Lost in Toronto: Donald Shebib’s ‘Goin’ Down the Road’

Last week, I filed a report from the Toronto International Film Festival, the first time I was able to attend the annual 50-year-old event. This trip also served as my first visit to Toronto, and though I spent much of my time in movie theaters, I did seize on a few chances to explore the city and tried to keep my eyes open as I made my way from place to place. One night, making my way back to my hotel, I turned a corner and was greeted by a sign for Yonge Street. This rang a bell. Yonge Street… Where had I heard that name before? Oh yeah!

That’s “Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice,” a segment from a 1982 episode of SCTV starring John Candy and Joe Flaherty as, respectively, a lawyer named Garth and a doctor named Gord. Garth and Gord leave their hometown of Moncton, New Brunswick to take advantage of the opportunities said to await them in Toronto, specifically doctorin’ jobs and lawyerin’ jobs. Along the way, they pick up Fiona (Andrea Martin), a French-Canadian nuclear physicist who similarly hopes to make it big in the big city. Once there, however, they find the opportunities slimmer than expected. But even as their optimism dwindles, they find they can always lose themselves in the boozy nightlife of Yonge Street where, as Garth points out, “There’s girls there and everything!”

The stretch of Yonge Street I experienced looked quite a bit sleepier than the one captured by SCTV’s cameras though, true to Garth’s claim, I did see an establishment with a sign that promised “The Girls Never Stop.” (This, frankly, sounds exhausting.) When I posted about recognizing the street name from SCTV, others, specifically Canadians, pointed out that “Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice” directly parodied the 1970 Canadian film Goin’ Down the Road. That SCTV had a specific model in mind didn’t come as that much of a surprise. Much of the success of parody, on SCTV and elsewhere, depends on specificity. (See also “Rome, Italian Style.") Details matter, even when those watching don’t know the source material. 

I’m sure I’m not the only person who had no idea what the SCTV bit referenced but found it funny anyway. Still, it kind of puzzled me that a film famous enough in Canada to serve as parody fodder over a decade after its release could be virtually unknown in the United States. When I mentioned the film to other American critics, it drew only blank stares, yet I kept seeing references to it throughout my time in Toronto, including a parody in a TV commercial and an appearance in You Had to Be There, a documentary about an early ‘70s production of Godspell whose cast included a clutch of future comedy superstars and Jayne Eastwood, a venerable Canadian character actress who had a major role in Goin’ Down the Road. (Eastwood more or less plays the same role in the SCTV parody.) Further research revealed that Goin’ Down the Road had landed on TIFF’s critics’ and filmmakers’ poll of Canada’s 10 greatest films each of the four times the organization had released such a list since 1984. It had even been on a Canadian stamp! Clearly I needed to see this movie for myself.