Great Comedy and Variety TV Shows

By comedy and variety I mean funny things that aren’t sitcoms. In other words, sketch and talk show format, mostly. You’ll notice that most of my favorites are the ones that don’t properly fit into the genre or are completely screwed up.

Great Comedy and Variety Shows

• Chappelle’s Show, but not the Lost Episodes, which suck: Poor Chappelle. Where’s the respect? He’s a brilliant social critic, and his jokes about peeing on people are also rife with revolutionary bravura. (ps: Ask about my Chappelle’s Show lesson plan!)

• Monty Python’s Flying Circus: For some reason, not everyone likes this show. I show people Python and they usually go, “Wha?” Even those who have seen the movies first go “wha?” I’ll admit you have to be in a certain mindset to appreciate their brand of humor. And knowing 1970’s Britishisms helps. But Python still is the best sketch comedy series of all time, in my opinion. I would say it revolutionized the genre, except the genre is still pretty shitty. Also, miss the third season; not nearly as good as the first two, due to the loss of Cleese.

• The first five years of Saturday Night Live, plus assorted episodes in the early 90’s and a few episodes in the 1996 region: I’m very picky about SNL, because it used to be so good. Along with Monty Python, original SNL is one of the two shows I’ve stayed up till ridiculously late at night to watch (well, ridiculously late when you’re thirteen, you understand). If you haven’t seen the original stuff, you’re really missing something. Get one of the Best Of’s or something. Many of the sketches weren’t just self-indulgent celebrity-parody fests (although Celebrity Jeopardy was pretty funny). I also think the original Weekend Update was the best, although Norm was good back in the day, too.

• The first season of Upright Citizens Brigade: The second and third have their moments, but Carlos and I agree that the first season is more regularly funny. Anyway. Those of you who haven’t seen UCB, give it a try. It’s weird and takes some time to figure out, but then it’s great. If you haven’t seen the Ass Pennies sketch, you are really living a lesser existence. And you know all the actors already, but think they aren’t funny because they are in crap now. Like Amy Poehler. Why, Amy? Why? At least she’s married to GOB. (ps I had the title and titular line in Out of Africa.)

Good Comedy and Variety Shows

• Any variety show involving Muppets: I love the Muppets. Every so often I try to figure out where I get my love of fourth wall humor, and I think it might come from them. Wakka wakka.

• The Ellen DeGeneres Show: It’s not hilarious, but it’s the only daytime talk show I can watch. At least she’s engaging, unlike Tony Danza or those cows on The View.