The State

Not only is The State the most amazing show ever, but it featured some of my longest laughs ever, such as "Love and War" where Timmy and his father race home. The skits are so weird that they're perfect. A skit about origami suddenly ends on 8 members of the cast running in their underwear. If only it was back on TV, and it's so sad that shows like Saturday Night Live are even aired when there should be a show like this. My favorites are "Staring Contest" "Love and War" "Taco Man" "Prom Photos" and "Tammy Wilkins: Notebook Artist". Check em out.

I don't know why none of my current friends have never seen this show, but when I was in high school I watched it religiously. By far, the funniest, gut wrenchingest stuff ever. Someone mentioned the Sea Monkeys!! Blueberry "...I'm a frickin' blueberry!!!" There are so many things. The difference between The State and the current skit comedies is that The State was not taped in front of a live audience. Some of the ways they transferred from skit to skit are amazingly flowing... something welcome when you don't want to stop laughing.

The last thing I remember the cast of The State doing together was a live show for one of the Spring Break outings that MTV had. A straightlaced shakespearean play scene, with one exception... the ever increasing sizes of the phalluses in their tights. I think Shakespeare would have loved it!

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.

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.