You Had to Be There
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Search complete. 113 mentions across 27 episodes found for "You Had to Be There".
Oct 16, 2026
Lindsey DeluceHOST
... talking to Jayne Eastwood.
Lindsey DeluceHOST
She was on the show, uh, talking about this new documentary called You Had to Be There.
Lindsey DeluceHOST
This documentary is all about that 1972 cast and production of Godspell that was in Toronto, and it's all about, like, this amazing cast.
Lindsey DeluceHOST
I mean, you name it.
Lindsey DeluceHOST
It's a lot of the SCTV people.
30 MINS LATER
Nishta SaxenaGUEST
[laughs]
Jayne EastwoodGUEST
... just very old and beautiful.
Nishta SaxenaGUEST
I saw a little bit of that in the documentary-
Jimmy PardoHOST
My beautiful wife Danielle and I, you know Danielle from the podcast How to Survive with Danielle and Christine.
Jimmy PardoHOST
We went to see in Santa Monica at the Lemley Royal, we went to see You Had to Be There, the documentary about the Toronto Godspell cast.
Jimmy PardoHOST
Yeah, yeah.
Jimmy PardoHOST
Which is, the Godspell cast was Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin.
1 HR 10 MINS LATER
Jimmy PardoHOST
it.
Jimmy PardoHOST
Yeah, he's involved with this thing, too.
Jimmy PardoHOST
You had to be there.
Matt BelknapHOST
He's just a full-time comedy historian at this point.
Josh LarsenHOST
I'm sure.
Adam KempenaarHOST
Plus reviews of If I Go, Will They Miss Me?, and You Had to Be There, a documentary about a star-packed production of Godspell in the early '70s.
Adam KempenaarHOST
That and more ahead on Film Spotting.
Adam KempenaarHOST
[upbeat rock music] Welcome to Film Spotting.
Josh LarsenHOST
So gonna get it right here and hopefully right for the rest of the show.
Josh LarsenHOST
If I Go, Will They Miss Me?, it's one people should check out.
Adam KempenaarHOST
It gets even trickier when you add in more pronouns with the documentary I saw, You Had to Be There.
Adam KempenaarHOST
[laughs]
Chris GoreHOST
What movie did you see?
Alan NgHOST
Uh, You Had to be There.
Chris GoreHOST
Okay, good.
Chris GoreHOST
So we're only doing th- we'll do three movie reviews, but let's get to our last news item.
6 MINS LATER
Chris GoreHOST
Less than a half an hour, Alan.
Alan NgHOST
Yeah.
Chris GoreHOST
So let's do short reviews of, we'll start with You Had to Be There.
Chris GoreHOST
Alan, I did not see You Had to Be There.
LizHOST
This is one that you have been asking for since TIFF last year.
LizHOST
okay if you were locked in on the podcast last year if you've been following me for a long time you might remember there was a documentary that premiered at tiff 2025 that was our favorite of the festival across tv film fiction documentary non-fiction across every genre our favorite of tiff 2025 the documentary you had to be there about the original cast of godspell eugene levy andrea martin oh Martin Short.
LizHOST
Like, this was an all-star cast.
LizHOST
Victor Garber.
Tyrone EdwardsHOST
[upbeat music] Before Schitt's Creek, SCTV, Saturday Night Live, and Only Murders in the Building, there was Godspell Toronto, which was a launchpad for some of the most legendary comedians.
Tyrone EdwardsHOST
The documentary You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution is hitting select theaters across Canada, and it explores how a 1972 Toronto production of the musical became the unlikely breeding ground for the A-list of comedy.
speaker_5GUEST
They were friends.
speaker_5GUEST
There was this genuine community that seemed to really love each other and had this positivity.
speaker_5GUEST
And I think that magnified the, the myth and the lore because so many of them did go on to such starry careers.
speaker_5GUEST
But also, at the time, it was such a sensation in Toronto, and the next thing you knew, Canadian performers were crossing over into America, which really hadn't happened as much before that.
Lainey LuiCORRESPONDENT
1063 Avenue Road is featured in this documentary.
speaker_5GUEST
Marty and Eugene shared a house-
Bill ZanowitzHOST
It has the short title of You Had to Be There.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
It has the long title of You Had to Be There, How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love and Overalls, and Created a Community that Changed the World in a Canadian Kind of Way.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
The documentary is directed by Nick Davis, and it follows the premier Canadian production of Godspell in Toronto, Ontario in 1972.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
The original cast members included Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, and Paul Schaefer as musical director.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
Dave Thomas also later became a cast member.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
Not every member of that original cast is still with us.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
And another person in the original cast has a very sad story to tell.
Bill ZanowitzHOST
But that's a documentary.
Mike BoonHOST
You had to do these improv things, a lot of improv involved.
Mike BoonHOST
But you say in this document, and the document, if I haven't said it yet, oh my goodness, you had to be there.
Mike BoonHOST
That's the name.
Mike BoonHOST
I wasn't there, but you were there, Jane.
Mike BoonHOST
You had to be there is the name of this documentary.
Mike BoonHOST
It'll be available on CBC and CBC Gem, maybe December 27th at 8 p.m. I'm looking, yeah, I got notes here.
Mike BoonHOST
And I'm just going to say there's like, you can see it.
9 MINS LATER
Mike BoonHOST
I mean, we'll get to SCTV in a minute, but that's amazing.
Sammy YounanHOST
Sometimes a comedy revolution starts with a bunch of funny people in downtown Toronto in the 70s performing in a hippie musical about Jesus armed with the dangerous idea that comedy could become something much bigger than just like telling knock knock jokes.
Sammy YounanHOST
That's the serious premise of the comedy documentary You Had to Be There, directed by Nick Davis, co-written by Jane Mendelsohn, and executive produced by Judd Apatow.
Sammy YounanHOST
The official title is Deep Breath.
Sammy YounanHOST
You Had to Be There, how the Toronto Godspell ignited the comedy revolution, spread love and overalls, and created a community that changed the world, and then in brackets, in a Canadian kind of way.
Sammy YounanHOST
Told you, Deep Breath.
Sammy YounanHOST
Still, You Had To Be There is a delightful documentary which traces the big beautiful bang comedy explosion of funny that we've enjoyed for decades, going back to that legendary 1972 production of Godspell in Toronto at the Royal Alexandria Theatre, Royal Alex Theatre.
Sammy YounanHOST
Communism on Paper, a 1972 Toronto staging of a hippie musical about the book of Matthew, shouldn't have altered the course of human laughter.
Sammy YounanHOST
But director Nick Davis's You Had to Be There, we're just going to go with the shorter title, confirmed that the Royal Alex Theatre was ground zero for divine comedy blessing.
Nick DavisGUEST
And our book, The Companion Book, is an oral history of the production.
Nick DavisGUEST
It and the film are called You Had to Be There, and then a very lengthy subtitle.
Nick DavisGUEST
Which I could try and repeat here.
Nick DavisGUEST
I will.
Nick DavisGUEST
You have not committed it to memory, Justin? You had to be there, colon, how the Toronto Godspell ignited the comedy revolution, spread love and overalls, and created a community that changed the world in a Canadian kind of way.
Nick DavisGUEST
That is the longest subtitle, I was told, for any film that has ever played at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Nick DavisGUEST
Yeah.
Nick DavisGUEST
So I'm going to read both my sections and Jane's sections, but probably without doing much of an imitation, if that's okay.
17 more episodes mention You Had to Be There.
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