The way Moranis portrays Griffin's protruding derriere is hilarious. SCTV always had a way of making you feel like you were stoned while watching (even if you weren't). It was completely unpredictable, original, and brilliant.
@@ihavefallenandicantreachmy2113 Tonight on _Who Makes More of A Mess?_ ... it's a blow-up blow-out between J. J. Abrams and Elon Musk! Plus, how sullen can Brie Larson get before she implodes?
I loved this back when it was a 90 minute late night show on NBC. But few people I knew did at the time - probably because it was on Friday nights. I wonder if any of the references play as well now (2018)? That said, this is truly brilliant stuff. Classic television at its finest...
My best friend and I watched this when we could as teens. This was other worldly comedy that some kids just didn't get. I loved it. Rick's Merv Griffin is hilarious and John as Orson Wells......classic.
A lot of these early-1980s nerd jokes and Merv Griffin references might not land with the youth today, but Spielberg, Lucas, "Special Editions" and "Making Ofs" are still very much with us, and people haven't stopped talking about "2001". In some ways this still works because it was parodying the direction the entertainment industry was going, and it was a trajectory that lasted. For me the thing that really kicked it to God-tier was George Plimpton doing the Intellivision pitch, and that whole campaign just seems like a bizarre relic today... but video games have just gotten more and more central in modern entertainment, so even that is kind of prescient.
@@MattMcIrvin We were always an Atari family back in the early '80s, but I definitely remember the Plimpton/Intellevision adverts. Now I just realized how old I really am... Being born in '72 may as well refer to the late 1800s, rather than the late 1900s as it does in my case, given the vast disconnect between myself and the yutes of today.
@@mehermusic2154 Because Merv the tycoon was such a quality, quotidian presence on television, and then Rick Moranis turned him justifiably into a caricature. Merv was so affronted when SCTV had him matching ooohs with Floyd the Barber that he made a call to his attorney. Merv had jazz great Jack Sheldon as his trumpet player, and Johnny Carson's brother as his director. You can't make up stuff like that.
@Voracious Reader Thirty years ago, Hugh Hefner said, "The rich stew of popular culture has turned into a thin gruel." It's gone downhill from there. No Beatles, no Arthur Miller, no Stanley Kubrick, no Miles Davis, no Vladimir Nabokov, no Saul Bellow, no Vladimir Horowitz, no Andy Warhol, no Lucien Freud, no James Brown. And when Keith dies, so will rock & roll. I'm waiting on a postmodern Stravinsky and Picasso.
Wow,I haven't heard the name Phyllis Newman in years. She was always a guest on talk shows when I was a kid and nobody seemed to know why. I asked my parents what she was famous for and they just stared at me blankly.
In case people don't get the joke, it's a reference to the Spielberg's Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where he added extra footage.
Yes, this is completely insane. And yes, that's honest-to-goodness Douglas Rain, the original voice of HAL 9000, doing the part here, coming in at the 3 minute 17 second mark. SCTV was made in Toronto. Rain, an actor associated with the Stratford (Ontario) Festival, lived nearby.
You'd have to have seen Merv's show to get that "Orson Bean" joke. Orson Welles appeared as a guest and lamented how he was the only Orson he'd ever known until he heard of "that comedian," Orson Bean (who coincidentally was in Equalizer 2 recently). It really seemed to irk him...
Just as funny as when it first aired! And for those that don't remember the gist of this sketch was making fun of Spielberg's _Close Encounters_ 'Special Edition' which was lame & over-hyped.
'And for those that don't remember the gist of this sketch was making fun of Spielberg's Close Encounters 'Special Edition' which was lame & over-hyped.' By how much? All that they did was show the inside of the ship that Roy and company were going to go into-there's nothing wrong with that.
I love love love skit. And the fact that it mocked Phyllis Newman was the icing on the cake. I’d been waiting years to finally see the Phoney celebrity hack finally be made fun of.
Hey young folks, those were real video games that were shown towards the end, and were cutting edge at the time. That's what folks in the eighties had to play with if they were lucky.
HAL wasn't right for Barry Lyndon! That one got me... Merv, Moranis, SCTV, Close Encounters, Orson Welles, and Kubrick... these are some of my favorite things... and when Merv plays the piano at the space ship... then he became Dark Helmet
When this originally aired it was the first time I'd seen Hollywood's two hottest directors (Spielberg and Lucas) impersonated in a comedy show. Feels maybe a bit too long now, but it still has some hilarious touches- particularly Moranis' Merv impression.
