voice to those hoping for another season. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that before.)