Page "Second City Television" Paragraph 25

The core premise of the show allowed for tremendous variety in presentation, but unlike Monty Python, which often would cut from one sketch to another without any resolution, the SCTV format required television style bridges.

One technique they used was to build premises into " promos " for shows that would never run ( such as " Melvin and Howards ", a parody of the movie Melvin and Howard which featured Melvin Dummar, Howard Hughes, Howard Cosell, Curly Howard, and Senator Howard Baker on a road trip singing old tunes ).

Another was to take longer pieces that failed and cut them into promos or trailers.

These short elements wound up being the equivalent of " blackout " pieces on the Second City stage.

However, the internal logic of the series — that this actually was a television station producing low-budget programming — was never lost.

SCTV's techniques helped inform and influence later shows, with clear influence on The State, the Upright Citizen's Brigade, and The Kids in the Hall.