Film Forum

YOU HAD TO BE THERE: HOW THE TORONTO GODSPELL IGNITED THE COMEDY REVOLUTION, SPREAD LOVE & OVERALLS, AND CREATED A COMMUNITY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (IN A CANADIAN KIND OF WAY)

The 1972 Toronto production of the musical Godspell featured an eye-popping cast of future comedy titans: Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, Dave Thomas—with Victor Garber as a hippie Jesus and Paul Shaffer as musical director. YOU HAD TO BE THERE features interviews with all surviving members, hilariously recounting a production that changed the course of comedy in North America. “Joyous... the 1972 Godspell planted seeds that would grow into a tree of many branches—one branch being SNL, another SCTV, another being comedies like BEST IN SHOW.” — Matthew Carey, Deadline

Presented with support from The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

2025     98 MIN.     USA     GREENWICH ENTERTAINMENT

Reviews

“AN EXUBERANT AND ESSENTIAL DOC FOR COMEDY HEADS... The comedy revolution referred to by the title of Nick Davis’s sharp and effusive documentary YOU HAD TO BE THERE: HOW THE TORONTO GODSPELL IGNITED THE COMEDY REVOLUTION... is the one that took place on television in the ’70s: the creation of Saturday Night Live and SCTV and everything that grew out of them. YOU HAD TO BE THERE makes the case that the Petri dish from which the DNA of those shows was sprung was the 1972 Toronto production of Godspell, the Jesus-and-his-followers-as-hippie-clowns musical that had rocked the world when it premiered on Broadway the year before. The Toronto production featured a young Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas (all Canadian), and, from across the river, Detroit’s own Gilda Radner—who was the very first performer to be cast on Saturday Night, a show created by Lorne Michaels, who was also Canadian... There’s passionate testimony from the likes of Mike Myers and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who hails the show as ‘the ’27 Yankees of comedy.’ YOU HAD TO BE THERE shows you that something was in the air up there, and that it spread like the world’s happiest virus.” 
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“Director Nick Davis’ terrific return to this historic event offers a laugh-a-minute trip down memory lane that’s not merely nostalgic. It’s a valuable oral history of a defining moment in pop culture... A hugely entertaining record of Canadian cultural history worthy of time and celebration. And, in perhaps the most Canadian trait ever, it’s an American production.” 
– Pat Mullen, POV Magazine