As regular readers of the Chaos know, I am a HUGE fan of everything from the 90′s and while many people may disagree with my taste in music, movies, and video games from the 90′s, there is one thing we can all agree on: sketch comedy hit it’s peak in the 90′s.
Think about the sketch comedy programs we have today: Saturday Night Live and Whitest Kids U Know. That’s about it and both are hit or miss with the statistics falling in favor of “miss” more often than “hit.”
Now, let’s travel in the wayback machine to the 90′s to remember the great sketch comedy of the day in a traditional Cody Walker top 5 list format.
First, an honorable mention: In Living Color – While this show was absolutely influential in launching the careers of the Wayans brothers (for better or for worse) and Jim Carrey (for better or for worse), I don’t remember enough about it to put it on the list. I would still like to acknowledge that it existed though.
Next a dishonorable mention: Mad TV – It was never funny ever. I suppose in after the millenium, they had the Funkenstein sketches and those were great, but everything else from this show as crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap.
5) the Ben Stiller Show – The forgotten sketch comedy show of the 90′s, the Ben Stiller show had a very eclectic cast of four: Ben Stiller (obviously), Janeane Garofolo (remember her anyone?), Andy Dick (before he was crazy), and Bob Odenkirk (most underrated writer ever). Ben’s hosting segments were really lame and about half of the episodes were funny, but they had some really great ideas in there. It’s worth picking up on dvd to see Andy as a normal person.
Best sketch –
4) Kids in the Hall – I absolutely LOVE the Kids and it pains me that they couldn’t be higher on this list, but that just shows how GREAT the rest of these shows were. With just five guys on the show, it’s amazing to see the amount of diversity the cast was able to put into this show. I’ve never been more amazed that five guys could all pull off drag so well. And every single one of them was funny in their own way. Dave Foley will always be my favorite, but all five Kids have a special place in my heart.
Best sketch –
3) Upright Citizens Brigade – Featuring four people that you’ve seen in tons of other things (from Anchorman to the Daily Show to Walk Hard), the most recognizable from the cast is Amy Poehler of Saturday Night Live fame. Though the cast she was part of on SNL was useless, Amy really did shine on UCB along with everyone else. Matt Besser in particular could play an incredibly wide range of characters to the point that I had to explain to my dad that the redneck and the Jewish man were both the same person and he still didn’t believe me.
Best sketch –
2) Saturday Night Live – Some of you may be thinking, “That show isn’t funny!” Yeah, today it isn’t. Back then, though, SNL was the whole damn show. The 90′s were a great decade for SNL because it featured a consistently solid cast. Phil Hartman will always be my favorite SNL cast member and while Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Rob Schneider are all cringe-worthy today, there is no denying that they were stars back then.
Think about Weekend Update back in the day. By far, the three best Weekend Update anchors are Norm MacDonald, Kevin Nealon, and Dennis Miller. Everyone before or since has sucked miserably comparatively.
Best Sketch – This one is difficult considering it is the only show on this list to have lasted the entire decade, but
1) Mr. Show with Bob and David – Though it has less than 50 episodes and it only aired on HBO, it was still the greatest sketch comedy show from the 90′s and of all time. Each sketch tied into the next one and the philosophy of a sketch was to start with an idea and then add a twist to change the direction of the joke. Unfortunately, do to the amount of work involved with putting the show together, it didn’t last, but the three DVD box sets are well worth picking up (I think there is a full compilation out as well).
Best Sketch –
It’s a shame that sketch comedy has fallen so far since the 90′s, but golden ages can’t last forever and the 90′s truly was the golden age of sketch comedy.
But what about these Cody, what about these!!
Mr Show – best skit is America must blow up the moon. I mean, come on, it is for the kids.
UCB – The genius dialectician or ass pennies.
That Mitchell and Webb Look is a good current sketch comedy show.
I think I would have put Kids in the Hall above UCB, but thats mostly because I remember Kids in the Hall more.
Also, not sure if you know or not (I didn’t until just recently) there was a spin-off movie from Mr Show called “Run Ronnie, Run” detailing the story of Ronnie Dobbs.
Also I think the “I’ll marry your stupid ass” sketch is one of their best – (although its hard to choose)
“Zero plus zero = FAG!”
“So I says to the guy, I says to him, I says to him, I says…”
“Now blinds are regulars.”
Great post!
“Run Ronnie Run” was a dark time in Mr. Show history. In the Mr. Show book, both Bob and David talk about how they regret doing the film.
I kinda like it, but I can understand why they had a hard time with it.
Christina – Thanks! I realized the other day that I used to really love sketch comedy and it isn’t part of my life anymore and it made me sad.
Kevin – I dearly love America blowing up the moon, but it’s farther down on my list. It was really hard to pick just one sketch from mr. show because it was all so good, but menocu is still my favorite.
My second favorite is the one about Prenatal Pretties.
As far as UCB goes, dialectician is okay, and I’ve over-watched ass-pennies. The virtual reality episode is my second favorite and the my third favorite features Santa Liquor.
I actually like Whitest Kids more than most of the other sketch stuff listed
However my knowledge of 90′s sketch comedy was extremely limited to Madtv, SNL, and In Living Color, because i wasn’t introduced to cable until getting into college, and thats where most of the other shows were.
UCB still exists just mostly in stage shows in LA.
UK had a ton of greats like Big Train, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Mitchell and Webb look.
One of my favorites from the 90′s was The Red Green Show. which is sort of a cross between sketch and sitcom, like The League of Gentlemen, which is one of the best around.
I do love me some Red Green, don’t get me wrong.
As far as Whitest Kids goes, for every:
There is a sketch like this:
man kids in the hall were great.
Hildy: You know what I love about you? Your constancy. You haven’t changed one bit in 20 years.
Jean: Oh, I have.
Hildy: No, you haven’t.
Jean: Yes, I have. I’m more afraid of change and I’m less tolerant of other cultures.
but if your looking for good sketch comedy shows now a days I’d recommend The Tim an Eric Awesome Show, Funny or Die Presents, Robot Chicken, and Important things with Demetri Martin,
I see your two sketches that i both enjoy and raise you two more.
Robot Chicken and Tim and Eric are hit or miss sometimes, but overall, I love it.
Funny or Die is pretty sweet.
Important Things Season 1 was great, but season 2 was utter crap. I couldn’t hate it more.
I disagree with your rankings only that I’m a huge Kids In The Hall fan.
Fast forward about 10 years to me, unemployed, injured, laying on the couch with absolutely nothing to do. BAM! Two o’clock rolls around and KITH comes on. Being older and more liberal than I was in my youth I begin to watch the show with a far more open mind.
Damn! These skits are hilarious, weird and meaningful all at the same time. After about six months of watching KITH I became a believer…
“For Love Or Sausages” is one of the best comedy skits ever made…