When Spike Lee first heard the pitch for “BlacKkKlansman” - the 2018 movie based on a real story about a black cop infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in the ’70s - he thought it was a remake of the sketch. “Chappelle’s Show” “Frontline - Clayton Bigsby” (2003)ĭave Chappelle’s presentation of a black white supremacist remains a fixture of popular culture, still embedded in our public consciousness more than 15 years after it first aired. “Lazy Sunday” also raised the profile of comedy-factory the Lonely Island (made up of Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer), and set a precedent for infectious SNL song parodies that became instant viral sensations, such as the Emmy Award-winning “D- in a Box” and the rap Grammy-nominated “I’m on a Boat.” “The Office’s” Michael Scott even made his own Scranton, Pa.-specific version.
“Lazy Sunday” was asking for it: Its hardcore beat and lyrics that so ludicrously contrast with a sweet premise (how to enjoy a lazy Sunday) were irresistible. Regular people made their own parody versions in a harbinger of viral challenges to come. After NBC raised a fuss to get the YouTube clip taken down, people posted ripped versions. Their “digital short” first blazed what is now a well-worn path for sketch comedy, becoming one of the first bits from television that found a second life online, amassing millions of views within days.
Famous comedic monologues for women tv#
When the rap by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell first aired in 2005, TV was still being made with just TV in mind and YouTube was but a few months old. This music video may be more Weird Al than classic sketch comedy, but what “Lazy Sunday” accomplished secures its place on this list. (People are still out here in 2019 putting “cowbell” jokes on their dating profiles.) Somehow, we all knew to laugh at this, tell each other about it and repeat the lines over and over, without the digital public square of Facebook and Twitter. However, two lines in particular - “I need more cowbell” and “I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!” - took over our brains and still hasn’t let go. Will Ferrell’s physical comedy - his too-small shirt creeping up his belly as he wildly struck his humble instrument - and Christopher Walken’s, well, Walken-esque delivery may have sold the sketch. For years after, its legacy followed around the real-life band, who had to deal with fans at shows yelling for more - ha ha, get it! - cowbell. If we had to explain to future generations how things went “viral” before that word was associated with anything but a contagious disease, we might point to this 2000 SNL sketch about Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” It’s very weird and non-topical, but it somehow managed to infect us all. Note: Some of the clips include vulgar language and content. They can allow us to process the serious or painful aspects of our existence. They can still give us a new shared language for the mundane. Throughout comedy’s evolution, sketches have held a prominent place within our culture. The final list, which is in no particular order, includes sketches you’ve seen, ones you haven’t and a lot of “Saturday Night Live” - the natural outcome of being the longest-running and most widely watched sketch series. (Sorry, I’m not combing through the graveyard of Vine for content to judge.) They had to come from American shows. To qualify, here are some ground rules: Sketches had to involve characters in a short vignette that was written and plotted out, rather than improvised.
“Defining” can be a nebulous descriptor, but let’s try to give some form to it: Which sketches helped alter sketch comedy itself? Which exemplified or popularized a certain kind of comedic sensibility? What permeated our shared psyche or charted a new way through changing media?