Foreign accents on SCTV

[DrMabuse]

I had one of those strange SCTV flashbacks when thinking about Return of the
King, because of all the English-sounding accents in that movie. I suddenly
remembered Dave Thomas in "My Bloody Hand!" doing his Michael Caine
impression. And then John Candy leading the rednecks at the local diner is
saying, "It's not your hand...it's your VOICE! You talk funny, Bubba. We
think you're from...ENGLAND!"

How good were the foreign accents on SCTV? I thought Dave did a good
English accent, for Michael Caine and Richard Harris. John Candy wasn't
that great with accents, it seemed to me, and I can't offhand remember too
many others, except for Martin Short's Pierre Trudeau (very good).

Wanda

[Lulu]

DrMabuse wrote:

> How good were the foreign accents on SCTV? I thought Dave did a good
> English accent, for Michael Caine and Richard Harris. John Candy wasn't
> that great with accents, it seemed to me, and I can't offhand remember too
> many others, except for Martin Short's Pierre Trudeau (very good).

As far as English accents, Dave and Catherine were hands down the best.

John, Joe, and Andrea...not so good.

Don't remember Marty ever doing a British accent. Did Rick ever attempt it?

-Lulu

> Wanda
>

[Teem]

Dave doing Lin Ye,he has a knack for orientals,he could of easily put an "R"
in front of every word,but that would be too easy.
"Lulu" <ab...@spamabuse.org> wrote in message
news:v856d1-...@sockmonkey.dyndns.org...

[eyir]

Thomas's parents were British; hence the strong English accent. I don't
think he was as good with others, though.

Nice to see you back, Wanda. Seems as though it's been a while since you
graced this group with your presence.

"DrMabuse" <wsherr...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:OuVLb.60932$AAe1...@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...

[Justin Pate]

"eyir" <ey...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:Y8YLb.113725$BA6.2...@news20.bellglobal.com...

> Thomas's parents were British; hence the strong English accent. I don't
> think he was as good with others, though.

Dave said in his book he could handle most foreign accents, except Mexican.

[DrMabuse]

Thanks! I haven't been anywhere, just preoccupied, I guess. I've been
locked in combat with people on the IMDb discussion board over the
deficiencies of Return of the King, so that's probably why I haven't been
posting here so much in the last week or so.

Wanda

"eyir" <ey...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:Y8YLb.113725$BA6.2...@news20.bellglobal.com...

[eyir]

> Don't remember Marty ever doing a British accent. >Did Rick ever attempt
it?

Marty did a pretty good job as the lead singer of the Queen Haters. Rick's
British accent sounded pretty good in his role of the photographer who
suffered a "physical experience" while taking shots of the man with the
X-Ray eyes!

[George Hiebert]

"eyir" <ey...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:Y8YLb.113725$BA6.2...@news20.bellglobal.com...

> Thomas's parents were British; hence the strong English accent. I don't
> think he was as good with others, though.

Didn't Thomas live in England for a time?

[George Hiebert]

"Teem" <stu...@earthlink.net> wrote

> > As far as English accents, Dave and Catherine were hands down the best.

Catherine was damn good at sounding Irish, but that's not surprising.

> > John, Joe, and Andrea...not so good.

Joe's Peter O'Toole was pretty good.

> > Don't remember Marty ever doing a British accent. Did Rick ever attempt
> it?

Yes Marty did a pretty good British accent when he was that CBC guy........I
mean in a way.
The only time I remember Rick doing one was when Edna Boil was auditioning
new keyboard players and Rick said.."That's right Edna", in a cockney
accent.

[DrMabuse]

There were a few French accents, too. I recall Joe Flaherty as a snooty
waiter at a French restaurant (Johnny LaRue doing one of his restaurant
reviews), and John Candy as a Hercule Poirot-style detective. He was
actually not bad with a French accent, come to think of it.

Wanda

"eyir" <ey...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message

news:tFjMb.3813$881.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...

[Crystal and Jocelyn Potter]

>John, Joe, and Andrea...not so good.

