The State

All of their projects ("Viva Variety," "Wet Hot American Summer," "Reno 911!") are brilliantly bizarre (the "Trainspotting" bit in WHAS is classic). The State is where it all began so where's the DVD? MTV needs to give me what's needed so I can show my friends why I quote "I'm Doug, and I'm outta heeeeere" and "It ain't no sofa, it ain't no couch. It's a LOVE SEAT, aw yeah!". Better, run them on Comedy Central with "Just Say Julie," the other great, lost MTV skit show.

And remember the commercials MTV ran for it? The station rolled with the negative reviews the show received ("Significantly less than sporadically funny," Entertainment Weekly), quoting them while showing the cast, despondent. When the commercials for the show are just as memorable as the show itself, one wonders why the suits at MTV are just sitting on this. Surely at least one executive there loved this show when it aired.

one episode they redid this running gag skit of theirs only they did it as japanese kabuki theatre, complete with giant wooden shoes stomping around, kabuki mannerisms, painted faces, and japanese kabuki music. they did it well too. that's the kind of show this was. totally cool. another time they had people send in postcards their names, then they did a whole skit using their names. amazing.

This show was so hilarious. "I wanna dip my balls in it"! Come on! Or "Two hundred and forty dollars worth of puddin'." One of the funniest skits was where a lady and her husband were meeting someone at a restaurant and the lady had PMS and kept changing into all of these different moods, but the funny part was that all of the cast played her. It was too funny. Or the one where the guy had bologna sandwich feet and his soccer coach said, "They call him Bologna For Feet or Sandwich Feet or...Penis Face." Or the one where a guy was getting made fun of for eating his Grandma's potato chowder and then he admits to having sex with her. ("But when you eat the soup, do you stick your whole face in the bowl?") I could go on forever. Those of you who watched the show as much as I did will know what I am talking about. MTV needs to put this show back on the air for sure. It got me through my freshman year of high school.

despite glaring pythonisms, the state was the best Post-python era sketch comedy show ever. Founded back in the "golden" age of MTV when Jon Stewart and 'alternative' music reigned the airwaves, the state came out of nowhere as a smart, funny, innovative, and inventive masterwork. At times delightfully dirty, the show was mistaken by many for being low-brow. But like all great things comedic, the base humor came from somewhere sincerely genius. Witness the brilliance of a man delivering tacos rather than mail, or the incredibly popular gay student, or 20 year old pet sea monkeys. This often overlooked gem in television history could really benefit from some sort of re-release by MTV, who has to date released one short compilation video. Their lovely art spoke wonders to many of us growing up in the 90's in a way that no other television show has. It gave us a reason to watch television, which is scarce in this day and age.

Forget about the Kids in the Hall. Ground the Flying circus. Fill up the vacant lot. Kill Mr. Show. and remember that SNL SUCKS. This sketch comedy show is the greatest of its kind. It had the most original premises for the its sketches and all the people involved were quite talented. I cannot put into words how much I loved this show. I was fortunate enough to have taped the episodes when they came on and am still able to watch them. Unfortunately, others are not so lucky. This show had some wonderful bits that many will never get to see. Bits like Barry Toink, The hand Signals, Grape Soda, even Please kill Tim. Many may have the mistaken impression that because of the spin off of viva variety was so bad, that its base material the Laupan variety hour and by extension the state itself was as flat and stale. Nothing could be further from the truth. This series is the greatest. Even though MTV made them have reoccurring characters, that is the main down fall of most sketch comedy shows, the state transcended this obstacle and made the funniest character in recent history. And even though he was out of here, Doug is an archetype for our times. Louie while being extraordinarily cheesy knew how to play it, and Barry and Levon gave cool a whole new groove. Mere words fail me when I try to describe my affection for this show, but I must tell you, not a week goes by that I do not tell someone new about how funny this show was.

Just remember, never watch the CBS special, and that blue muppets have the most meat on them.