Viva Variety

Members of MTV's comedy series The State return to television on Comedy Centrals Viva Variety. On paper, the idea looked pretty good. A Variety Show from the 1970's for the 90's. Music, showgirl dancers, comedy sketches, and celebrity guests. The only problem, Viva Variety has hardly any of that! Only lasting a handful of episodes, the show only had 1 or 2 recognized celebrity guests and the comedy was only funny 1/4 of the time. With no original music of any Las Vega style dance numbers, the only thing that held up the show was the sketch comedy, which too, could not hold up on its own. The Premise of a Spoof style show had spoof sketches. So the idea of a spoof of a spoof was beyond most of the members of the audience that Comedy Central has. In the end, the idea was original and members of the show were talented, but nothing progressed. The show was a failure by the first episode back in the summer of 1996. From here, the creative team behind the show went on to create Reno 911.....here we go again!

This show was incredible, but too esoteric for most people. If you had never truly seen a European variety show in the 70's or 80's (or at least a Mexican one) the entire show would probably be lost on you. If you had, this show was a dead on skewering satire of the phony spectacle and shallowness that these shows dive into at their worst. Helmed by a chain-smoking suave wannabe with a pencil moustache and his ultra-glamorous and immasculating harridan of an EX-wife, "Viva Variety" is a variety show that tries to get off the ground every episode but always descends into in-fighting and acts gone very wrong. The hosts are joined by "Johnny Bluejeans", a dim witted side-kick who seems to have been named because blue jeans are a very popular product in his country and that means the kids will like him, which of course, they don't.

The result was a hilarious spoof of variety shows in general. Imagine the arguing that probably happened BACKSTAGE during the last days of the "Sonny & Cher Show". Now imagine it's happening ONSTAGE in front of you and the stars are trying to keep their composure. Now add cheesy acts and a Euro-riche mentality (tuxedoes, gowns, booze, accents and smokes). NOW you have "Viva Variety".

Have you ever heard a musician whose music was pretty much written for other musicians? Too conceptual? Viva Variety did this for comedians. WAY too esoteric for the standard American audience. It was funny as Hell. And doomed.

This show was probably a little too intelligent for average viewers (hence it didn't last long) but if you saw it you know it was good. The bickering couple who hosted the show were very funny. I remember one episode when Ben Stiller was the guest. The gag was that Henry Winkler was supposed to be the guest and they got stuck with Ben Stiller. They made Stiller wear a black leather jacket and ride a motorcycle. Then they asked him questions ("What was it like playing Fonzi?") that were written for Henry Winkler. Very funny stuff. Any show that was able to keep up with a comedy giant like Ben Stiller must have been good. If you somehow get a chance to see this do what you can to catch it. This was real comedy.

Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney and Michael Ian Black of the comedy group "The State" did a real variety show that was both homage to and parody of this near-forgotten (in the U.S., anyway) type of TV show. They had name celebrities mixed in with weird novelty acts of the type you can only find at Circus Circus in Las Vegas. They never made fun of the acts, but created characters at whom they could jab. It was too original and weird to survive, alas. I hope they all put together another original creation this good!

I thought that this show was better than average. The whole gimmic with the "#1 show in Europe" thing was cool. I like Johnny Bluejeans the best, especially when he said things like "I got me a bad case of the herpes." Once or twice they even had a cool musical guest. It was O.K, but who cares, we will never see it again.