Name: SCTV Cast Members Collection on Later with Bob Costas, 1989-93
Uploaded: 2021-08-10T18:06:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'SCTV Cast Members Collection on Later with Bob Costas, 1989-93' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'SCTV Cast Members Collection on Later with Bob Costas, 1989-93' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-10. Transcript available.

SCTV Cast Members Collection on Later with Bob Costas, 1989-93

As outrageous and as groundbreaking as the original Saturday Night Live was, in
many ways, SCTV was more obtuse.
It was wackier still, right?
Yeah, it was wackier. Well, we had no sponsors. We had no networks. No one to
tell us what to do.
It was like being turned loose in a TV studio.
We never knew when the show would run, so we couldn't do topical material.
So we were forced into the really dark parts of our imaginations, and that's
what we did.
Tonight on Later, the many faces of Martin Short.
It's a very decent thing on Later. Give me a break. I suppose he hasn't.
Tonight.
Thanks for staying up Later. We continue from Los Angeles. Happy to have Martin
Short with us.
And the question is this, since we're on in late night.
Sure.
It really seems like a prescient choice, now that we look back, that Ed Grimley
was so obsessed with Pat Sajak.
Who would have known that Sajak was bound for such big things?
Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? I don't think that anyone would. Certainly I didn't.
You know, I never knew who Pat Sajak was when I first talked about Ed Grimley's
obsession with Pat Sajak.
I just looked through TV Guide. I needed a game show host.
And I thought that his name had a funny ring to it.
And of course, then he became this legend. It was just before Wheel of Fortune
became hot.
You'd never even seen Wheel of Fortune at that point?
Now, I was writing this piece for Saturday Night Live for Ed Grimley, because
he was going to be excited about being on a game show.
And it seemed like it was, the idea of the piece was about, you know, in
America, how you can be like a loser, but then maybe tomorrow I'll be a winner.
So it's difficult to always know whether you're...
And a game show is the one thing that you can suddenly, you know, win a lot of
money or go on a trip.
So I wrote this piece about Ed Grimley auditioning for a game show.
And I needed a game show, and I just looked through TV Guide and picked Wheel
of Fortune, because Sajak was a spelling that attracted me.
And then after it clicked, that became an ongoing part of Grimley's persona.
Because Pat would be a decent guy, I would imagine.
So have you ever met Pat?
No, I've never met Pat.
That's amazing to me.
I would have thought he would have sought you out.
Well, one would think.
No, he's been...
But that would be his first mistake, right?
No, no, no.
He actually has.
I just haven't done his show yet.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I had that thing to do.
But I will.
One thing that Ed...
Whatever.
One thing that Ed feared in going on the Wheel of Fortune, even if he won,
there was a chance he'd be overcome by his own joy.
Yes.
Dissolve into a...
Joy would be his new middle name, I must say.
When did it strike you that there was like a Grimley mania?
That this was more than just a funny character?
That people were walking around the way they were walking around a few years
ago going,
Excuse me.
They were walking around doing feeble imitations of Ed Grimley.
Um, well, I guess, you know, doing Saturday Night Live, you were always aware
of what character was being received well
because there was a reaction when you did it again.
So I think that I had done it once or something, and then a couple of shows
later I did Ed Grimley again, and suddenly there was this reaction, so you kind
of...
The second Ed Grimley walked through the door and onto the set of a skit,
people went berserk.
Yeah, it was great.
It was the greatest kind of kick to get into it because you were always kind of
nervous and wondering if you were going to blow it and forget, you know, what
you planned to do.
But doing character like that and starting a scene and suddenly it was...
everyone immediately liked you.
You could barely not do well.
Where did this guy come from?
It was a combination of a few people I knew, you know, in high school.
There was a guy I knew who used to just... he was into photography.
And his voice went up.
He'd say, you know, I took a lot of slides in the weekend.
I hope that you would somehow find time so that you could see my slides that I
took on the weekend.
So there was that guy...
He usually has a pencil box that has all the state capitals on it and...
Yeah, yeah.
And then there was another guy who kind of talked like this, you know, kind of
like talking to this.
So I kind of combined the voices and suddenly it was like this, you know.
And I was doing it on the stage at Second City.
And it was a scene called Sexist.
It was about a guy who was auditioning for a job.
And a girl was auditioning for a job.
They were both auditioning for the same job.
And there was one employer.
And the employer was Peter Aykroyd, Dan's brother.
And this is in Second City, Toronto.
And he...
So I used to, like, slick the hair up a little bit in the front.
And then he would say that...
He said, boy, last night that hair was...
I think it was getting taller every night.
So as a joke, I stuck it right up to make him laugh.
And the audience laughed.
And my instinct is if they laugh, then you just don't change it, you know.
In my opinion, you might have a different favorite.
But the single greatest one was when Howard Cosell showed up as what?
Grimley's uncle or something?
Or his cousin?
He was Uncle Basil or something.
And Howard was great.
He was unbelievable.
Yeah.
But, you know, Howard had never seen the character.
Had no idea what it was about.
Yeah, I'll do it.
And so we were...
We did the dress rehearsal.
And it went, you know, pretty well.
And then they changed the audiences.
You know, they'd have a dress rehearsal on Saturday night at 7.30.
And the second one for the live audience.
And we were having notes in between.
And I said to Howard...
I said, you know, Howard...
I didn't really know Howard.
But I said, Howard...
Because someone had told me his name was Howard.
I said, Howard...
You know, it was great what you did.
But, you know, tonight...
You know what would be even better, Howard?
It's Howard, right?
