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'Second' class history
History of famed comedy company is sketchy at best
Chris Farley
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
Published: 10/11/2009 2:24 AM
Last Modified: 10/11/2009 4:48 AM
If you laughed at something you saw on television some time within the last half-century, chances are you have a small dive on North Wells Street in Chicago to thank.
That's the street The Second City has called home — granted, at various addresses over the years — since this company specializing in improvised, satiric comedy arrived on the scene in 1959.
These days, The Second City is a comedy empire of sorts, with theaters and training centers in Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, and touring companies that criss-cross North America year-round, as well as take to the high seas, providing the entertainment on the ships of Norwegian Cruise Line.
And, as befits an empire, its subjects have gone throughout the land, wreaking comic havoc wherever they might go. In fact, it's rare to think of a comic actor who came to fame in the last half of the 20th century who did not put in some time with The Second City.
Without The Second City, Mike Thomas writes in the prologue to his oral history of the company, "The Second City Unscripted," it is likely that "much of the comedy (and, to a lesser extent, the drama) we have seen and continue to see on screens big and small — from 'Caddyshack' and 'Ghostbusters" to 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and '30 Rock' — would be either distinctly different in tone or simply nonexistent."
"And," Thomas continues, "it's a good bet 'Saturday Night Live' — whose first season starred no fewer than three Second City-trained actors (John Belushi,
Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd) — would have struggled to lift off. Instead, it soared into the stratosphere."
Thomas' book, published to coincide with the organization's 50th anniversary, is made of snippets of more than 170 interviews with alumni of The Second City, from co-founder Bernard Sahlins to present-day cast member Laura Ash.
Between is something of a "Who's Who" of American comedy. Joan Rivers didn't last long, because she was more interested in doing her stand-up than working within the improv-sketch format.
Others — Robert Klein, Fred Willard, David Steinberg, John Belushi, Joe Flaherty, Betty Thomas, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Bonnie Hunt, Amy Sedaris — thrived in the environment.
The opening of the Toronto branch would attract performers — John Candy, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis — who would become some of the program's biggest stars, first through the "SCTV" show (created in response to the success of "Saturday Night Live") and myriad other endeavors.
Characters that have become familiar elsewhere, such as Mike Myers' slacker Wayne or Chris Farley's Matt Foley or Short's Ed Grimley, were developed from Second City material.
It's also not surprising that the longest entry in the index — after some of the most famous or most active personalities — is "substance abuse." There are a lot of entries that vacillated between awe and regret when discussing performers such as Belushi and Farley — awe at the work they could do, whether clean or high, regret at not doing more to halt the inevitable destruction.
One problem facing "The Second City Unscripted" is that most readers will be more familiar with the people — including such recent stars as Dan Castellaneta, Steve Carell (who did a precursor of his character in the film "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" at Second City), Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey and Nia Vardalos — and the work they have done subsequent to Second City than for what they did with Second City.
The revues the casts created and presented over the years are usually described in only the vaguest of terms, so that unless one happened to be in the audience for the run of something like "43rd Parallel, or McCabre and Mrs. Miller" or "How Green Were My Values," one has to take on faith how extraordinarily funny the shows were.
The Second City may have a longer history, but it is a history that doesn't directly resonate with masses of people, the way "Saturday Night Live" and its history does.
James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
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