Gotta disagree, at least when it comes to Joe. We loved his Scottish accent in
"We're Gonna Be Alright..Leaving Home and All. Eh?" Also, he did the most
fantastic impression of Peter O'Toole! (who was Irish)

>As far as English accents, Dave and Catherine were hands down the best.

Agreed! Dave, we think, did a much better Richard Burton that John did.

TwinVirgos
"..Elizabeth shall be a greater queen than any king of yours!..Yes--MY
Elizabeth SHALL BE QUEEN! And my blood will have been well spent!" -Genevieve
Bujold (Anne of theThousand Days)

[George Hiebert]

"DrMabuse" <wsherr...@nospam.com> wrote in message

news:nHkMb.115767$1g41....@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...

> There were a few French accents, too. I recall Joe Flaherty as a snooty
> waiter at a French restaurant (Johnny LaRue doing one of his restaurant
> reviews), and John Candy as a Hercule Poirot-style detective. He was
> actually not bad with a French accent, come to think of it.

And don't forget Joe's Jacque Cousteau (I'm watching that episode as I
type).

[Crystal and Jocelyn Potter]

>Rick's
>British accent sounded pretty good in his role of the photographer who
>suffered a "physical experience" while taking shots of the man with the
>X-Ray eyes!
>

Oh god, we'd forgotten about that one! His character's name was Norton Sheeff.

[Crystal and Jocelyn Potter]

>There were a few French accents, too. I recall Joe Flaherty as a snooty
>waiter at a French restaurant (Johnny LaRue doing one of his restaurant
>reviews), and John Candy as a Hercule Poirot-style detective.

Let's not forget Joe's (very sexy) French dialect in Teresa et Joe. Andrea's
wasn't bad either.

[DrMabuse]

"> Agreed! Dave, we think, did a much better Richard Burton that John did.
>
>

When did Dave play Richard Burton? I don't remember that one.

Wanda

[DrMabuse]

> When did Dave play Richard Burton? I don't remember that one.
>

Wait a minute - was that in the Elizabeth I movie with Edith Prickley? He
played Sir Walter Raleigh, as I recall, and now that I think about it, maybe
that WAS a Richard Burton impression. I still remember him listing off all
the things he'd brought Elizabeth from the New World, "...and best of all -
turkeys."

Wanda

>
>

[Lulu]

DrMabuse wrote:
> There were a few French accents, too. I recall Joe Flaherty as a snooty
> waiter at a French restaurant (Johnny LaRue doing one of his restaurant
> reviews), and John Candy as a Hercule Poirot-style detective. He was
> actually not bad with a French accent, come to think of it.

That was a Belgian accent. Belgian! BELGIAN!!

;)

-Lulu

[Crystal and Jocelyn Potter]

>When did Dave play Richard Burton? I don't remember that one.

The sketch "Mind Games" which is a commercial for a board game where you play
mind games with your spouse and friends.

Loosly based off of the premise for Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Dave plays
Richard Burton and Catherine plays Elizabeth Taylor.

As a huge Burton and Liz fan, I laughed for hours after seeing this sketch!

Jocelyn

[eyir]

> -Lulu
>
...which, of course, brings to mind Marty's Tony Sandler of Sandler and
Young fame.

[Justin Pate]

"eyir" <ey...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:tFjMb.3813$881.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...

Rick also did a couple of accents in the "O Henry" skit on the Pledge Week
show, cut from syndication. He did a British one (not sure if it was
cockney) when he said to O Henry (Candy) "A Lion? Come on, you can bloody
do better than that!" Then later, O Henry was at his publisher's office and
Moranis played the publisher, Mr. Oynik. He spoke in some sort of Eastern
European accent. Maybe it was Russian, comrade!

"The Lion! I like the lion. But this suicide stuff, you don't need it.
What you need is a tiger, or maybe a monkey! Or a doggy, running through a
field...."

