As Fans Mourn Catherine O’Hara, ‘SCTV’ Is Nowhere To Be Streamed
- - As Fans Mourn Catherine O’Hara, ‘SCTV’ Is Nowhere To Be Streamed
Keegan KellyFebruary 5, 2026 at 1:15 AM
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Last week, the world lost comedy, TV and film legend Catherine O’Hara at the age of 71. Meanwhile, her big break sits in a content vault somewhere in frozen Canada.
In 1976, less than one year after Canuck comedy kingmaker Lorne Michaels launched Saturday Night on NBC, the top comedy talents of The Second City improvisational theater in Toronto, Ontario banded together to turn their lauded stage shows into a TV sketch series, naturally titled SCTV. For the following eight years, many of the all-time greats in the history of North American comedy, including O'Hara, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Dave Thomas and more, would bless the Canadian airwaves with their presence while launching their historic careers in both TV and film.
Then, decades passed, and, while DVD box sets preserved the library of Canada's most important cultural export, the legacy of SCTV somewhat stalled in the modern streaming era as none of the power players in modern entertainment have yet secured the show's deceptively complicated streaming rights.
Right now, the only fully legal way to watch SCTV sketches online is on the show's YouTube page, where some noble Canadian comedy archivists recently paid tribute to the show's dearly departed star:
During its emergence as a cult hit comedy series, SCTV switched networks several times, with its original patrons at the Global Television Network balking at the show's high production costs. But, more than navigating the murky waters of turning split broadcasting rights from the 1970s and 1980s into a streaming contract, there's one big reason why we may never legally see full-length SCTV episodes on the small screens of our laptops and iPads – the music.
Despite its high production value and the associated costs, SCTV was, fittingly, a mostly improvised endeavor on the part of a bunch of theater professionals with very limited experience making a TV series. As such, SCTV cut a few corners when it came to silly little details like “licensing rights," and the sketch show lifted much of the music used in the broadcasts straight from the top hits on the radio at the time without asking for permission first or paying the necessary fee.
When SCTV fans were still clamoring for the now-sacred DVD box sets, Thomas had to put out a statement explaining why putting the series onto physical media was such a struggle.
“Here's the deal on the TV shows. Andrew Alexander and the other financial partners would've released the tapes on home video years ago but for a little item they overlooked back in the eighties called ‘clearing music rights,’” Thomas explained in the SCTV website's FAQ section, “We were true guerrilla TV in that when we wanted background music we just lifted it from wherever we wanted. Consequently, today, to release the shows on home video, it would cost millions to clear the music.”
So until Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Paramount, Peacock or any other streaming giant decides to devote the budget of an entire financial quarter to securing the rights to a nearly half-century-old broadcast sketch show from Canada, SCTV will have to live on in YouTube clips and DVD rips – which, for such a guerilla show, almost feels apt.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