I said, if you do the teeth, get your teeth like this, you know.
Yeah.
And he just stared at me.
Smoking a cigar, staring at me.
And I just stared back at him.
So we just stared for a while.
And then Bob Tischler, the producer, said...
Well, anyway, I'm sure it's going to be a good show.
So about ten minutes later, I was in my dressing room.
And my dressing room was beside the makeup room.
And I heard Howard talking to Tischler, saying...
I'll do the scene, but I'm not doing the friggin' teeth, okay?
And you don't have to do it, Howard.
You don't have to do the teeth.
The teeth are unimportant.
But he got an unbelievable reaction without the teeth, anyway.
What do you think it is about Grimley,
other than just the absurdity of the character,
that endears him to people?
Not just makes people laugh,
but makes them feel affectionately toward this preposterous character.
I think it's, you know, he just has these observations based on joy.
He's like this adult who's never become jaded by life in any way.
He's like a heart attack.
Someone who's had a heart attack, and they survive it.
And they're just, you know, filled with...
They're smelling the roses for the first time.
He's like that. He just hasn't had the heart attack.
So if the phone rings, every time the phone rings, he'll be excited.
Oh, the phone. Isn't the phone decent?
There's always such a sense of mystery.
Which is true.
When you think of it.
Short people got no reason.
Short people got no reason.
Short people got no reason to live.
They got little hands, little eyes.
They walk around telling great big lies.
They got little noses, tiny little teeth.
Yeah, well, that phone shoot on their nasty little feet.
Well, I don't want no short people.
Don't want no short people.
Don't want no short people.
Short people are just the same as you and I.
All men are brothers until the day they die.
It's a wonderful world.
It's a wonderful world.
Short people got no bad.
Stay tuned.
Later in L.A.
We'll be right back.
Do impressions as much as you create characters.
They may be real people, but you don't do impressions the way David Fry used to
do Nixon or Frank Gorshin did Kirk Douglas.
Yeah, well, no, I do some impressions.
I do impressions and characters.
I think the characters are probably more rewarding because they're more of a
creation.
But I've done some impressions in my day.
At CTV, we used to do them.
But when you do Katharine Hepburn, sure, you're doing Hepburn's voice, but you're
expanding on that and creating some sort of cosmic Katharine Hepburn.
Oh, I suppose.
Well, I first, Nelson Hepburn, I would do, which was a second cousin of Katharine
Hepburn, hot dog vendor in Central Park.
Yeah, and it's odd how one member of a family, no more distinguished than the
other by breeding, would wind up a world-famous actress, and the other guy
winds up a hot dog vendor.
Well, it's life.
It's so much.
You never know what's going to happen.
Heaven's sake, but I'm, but Nelson's proud of his life.
You cut the wieners every day, make sure that they're pure.
And then you, and then you, you, you close up on Saturdays, Sundays, or a day
of rest.
And there's a certain integrity to that.
I agree.
Now, I didn't know, until you let me in on it, that Jerry Lewis had a niece,
Denise.
Oh, yeah.
Denise Lewis works in a doctor's office, Dr. Harry Goldman, and is a super, she,
she would, she would like, she would say, she would, she would get a call, and
she'd say,
Yes, hello, Dr. Goldman's office.
You would like the doctor?
I'll see if he's in.
Hold on, please.
Dr. Goldman!
Get that intercom.
Not for Denise.
You know, it strikes me that with, with public figures increasingly in trouble,
Oliver North, John Tower, Jim Wright, they could all use the services of Nathan
Thurm, couldn't they?
I know that.
Now, Nathan Thurm is actually a character that is very hard to do spontaneously,
because it's all written rhythms.
And the, and the cigarette is essential to it.
Well, the cigarette, yeah, you know, Nathan Thurm was always like those, just
those liars, you see, you know, Nixon, you know, the former president, comes,
shoots to mind.
There are others, but, you know, that kind of great glycerin on the upper lip,
and the total denial of just saying, you know, you know, according to our
records, your client is, was there.
No, he wasn't.
Well, we have, you think he was?
It's so funny that you would think he was there when he wasn't there.
That's so sad, in a way.
Well, we have a picture.
I know.
And then, and then the ultimate...
Complete reversal.
The ultimate reversal would be, I have here, Mr. Thurm, a picture of you and
your client with goats, and clearly you're receiving a check that is bribery
money, and then Nathan Thurm would say, well, why don't you talk about all the
things you've done wrong in your own life?
Right, well, he's cornered.
Well, first of you, he'd say, no, you don't.
And he'd say, yes, you do.
No, I don't.
Well, you think I...
I have it right here.
Here it is.
No, you don't.
What do you think this is, then?
If that isn't a picture of you with a goat, then what is it?
I know it is.
It's a picture of me.
Why wouldn't I know it's a picture of me?
All right, so you concede that it's a picture of you.
Can you believe how boring he is?
You concede that it's a picture of you.
I know that.
All right, and it's a picture of you doing something criminal.
No, it isn't.
Yes, it is.
I know.
Clearly it is.
According to every statute, it is.
Now, when Jackie Rogers, Jr.
Yes?
Springs from your head, where'd the seed come from?
Who put the seed in there?
I don't know.
Jackie is everything that is kind of disgusting in show business.
He's the most narcissistic, silliest character I do.
I mean, he's the kind of guy that, you know, in a show I did a couple years ago
where he
was, he fell out a window and actually fell out a four-story window, smashed
through the
roof of a lion's cage and fell into a cage with a lion, although he didn't know
it right
away, but was so absorbed in himself that the first thing he said was, gee,