User reviews

I remember this show - it made me laugh. "And now, here's Hart & Lorne; Michaels & Pomerantz!" I liked the fact that they gave them equal billing by switching the name order when calling them by their first vs. last names (subtle, but fair.) Hart went on to be a regular panelist on "This is the Law!", which ran far too many seasons on CBC television. Lorne, well, he went on to create and produce a little series you may know as Saturday Night Live - Sorry Hart, you were funny, but SNL trumps Austin Willis, Larry Solway, Susan Keller and Paul Soles (and just why do I actually remember that cast list?) I can't remember much about the Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour except it was a summer fill-in for Hockey Night in Canada, and their big running sketch was Lorne interviewing Hart as the beaver who appears on the back of the Canadian nickel and has this great big chip on his shoulder about "The Elk" who gets to be on the back of the quarter. I know, sounds pretty lame, but when I was 10 it had me on the floor. What do you want? - it was either Hart and Lorne or ... well, I grew up in Northern Ontario in the 70s with only CBC on the tube, so that's what there was to watch. I think they were supposed to be the Smothers Brothers of the North - can't exactly recall how closely they succeeded. Anyway ... hurray for Lorne Michaels, whose phenomenal contribution to the universe of comedy gave that short-lived series a reason to be remembered.

The jokes in this show were so illogical they achieved a kind of epic weirdness. There were the ongoing interviews with the beaver on the back of the Canadian nickel (played by a guy in a beaver suit), the Society for the Suppression of Vowels ("Mr. Thrxsct, good evening." "Xysrthck"). I was only 11 at the time, so maybe it seemed funnier than it was. But even the opening was ahead of it's time. The names were read in a sort of backwards/forwards order, then the announcer yelled "Terrific" - in a totally bored & sarcastic voice. Irony on screen, years before SNL! Does this gem of a show still exist somewhere for rediscovery?