Thanks to the power of instantly streaming Netflix, I get the opportunity to rediscover a million shows that I never really knew existed. One such show is The State, the short-lived sketch comedy show that I've heard buzzing about for a while. This sketch comedy show that aired on MTV for 29 episodes launched the careers of Michael Ian Black, Thomas Lennon, and Ken Marino. Sketch comedy, which was huge in the 90s, has somehow essentially died in our modern television (aside from SNL, but that's a duh). The State brings us back to all that glory that made sketch comedy so cool in the 90s. Sketches on government, the environment, and spoofs on popular television commercials remind me of my childhood.
The only problem is that watching The State has made me terribly nostalgic for MTV in the 1990s. Ya know, the days of MTV Unplugged, Tabitha Soren, and actual music videos. Pretty much everything before MTV decided it was going to worship the consumer-culture of spoiled brats and girls pregnant way before they should be. The days when MTV had shows on that required actual talent. When MTV actually had some sort of credibility as a subversive television station that broke the pop culture barriers and made it cool to be different (ahem, Daria).
Oh MTV, how I miss you.
2 comments:
In other words, the days before they discovered that you could get non-actors, call it "reality," and cut together a compilation of fights, and people would still watch it...
Damn, when I think of it that way, it's a miracle that MTV was EVER good. :-( But I'm still glad that it was, and that there is still a record of said era.
The State was awesome!
Post a Comment