SCTV: Martin Scorsese-directed special made for Netflix has been shelved

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Well, this is a bummer. Netflix had been planning a special about Second City Television aka SCTV, a Canadian television sketch comedy show, but it appears those plans have been shelved according to one of its stars, Joe Flaherty.

The news comes to us via Michael T. Scott, a member of an SCTV fan group on Facebook, and they pointed that one of the moderators of the group created a post about the project being shelved which points to Joe Flaherty's response to a post about the project coming to fruition. Flaherty says he's "deflated" to reveal that he has spoken to a producer on the project and they confirmed the special has been shelved. You can check out an image of the Facebook exchange below. 

The special was titled An Afternoon with SCTV and the project was announced back in April of 2018 with Martin Scorsese set to direct. The special was intended to explore the legacy of the show and in May of 2018, it was announced the special would air on CTV in Canada and Netflix worldwide. News about the special seemed to go radio silent after that but as the moderator of the Facebook fan group points out, the last bit of news seems to have come from Dave Thomas' website in February 2021 when it was revealed that Scorsese was still editing the project. It's unclear to us why the project was shelved but Flaherty does indicate in his response that producer Andrew Alexander did give him the reasons and these reasons confirmed what Thomas also told Flaherty some days ago. Maybe one day we'll learn why this didn't come together but I'm sure the news is a true disappointment to fans of SCTV.

SCTV was a Canadian television sketch comedy show that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984. The show was created as an offshoot of Toronto's Second City troupe and it became an example of a Canadian show that moved successfully over to American TV, where it aired for three years on two different networks. The show is best known for introducing us to many comedians that would go on to become familiar faces in film and TV such as Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, and Dave Thomas.

Are YOU sad to hear the SCTV special has been shelved? Thanks once again to Michael T. Scott for bringing us this scoop. Much appreciated!