TV theory,” said Will McRobb. Which is probably thenreason SCTV was recently moved to Ha! (on VH-1), andnwhy SNL’s days are also numbered.nIn this 90-minute period, one can make out the evolutionnof televisual sarcasm. The most visible changes are in thenphony newscasts that not only the three comedy shows butnalso Nick at Nite produce. By watching the four differentnversions of TV parodying itself, one can trace the grain ofnthe finished product, the pedigree possessed by Nick atnNite’s own Global Village News. Starting with Laugh-In,nthe phony newscast more and more comes to excludeneverything outside of television.nIn Laugh-In’s newscast, there is really no attempt tonsimulate a newscast. Occasionally one of the semi-regularsnon the show, like Tim Conway, will play an interviewee onnthe screen, but there is no pretense that a real interview isnhappening. Conway does a skit with answering the phone,nwhispering into, it, hanging up, having it ring again. Thennewscasters, the tuxedoed Dick Rowan and Dan Martin,nuncommitted to any one joke, giggle at Conway’s bit. Thennext joke may have nothing more to do with TV news thannsetting up a simple visual one-liner (“Now we go to ourncorrespondent for an in-depth interview” — cut to a well,nwith a voice coming from the bottom). Laugh-In is notnreally metatelevision; it only uses a TV form to keep itsnincessant stream of jokes varied. The jokes that are not broadncomedy owe more to Steve Allen’s “Man on the Street”nthan real TV news.nThe definitive phony TV newscast came with SaturdaynNight Live. SNL’s anchor didn’t wear a tuxedo, kept anstraight face (albeit with occasional knowing takes), andnreported topical issues. Although the SNL newscast wasnconsidered (and considered itself) political satire, it isn’t.nPolitical satire has for its object politicians. SNL had TV asnthe object of its satire, and not even TV news at that, butnrather TV celebrity. The jokes about Gerald Ford usuallyninvolved his public persona, or, more conducive to SNL’snsealing-out process, his clumsiness, which could refer backnto anchorman Chevy Chase’s pratfalls. In any case, the greatnimprovement was that the newscast was simultaneouslynmore believable and less realistic than Laugh-In’s, in thensense that reality, in the form of comedy — the extratelevisualnstand-up and improvisational and vaudevillian comedynof Laugh-In — was no longer present. TV had movednahead once again, purging itself of older genres and sealingnthe airlock behind them.nNick’s viewers are resultantly much fonder of SNL thannthey are of Laugh-In. Laugh-In is a forgotten show;nSNL not only spawned many of today’s biggest stars, but,nmore importantly, spawned the style that they and theirnimitators live on. The phony show-business chatter of BillnMurray’s Nick the lounge singer can be heard everywherentoday, as a joke, but as show-business chatter nonetheless.nPaul SchaefFer, Nick’s sidekick, is now David Letterman’s.nAnd Nick at Nite understands the implications of this. Theirnseries of 15 th anniversary spots for SNL suggest the onlynglimmers of “reverence” or, less euphemistically, directnpromotion, to be seen anywhere. They compromised TVnLand, and their days were numbered, but while they existednthey revealed large areas of superstructure. A person isn24/CHRONICLESnnnstopped in the street. “Where were you when you first sawnNick the lounge singer?” the Nick at Nite representativenasks. “I was watching television,” the person proudlynanswers back. It is the only time that Nick at Nite venturesninto the real world, and it is only to confirm the prison ofntelevision, which, as Nabokov said of time, is spherical andnwithout exits. The SNL irony is Miller’s irony, the irony thatnmocks and lives off the unifying chumminess the mockerynproduces. “TV is pervasively ironic, forever flattering thenviewer with a sense of his/her own enlightenment.”nSo Nick at Nite showing SNL is a revealing mistake. Andnit gets worse, from TV Land’s perspective. Also schedulednin this 90-minute block was SCTV, and it was SCTV, morenthan anything else on the network, that threatened TVnLand. For SCTV is another TV Land, and a more cohesivenone than Nick at Nite’s TV Land for not having made thenmistake of including rival sensibilihes. “We’re a livingnversion of SCTV,” points out Will McRobb.nSCTV’s newsdesk is in a sense more primitive thannSNL’s. There is no steady artifice, no integrity to thenparody. The newscasters, Floyd Cramer and Earl Camenbert,nlook into the camera and read the news, but they makentheir own contributions, quarrel, Earl gets stoned, and manynother things happen that no one has ever seen or imaginednon a news show, network or local (it is never clear which it isnsupposed to be). Worse still, from the point of view ofnparody, the network president, Guy Cabellero, will beratenthe network employees on the phone or offstage, ornoccasionally come right on and speak to them on-camera.nOr, to make matters even crazier, we will see him speakingnto the camera, as if it were an SCTV cameraman behind it,nand then also watch as he sits in a room by himself talking tonHank Bain {Different Strokes star Conrad’s brother) on anwalky-talky; he is recorded by the real SCTV cameras, thosenoperated by the Canadian comedy troop. As parody, thisnrepresents an almost bottomless crudity. But as “the spectatornrecurring within the spectacle,” it is a giant step beyondnSaturday Night Live. When the camera, which was workingnfor SCTV news of Melonville (the fictitious home of thennetwork) pans off the news soundstage to reveal GuynCabellero conferencing with a writer or producer JohnnynLaRue, it is now working for SCTV of Chicago andnToronto. But when Guy Cabellero addresses the camera, itnis back to working for Melonville. The line between life andntelevision is becoming very blurred, which for television is angood thing — all business seeks to expand and merge.nSCTV goes off the air. Its credits roll, belatedly acknowledgingnthe artifice of the whole enterprise. And at this pointnNick at Nite takes over, and presents a phony newscast of itsnown. After a comedy troupe has done its version, we arenready for the end of the road: The Global Village News,nNick at Nite’s imitation of a newscast. The Global VillagenNews, with anchorman Chuck Bruce, is a perfect examplenof TV’s powers of gobbling. McLuhan used the phrase innUnderstanding Media to describe television, and Nick atnNite has absorbed his criticisms, and used them to its ownnadvantage, simultaneously making fun of them and admittingntheir powerless truth. Chuck Bruce comes onscreen,nreads a few short and forgettable gags, and disappears behindnthe closing logo that is the real joke, along with the motto:n”If we don’t cover it, it doesn’t matter!” The power of TV ton