Well, right off of the bat: _Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: The Special Edition_ _2001: A Space Odyssey_ _Star Wars: A New Hope_ _The Merv Griffin Show_
![03 Merv Griffin, The Special Edition [077] [SCTV - Seasons 4 & 5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/oHdFNPv_XDg/mqdefault.jpg)
![03 Merv Griffin, The Special Edition [077] [SCTV - Seasons 4 & 5]](/img/tr.png)
Rick Moranis...Very smart and under-rated funny man. He and Short were perfect additions to SCTV.
SCTV produced many great film stars including Moranis, Short, O'Hara, Candy, and the late Harold Ramis.
John Candy is Genius.
The way Moranis portrays Griffin's protruding derriere is hilarious. SCTV always had a way of making you feel like you were stoned while watching (even if you weren't). It was completely unpredictable, original, and brilliant.
This sketch went EVERYWHERE.
I love how HAL rips Kubrick when explaining why he hasn't worked since 2001. Hilarity. RIP, Douglas Rain.
I'm still amazed that there was ever an era when you could get this degree of bizarre on television, even at 1:00 AM.
Yes, today, bland conformity is what sells. The audience is the censor!
@@RideAcrossTheRiver People cry way too much about censorship... it's just not true.
@@monsieurdel I said _the audience_ is the censor today.
If the Audience was looking for Work, you could make it into a TV Show: "Censor: For Hire", then, you could blow it up, good. REAL good.
@@ihavefallenandicantreachmy2113 Tonight on _Who Makes More of A Mess?_ ... it's a blow-up blow-out between J. J. Abrams and Elon Musk! Plus, how sullen can Brie Larson get before she implodes?
I’m so lucky to have been able to watch this show weekly. Pure gold.
😂Awesomely nostalgic comedy!!!!‼️
HAL 9000 as a guest on Merv cracks me up every time.
I was hoping for a scenario where HAL would say "Merv... I'm afraid..."
"Orson Welles" crafting Devil's Mountain out of Stove Top Stuffing parodying Richard Dreyfuss. PRICELESS!!
"I have magic!"
I love the nod to the Plimpton Intellivision ads.
SCTV = Genius
I just got a megaphone and first thing I said in it "we'll be right back"
Television has a way of impacting our senses.
I saw this bit when it first aired! Up to that time, It was the funniest thing I ever saw!
Might be Douglas Rain, the original voice actor, doing the voice for HAL 9000. He is Canadian. That's the kind of cool touch SCTV was capable of.
It is Rain.
Wow. Ultimate creepy.
“So he tells me I got a Love Boat...”
Yep
If not Rain himself (as has been confirmed) , I was going to guess (close your eyes and listen) Canadian actor Colm Feore
Holy CRAP it's creepy how much they got John Candy to look like Orson Welles.
Holy DEFECATION
Absolutely brilliant comedy!!
I loved this back when it was a 90 minute late night show on NBC. But few people I knew did at the time - probably because it was on Friday nights. I wonder if any of the references play as well now (2018)? That said, this is truly brilliant stuff. Classic television at its finest...
My best friend and I watched this when we could as teens. This was other worldly comedy that some kids just didn't get. I loved it. Rick's Merv Griffin is hilarious and John as Orson Wells......classic.
A lot of these early-1980s nerd jokes and Merv Griffin references might not land with the youth today, but Spielberg, Lucas, "Special Editions" and "Making Ofs" are still very much with us, and people haven't stopped talking about "2001". In some ways this still works because it was parodying the direction the entertainment industry was going, and it was a trajectory that lasted.
For me the thing that really kicked it to God-tier was George Plimpton doing the Intellivision pitch, and that whole campaign just seems like a bizarre relic today... but video games have just gotten more and more central in modern entertainment, so even that is kind of prescient.
John Candy as Orson Welles asserting he would fall back on magic was fire.
@@MattMcIrvin We were always an Atari family back in the early '80s, but I definitely remember the Plimpton/Intellevision adverts. Now I just realized how old I really am... Being born in '72 may as well refer to the late 1800s, rather than the late 1900s as it does in my case, given the vast disconnect between myself and the yutes of today.
