The Remote Island by Bryan Christian The burning question of the day: Life on Mars or Eleventh Hour? Plus: Britney goes on the record, USA may not renew Monk, and our Grey's Anatomy recap.
There's no more sure-fire way to kill something's intrinsic comedic value than to try to examine what makes it funny. The minute you start thinking, you stop laughing. So why, then, have Nerve and IFC.com devoted an enormous amount of time, manpower, monetary resources, server space and posh catered lunches to the pursuit of ranking the boob tube's finest sketch comedy offerings?
In part, we're here because magical new technology (*coughYouTubecough*) allows us to do more than just pontificate for paragraphs on end — now we can pontificate for paragraphs on end and provide audio-visual evidence to back up those pontifications. We provide the context, share our thoughts and feelings and let you commence with the guffawing and, naturally, the disagreeing. After all, the comedy sketch — short, sweet, completely silly or shot through with social commentary — worms its way into the public mind like nothing else, and has easily made the leap to the web when other forms have faltered. ...read more
There's no more sure-fire way to kill something's intrinsic comedic value than to try to examine what makes it funny. The minute you start thinking, you stop laughing. So why, then, have Nerve and IFC.com devoted an enormous amount of time, manpower, monetary resources, server space and posh catered lunches to the pursuit of ranking the boob tube's finest sketch comedy offerings?
In part, we're here because magical new technology (*coughYouTubecough*) allows us to do more than just pontificate for paragraphs on end — now we can pontificate for paragraphs on end and provide audiovisual evidence to back up those pontifications. We provide the context, share our thoughts and feelings, and let you commence with the guffawing and, naturally, the disagreeing. After all, the comedy sketch — short, sweet, completely silly or shot through with social commentary — worms its way into the public mind like nothing else, and has easily made the leap to the web when other forms have faltered.
Any list is bound by the limitations set on it — consciously and unconsciously — by its creators: we kept our 50 selections to stuff that's appeared on television by choice, and to what's appeared in English out of necessity. One must also bear in mind the availability of material; who knows what comedic treasures are lost to us because they simply don't exist anymore?
But of the sketch comedy that remains viewable, this is some of the best. Is the list definitive? That's for you, the audience to tell us. And we're sure you will, loudly and angrily. Before you do you, though, remember: it's comedy. Best not to overthink it.
This sketch provided a showcase for Will Ferrell's mugging and Jimmy Fallon's snickering, while simultaneously reducing one of the greatest rock songs ever to an annoying catchphrase. It's also hilarious, with a sterling performance by Christopher Walken as legendary producer Bruce Dickinson. (No relation to the Iron Maiden vocalist.) Still, we resent that we can't hear "Don't Fear the Reaper" anymore without some ninny shouting those two fateful words. — Peter Smith
promotion
49. "Ass Pennies," Upright Citizens Brigade, 1998
How do you harness unwavering confidence in any social situation? By
knowing that whomever you're talking with has a wallet full of pennies that have been up your ass. Hearing a businessman scream on a golf course about shoving 3,000 pennies into his anus daily is notable on its own, but in 1998, when televised comedy was restricted to premium channels, low-ebb SNL and MadTV, it was a breath of fresh air. — John Constantine
48. "Gerald Ford Dead at 83," Saturday Night Live, 1996
Yes, he's actually dead now, but that doesn't mean this can't still be funny. Dana Carvey impersonates Tom Brokaw pre-taping the announcement of former president Gerald Ford's death so he can go to Barbados for the winter. You know, just in case. Gerald Ford overdoses on crack cocaine, Gerald Ford eaten by a circus lion, Gerald Ford strangled by Richard Nixon — in classic SNL formula, the scene unhurriedly escalates until Carvey is forced to insist, in Brokaw's pitch-perfect arid tone, "Well, that's just superfluous." — Will Doig
47. "$240 Worth of Pudding," The State, 1993
In the mid-'90s, nothing was funnier than a cocky male swinger (see also: SNL's Roxbury Guys and The Onion's Smoove B). And none of them got a better catchphrase than The State's Barry and Levon. Played by Thomas Lennon and Michael Ian Black, Barry and Levon would sweet-talk the viewer, wearing crushed velvet jackets and Jheri curls, grooving to an R&B beat in the background. The twist was that their ardor was reserved mainly for inanimate objects. In their most memorable sketch, Barry and Levon purr seductively about their latest purchase: $240 worth of pudding. ("We had the $240 — we had to have the pudding.") While the two-minute sketch ends with the swingers grinding against a gigantic vanilla mound, the real payoff is the phrase "$240 worth of pudding" — an expression that didn't exist before The State, and now brings up 12,000 hits in Google. — Gwynne Watkins
