The Edge

"The Edge" was by far one of the best primetime comedies ever to be shown. In the spirit of "In Living Color" skits, "Saturday Night Live," and today's "MAD TV," The Edge included raunchy yet smart comic skits such as "The Armed Family," and other greats. It was a great show which unfortunately will never be seen again.

Somewhere in my vast collection of Video Tapes (most of which are in storage) I have every episode of this show. It followed Ben Stiller's superior sketch show, but his show was good too. None of the other user comments mentions that this was really Julie Brown's show. Julie had first had success with the MTV show 'Just Say Julie', and also recorded 'Trapped in the Body of a White Girl' and 'The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun'. A very funny woman. What first struck me about 'The Edge' was Jennifer Aniston, who looked like, to me at least, a dark haired Christina Applegate. I found it funny, years later, when Christina Applegate turned up on 'Friends' playing Rachel's (Jennifer Aniston) sister. FOX many times gave shows a little time to develop despite low ratings, but Ben Stiller's & Julie Brown's shows weren't recipients of that courtesy. It's too bad, because those were two funny shows.

After Fox declined on furthering "Get a Life," David Merkin's next step towards his run on "The Simpsons" was this little show that had a 9:30 timeslot on Sunday Nights but yet was neglected until it died. Somehow, it lasted a full season but that was a miracle itself.

"The Edge" was a sketch show featuring a great deal of comic talent and ruled with it's non sequiturs and macabre humor. The bowling bag/severed head skit still remains with me to this day, along with "What is Casper the Friendly Boy doing now".

But, the cancellation has a happy ending. Merkin went on to do "The Simpsons" during it's classic years and Wayne Knight went to other, better-paying things.

The 80's was truly the era of sketch comedy, but as we know: comedy is all about timing...and this series ran in 1992 (i.e. past the point where "In Living Color" brought down the bar on sketch comedy so low you couldn't even limbo under it). Nonetheless, The Edge had all the elements of a great sketch comedy show; a superbly talented cast (Julie Brown, Jenifer Anniston, Tom Kenny and Wayne Knight to name a few who were known before and after the series), a mix of thought-provoking, slap-stick and situational humor, and a finger on the pulse of current-events/pop-culture. One of the best examples combining these elements would be the hilarious sketch panning the then-popular Beverly Hills 90210 series. The two most unfortunate aspects of this show are a) it was so short-lived (ran for just 1 season/20 episodes) and b) sadly it was caught-up in greedy Hollywood licensing/royalty/ownership politics, which means it will most likely never be released on DVD or other media; truly a loss for anyone who appreciates the best of sketch comedy.

This was one of the least appreciated shows of all time. This show did not just push the envelope it threw it out the window. Dark and bizarre humor ruled this short lived Fox comedy. But then again, aren't most Fox shows? This show did catapult Jennifer Aniston to stardom. But I will not blame this show for that.