As Bob Hope would say: "I loooooooove it." Dave Moranis was spot on with his "Merv." Silly, but never mean-spirited.
All the SCTV cast seemed to have genuine affection for those they parodied.
Rick Moranis... Dave Thomas is playing Spielberg
Rick Moranis always delivered as "Merv." LOL. Thanks for sharing.
Waiting for the Merv Griffith show, *oooooh Opie* - we'll be right back
It was the little things on SCTV. The boom mic dropping into frame at the end.
Brilliant stuff.....my heroes, sctv
rick mouranus doing merv griffin is hilarious ...under rated .....
His Dick Cavett ain't half bad either. Those two are almost impossible to imitate, but he pulls it off. Andrea Martin as Phyllis Newman (!!!) too.
Andrea is hilarious, as usual
Never underrated.
its moranis
Was the spelling error of Moranis intended for describing Merv's "Anus"?
I'm gonna make it a point of saying
Ohhh that's nice
We'll be right back
Still holds up.
the piano bit is awesome
We'll be right back! I love it
SCTV was the best.....Love it. Far better than SNL
This is brilliant on so many levels. SNL? forget about it!
The only thing Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" was missing was Merv Griffin saying "We'll be right back."
Why would it, when Nolan never saw _SCTV_ in the UK?
Wildly creative humor reflecting a popular culture that was much richer than today's. Unbelievable.
Why unbelievable to you?
@@mehermusic2154 Because Merv the tycoon was such a quality, quotidian presence on television, and then Rick Moranis turned him justifiably into a caricature. Merv was so affronted when SCTV had him matching ooohs with Floyd the Barber that he made a call to his attorney. Merv had jazz great Jack Sheldon as his trumpet player, and Johnny Carson's brother as his director. You can't make up stuff like that.
@Voracious Reader Thirty years ago, Hugh Hefner said, "The rich stew of popular culture has turned into a thin gruel." It's gone downhill from there. No Beatles, no Arthur Miller, no Stanley Kubrick, no Miles Davis, no Vladimir Nabokov, no Saul Bellow, no Vladimir Horowitz, no Andy Warhol, no Lucien Freud, no James Brown. And when Keith dies, so will rock & roll. I'm waiting on a postmodern Stravinsky and Picasso.
@@ARIZJOE, if you feel that way about society, why are you still here? Also, why do contemporary eras have to be exactly like past ones?
"Me? I've got magic...hahaha- he has NOTHING."
Rick Moranis is brilliant
Wow,I haven't heard the name Phyllis Newman in years. She was always a guest on talk shows when I was a kid and nobody seemed to know why. I asked my parents what she was famous for and they just stared at me blankly.
I mean Phyllis Newman?!? C’mon! Lol
I recognize the name but now i have to google her
Genius
Its crazy how smart and creative this is. Moranis is hysterical when he does Merv.
You have boxing on that thing?
Yes Merv
I've always said that this was the best comedy show on TV. The only place I could hear all of my favorite songs, in bluegrass style.
I heart HAL! This is perhaps Rain's greatest uncredited performance.
This is still hilarious as a retro skit, and I also laugh about the people going towards the spaceship. 😆😆😆👏👏👏😆😆😆
Love SCTV Miss these good old days when everything was innocent ❤
still funnier than anything on TV now 5 stars!!!
In case people don't get the joke, it's a reference to the Spielberg's Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where he added extra footage.
Jesus Christ this is beautiful. Oooooohhhhh.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, pleeeaze........
This is great!!!
So many great touches, right down to the parody of the Carson Productions logo at the end.
Cool early 1980's video game graphics.
who's here in 2020?
No One
I am.
So funny...so well done!
BooHooHahahahahahahaha!! Ooooooooo, this is fabulous!!
I love the embellishments on the piano!
Bravo!!!
Douglas Rain actually did the voice. LOL.
Ooooo Orson, l bet it's a trick
He didn't rat out his guest, though. That's classic talk show etiquette.
Running premises tended to run out of steam quickly and become a shell of what was once good. Moranis had a way of keeping the Merv stuff fresh.
His best was The Merv Griffith Show... OMFG they nailed Mayberry!
Masterpiece
SCTV, their impressions were the best. The whole cast was talented.
