This is one of those "what could have been" stories.
If you were watching the teevee back in the very late 1970s and the early 1980s, you might recognize four letters that were strung together to make a series title: "S C T V."
"Second City Television" was kind of the Mad Magazine of the boob tube, doing priceless parodies and scathing sendups of just about every show you could name with a cast of players that were sure to make you laugh out loud: John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara among a bunch of savagely funny performers.
"SCTV" is directly related to this series because of the subject matter, and the star. Andrea Martin, in her guise as Edith Prickley, station manager and perpetual leopard print wearer, was one of a host of characters she played on that earlier series.
When CBS spun off a show from their hit sitcom "Kate & Allie" with Ms. Martin as the programmer for a local NYC UHF (remember that?) television station, it sure seemed like it was not only going to be a winner, it was going to be even zanier than "SCTV," with the potential for even stranger performers on this channel, set in a city known for its characters!
That wasn't how this went.
I mean, maybe, eventually that's what might have happened. But the storyline of "Roxie" wasn't that unique at all and used only a thimbleful of Ms. Martin's enormous comedic talents in a similar job description to her Prickley character. It was more about the standard, pleasing the boss, played by Jack Riley, gossiping with the co-worker, played by Theresa Ganzel. Trying to work well with the stage manager, played by Ernie Sabella. And figuring out her homelife with her beau, played by Mitchell Laurance. Yet none of Andrea's fellow actors got to be their innately humorous selves on this program, either.
And Roxie was simply no Edith, despite having essentially the exact same job: jumping in and wrangling the "talents" who showed up to perform, or fill in for them when they didn't.
New York plays a part because it is a magnet for people seeking fame, or who just want to share their talents with others, and get on a local station. This should have been a showcase for the truly bizarre acts that actually existed, a sort of modern day "Gong Show." That alone would have made this worth a look.
"Roxie" should have gone one step beyond "SCTV" but it tripped and fell, almost immediately.