[Adrain Barton]

On 12 Jan 2004 00:42:31 GMT, twinv...@aol.com (Crystal and Jocelyn
Potter) wrote:

>>John, Joe, and Andrea...not so good.
>
>Gotta disagree, at least when it comes to Joe. We loved his Scottish accent in
>"We're Gonna Be Alright..Leaving Home and All. Eh?" Also, he did the most
>fantastic impression of Peter O'Toole! (who was Irish)

I think he still is Irish. He's still alive don't you know.

[G222harpo]

>and Catherine plays Elizabeth Taylor.

O'Hara just hits that impersonation dead on.

[George Hiebert]

"Crystal and Jocelyn Potter" <twinv...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040112102737...@mb-m18.aol.com...

> >When did Dave play Richard Burton? I don't remember that one.
>
> The sketch "Mind Games" which is a commercial for a board game where you
play
> mind games with your spouse and friends.
>
> Loosly based off of the premise for Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Dave
plays
> Richard Burton and Catherine plays Elizabeth Taylor.
>
> As a huge Burton and Liz fan, I laughed for hours after seeing this
sketch!

Yeah, I liked that one too. Catherine's Liz Taylor kills me, like when she
was on the People's Golden Choice Awards, or whatever it was called.

[T&L]

Martin's impression of Trudeau was just plain scary....it was almost too exact
with the movements and make-up. I remember the first (and hopefully not the
last) time I saw it....my were laughing for a week.

Tim

[Nick Archer]

One of my favorites accents was Steve Roman's Boston accent in his JFK
movie. Sounded kinda swedish. And what about Dr. Tongue's southern
accent in Midnight Cowboy?

Nick Archer

[T&L]

Steve Roman......great character! Do you remember the one where he was a
jockey (under cover of coarse) trying to do a Mexican accent? Turned out
to be another Swedish one.

[T&L]

Steve Roman......great character! Do you remember the one where he was a
jockey (under cover of coarse) trying to do a Mexican accent? Turned out
to be another Swedish one.

Tim

[T&L]

Sorry, didn't mean to double post!

[Rick]

"Justin Pate" <JP5...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:Kn8Mb.37609$WS1....@fe1.texas.rr.com...

I made a VideoCD of "The Godfather" sketch just last night,
and can say in all honesty that Dave's ("Turk Ugazzo") Italian
accent was embarrassingly bad.

In fact none of them except Andrea and (to a lesser extent)
John pulled it off correctly -- Joe didn't even attempt it.

Rick

[Lulu]

Rick wrote:

> I made a VideoCD of "The Godfather" sketch just last night,
> and can say in all honesty that Dave's ("Turk Ugazzo") Italian
> accent was embarrassingly bad.
>
> In fact none of them except Andrea and (to a lesser extent)
> John pulled it off correctly -- Joe didn't even attempt it.

I think that was intentional on Joe's part. He was the only one playing
an established member of SCTV's "backstage reality" so he probably
figured, why suddenly give Guy an Italian accent? I think he's
perfectly capable of doing that accent.

Don't believe me? Watch the "For Lifers Only" commercial again. The
woman playing Joe's wife pronounces "Torna a Sorrento" in a typically
North American fashion, while Joe sounds authentically Italian.

And why shouldn't he? Half his heritage is Italian (and iirc, it's the
half that had more of an impact on him).

-Lulu

[BDeMain]

Don't forget Joe's Scorcese-style Italian accent as the Carmine character in
Harvey. "If I ever catch you talkin' to an imaginary rabbit again, I'll kill
you. Ca-peescha?"

[George Hiebert]

"BDeMain" <bde...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040120093938...@mb-m17.aol.com...

I love that one.

Harvey???........Who the hell's Harvey?

Brilliant concept.

[Crystal and Jocelyn Potter]

>I think he's
>perfectly capable of doing that accent.

Agreed! And let us not forget "Wara,Wara,Wara!"

[DrMabuse]

For Italian accents, of course there was Tony Rosato's Marcello. But Dave
Thomas got in an Italian impression too, in the episode where Marcello goes
to the Vatican, and Dave is playing a mafioso-type disguised as a monsignor.
'You see this painting? Da Vinci. This one? Da Vinci. All da Vinci!'

"BDeMain" <bde...@aol.com> wrote in message
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