Brilliant
Last time I saw this I blamed the weed. I was wrong. The bit was totally weird. Love the imagination of the SCTV writers.
Never saw that one before!!
Yes, this is completely insane. And yes, that's honest-to-goodness Douglas Rain, the original voice of HAL 9000, doing the part here, coming in at the 3 minute 17 second mark. SCTV was made in Toronto. Rain, an actor associated with the Stratford (Ontario) Festival, lived nearby.
You'd have to have seen Merv's show to get that "Orson Bean" joke. Orson Welles appeared as a guest and lamented how he was the only Orson he'd ever known until he heard of "that comedian," Orson Bean (who coincidentally was in Equalizer 2 recently). It really seemed to irk him...
Thanks for that! Both Orsons were "at home" with Merv.
Welles was just pissed that Bean beat him out for the role of Bilbo Baggins.
Brilliant!
Just as funny as when it first aired! And for those that don't remember the gist of this sketch was making fun of Spielberg's _Close Encounters_ 'Special Edition' which was lame & over-hyped.
'And for those that don't remember the gist of this sketch was making fun of Spielberg's Close Encounters 'Special Edition' which was lame & over-hyped.'
By how much? All that they did was show the inside of the ship that Roy and company were going to go into-there's nothing wrong with that.
Brilliant.
I love love love skit. And the fact that it mocked Phyllis Newman was the icing on the cake. I’d been waiting years to finally see the Phoney celebrity hack finally be made fun of.
Orson Wells totally miffed at Merv when he blows his name kills me every time.
Wonder of wonders Merv
If this ain't gonzo, I don't know what is. I think Dave Thomas is doing Dave.
SCTV was always great but Rick Moranis had an incredible knack for getting the TV elements right. He took the show to another level.
And you too,
Mrs. Miller!
"We'll be right back."
Hey young folks, those were real video games that were shown towards the end, and were cutting edge at the time. That's what folks in the eighties had to play with if they were lucky.
mouranis is brilliant as merv griffin.....
HAL wasn't right for Barry Lyndon! That one got me... Merv, Moranis, SCTV, Close Encounters, Orson Welles, and Kubrick... these are some of my favorite things... and when Merv plays the piano at the space ship... then he became Dark Helmet
Jesus....! Phyllis Newman! That's really obscure to many people. Ha!
This is over 35 year old and it's still funnier than anything on Saturday Night Dead.
the Intellivision joke was great
When this originally aired it was the first time I'd seen Hollywood's two hottest directors (Spielberg and Lucas) impersonated in a comedy show. Feels maybe a bit too long now, but it still has some hilarious touches- particularly Moranis' Merv impression.
Hillarious
_Ooooooooooooooooooooooo._
I like the look on Merv's face...😯
That's nice
We’ll be right back.😊
Take the wings off, you've got a _biiiig_ car.
i think i just had an acid flashback
7:43 Well, let's be honest, Merv Griffin would've made just as good a Holiday Special as Vilanch
Fly shuttle, it's fast
Tang....
oooo orson you think hal can hear us huh......
joe f as plimpton and intellivision ...the best ...kills anything on now!!!!
@@miked4377, no, it doesn't.
I had the Intellivision skiing game.
Hal sounds a bit like Marvin the Paranoid Android!
Ha ha - this is mental!
6:30 a small tidbit of Henry Mancini's rendition of the Star Trek theme
The teacup's on it's way.
HAL sounds like Phil Hartman.
SCTV was so ahead of it's time, they foreseen "The Special Edition Movie". years before Steven Spielberg & George Lucas abused it.
Check out the special edition of Close Encounters
Spielberg had just done it with Close Encounters--that was what they were specifically referring to.
Eugene Levy as George Lucas. Epic!
The drink that Freddie drinks?!
Freddie Laker, founder of Laker Airlines.
Merv had to book Phyllis Newman because Sandler and Young cancelled at the last minute.
How many movies were satirized and/or mentioned? I’m lazy. Someone do it for me.
Well, right off of the bat:
_Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: The Special Edition_
_2001: A Space Odyssey_
_Star Wars: A New Hope_
_The Merv Griffin Show_
Close Encounters of The Third Kind, 2001, etc.
George Lucas as Darth Vader is a genius move.💯🤩
H wasn't being Darth Vader, he was being the 'Force' that was able to stop the whole thing going foward.