SNL first parodied Jeopardy!'s dumbed-down, for-charity "celebrity" episodes in 1996, casting Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds, Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery, guest Martin Short as Jerry Lewis and Will Ferrell as a long-suffering Alex Trebek. Throughout nine years of the sketch, the gag remained the same: the IQ-challenged celebrities never got a correct answer, even with categories like "Foods That End in -Amburger" and clues like "This is the sound a dog makes." Although "Celebrity Jeopardy" was first intended to showcase MacDonald's uncanny Burt Reynolds impression, Hammond's belligerent Sean Connery soon stole the spotlight. Connery seemed to be on the show only to torment Alex Trebek, whether deliberately mispronouncing category titles ("I'll take The Rapists for $200." "That's Therapists.") or telling inappropriate jokes ("What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold? One's a sick duck and I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore.") For years, it was impossible to flip past Jeopardy! on TV without someone in the room growling "Trebek!" in a Scottish accent. — GW
45. "The Ginger Refuge," The Catherine Tate Show, 2006
Catherine Tate is Britain's current one-woman answer to Saturday Night Live, and in three seasons of her sketch show, she's created enough recurring characters to rival that institution's (including Nan, the ultimate passive-aggressive grandmother, and the teenager Lauren Cooper, whose catchphrase "Am I bovvered?" has been uttered and reviled as much as anything SNL ever produced). But Tate is also capable of the one-off spectacular. In "The Ginger Refuge," she addresses Britain's time-honored abuse of a certain oppressed class, extending it to its logical conclusion. — Michael Martin
44. "Monkey Torture," The State, 1995
At the beginning of this sketch by The State, set on the fictional Barry Lutz Show, host Michael Ian Black (as Barry Lutz) introduces "Dr. Martin Crank, America's foremost primate zoologist." Dr. Crank (Thomas Lennon) quickly corrects him, saying the conventional terms of science are too limited to describe his work: "I feel I've opened up a whole new arena of experimentation, which I call 'monkey torture.'" He goes on to describe his research, which consists of playing cruel psychological tricks on his subjects like driving them to the edge of the jungle, pretending he's about to set them free and then driving back home. He then demonstrates his technique with an actual monkey. The sketch is a pitch-perfect parody of vapid talk shows, where the hosts maintain feigned enthusiasm about their "experts" no matter how ludicrous they actually sound. And it contains Dr. Crank's invaluable advice for children who are interested in his field: "I'd say get a monkey, and just torture the hell out of it." — GW
43. "The Pre-Taped Call-in Show," Mr. Show, 1997
In a hysterically unsettling portrayal of barely controlled frustration, David Cross hosts an absurd pre-taped call-in show (on his own show, Mr. Show), and can't understand why his listeners can't grasp the concept. I spent the first two minutes of this sketch trying to figure out how a pre-taped call-in show could actually work, before realizing that it can't, which is the source of Cross's irritation. Framing the scene is an elderly man who sits next to him, silent and serene throughout the skit. The ending is what takes it from intelligent to genius, a perfect portrait of the exasperation of live-broadcast entertainment. — WD
42. "Modern Mother & Daughter," French & Saunders, 1992
In terms of impact, "Modern Mother & Daughter" is one of the most productive comedy sketches of all time, spawning six seasons of the classic sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Here's where it all started, with Jennifer Saunders as a flighty, fashion-obsessed mum, and Dawn French as her sensible offspring. (Consider that the premise of familial role reversal has given us Freaky Friday, Family Ties, and at least one Judge Reinhold movie, and F&S's genius is even more apparent.) — MM
41. "Chicken Lady at the Strip Show," Kids in the Hall, 1991
Of all the piles of strange this Canadian troupe left at our mental doorstep, this one could not be easily brushed aside. Mark McKinney's sexually compulsive Chicken Lady laid eggs during blind dates and clucked her way through phone sex. She was a literal freak coping with an increasingly freakish world — which was the point, we think, or maybe not. Maybe the Chicken Lady sketches were simply drug-inspired theater of the absurd, which make them no less enjoyable. Here, she has a girls' night out with fellow freak-show escapee the Bearded Lady, and she meets the love of her life. — MM
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
