Also, if you're into musical things of the parody variety, check this out, performed and conceived by our dear friend Laura Kleinbaum!
8. Fuzz: The Musical (from Mr. Show)
Mr. Show did a few great musical sketches--in fact, there are a whopping TWO on this list. I think what made them so brilliant was the perfect blend of loving geekiness and mocking derision. These guys have clearly walked the boards a few times before, and you get the sense that they're simultaneously glad to be free from obnoxious musical theater types, but that they still sing songs from Into the Woods in the shower. (BTW, the best part of this clip is far and away David Cross' rendition of "How High the Mountain (Ronnie's Theme)" at about 3:40... if you prefer Patinkin to Cross, check this clip.)
7. Oh, Streetcar! (from The Simpsons)
I mean, come on... "The Kindness of Strangers" re-imagined as a big-budget, kick-line closer. Sign me up, The Simpsons.
6. Lease: The Musical (from Team America: World Police)
Consider yourself skewered, Rent! YOU WERE ASKIN' FOR IT! (Also, I'm sure glad we can all laugh at AIDS now.)
5. Red Ships of Spain (from Saturday Night Live)
Oh my gosh, does anyone remember this? Friggin' Goulet and his two brothers (Parnell and Baldwin)!!! AND I MANAGED TO FIND THE VIDEO!!!
4. Bye, Bye, Greasy (from Home Movies)
I think I have watched this episode of Home Movies more than any other one... thanks, Tom. This Grease/Bye, Bye, Birdie mash-up is a sublime catastrophe. (Coach McGuirk's song, around 4:15 in the video, is probably the highlight.)
3. Springtime for Hitler (from The Producers)
I mean, I can't not mention this. (The original, obviously...)
2. The Joke: The Musical (also from Mr. Show)
This has everything... a salesman selling leather pants in the Ozarks, pre-fame Jack Black as a farmer/devil, some holes in the wall, and best of all, a hated milk machine. This is the perfect end to the best Mr. Show episode EVER. (I CALLED IT JUST NOW.) Also, I love the looks on Bob and David's faces at the end, as the credits roll. They look positively giddy and thrilled... like they can't believe they actually got to pull that shit on National TV.
Part 1:
Part 2 (The Milk Machine Song!):
1. Red, White, and Blaine (from Waiting for Guffman)
Guffman is pretty much a perfect film. There are like, five Oscar-worthy performances in this film. Yes, actually, exactly five. And I think the icing on the cake (or the dressing on the salad?) is the musical itself. It's terrible, to be sure... but impeccably terrible. The songs are more than catchy, they're occasionally beautiful. (For instance, the one in this clip at about 1:00 in.) The whole production--like the town it tributes--is so sad and small, but these performers genuinely care about every note, every line... so even as an outside observer, you care can help but care, too.
Showing posts with label mr. show. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mr. show. Show all posts
Friday, March 6, 2009
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Top 11 Mr. Show Sketches that are Available on Youtube
I fucking love Mr. Show. I fucking love these sketches.
11. The Hail Satan Network
10. GloboChem
9. Druggachusetts
8. Titannica
7. Larry Kleist, Rapist
6. Lie Detector
5. Mayostard and Mustardayonnaise
4. The Story of Everest
3. The Audition
2. Joke: the Musical
1. Pre-taped Call-in Show
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Top 8 Best Examples of Modern Satire
Okay, so it makes me livid when people call things that aren't satire satire, especially when there are a fairly decent amount of modern things that deserve the name satire. Basically, the point I'm trying to make here is that saying, "GEORGE BUSH LOOKS LIKE A MONKEY DURRRRRR" isn't satire, because you could just as easily make fun of the appearance of anyone. Satire doesn't have to be political, but it has to cut to the core of the hypocricy/idiocy of its real-life target in a way such that the most frequent targets are stupid political or social viewpoints. AND NOW, the Top 8 BEST examples of modern satire. OH, one more thing: I'm defining "modern" as "in the last twenty years or so" or obviously things like Catch-22 and Tom Lehrer and Randy Newman and Strangelove (which Peter probably wouldn't put on such a list because he is terrible at realizing when Strangelove and Strangelove-related things clearly belong on lists) would be on here.
8. Mr. Show
Alright, so Mr. Show is a sketch show, which obvoiusly means that not every single sketch can be satirical. But Mr. Show picks targets and tears things down more aggressively and more frequently than any other sketch show I've ever seen, and I'd be surprised if any sketch show I haven't did it better. (Chappelle's Show might be close, but it degenerated into catchphrases a little too often.) Sure, there's a decent amount of absurdism, but when the absurdism drops out, sketches like this one hit you right in the fucking face:
That's one of the tightest, most merciless satires of capitalism I've ever seen. Awesome. And I don't even hate capitalism.
7. 30 Rock
It's awfully funny that Aaron Sorkin clearly intended his show, Studio 60, to be the intelligent commentary on the state of the television and entertainment industry, and 30 Rock, which didn't nearly stretch as far trying to be that, ended up doing it about a thousand times better. On Studio 60, the writers on the titular sketch show railed against reality TV. They also did on 30 Rock, right before all admitting that they watched it. Much smarter, much funnier.
Alec Baldwin's Jack and Tracy Morgan's Tracy should be taught in classes as almost perfectly-realized satirical characters. Baldwin's role is more obvious--the conservative, ratings-driven suit--and he is probably the most reliably hilarious part of the show, but I don't think that the brilliance of the writing for Tracy--a satirical version of self-exploiting black actors--gets as much credit as it should. Sure, there's a fair amount of wackiness in this too (most of it funny), but 30 Rock is at its core a pervasive satire of television. And the line in the most recent "Cooter," at a government building with a leaky ceiling: "No, it's not. We looked into it and it's not...I'll show you the study." That is fucking satirical gold right there. (Contrast it to South Park, which would have centered an entire episode on that joke, getting comedy out of the many similarities between the leak and other leaks and instances of government-in-denial. Which, again, makes the joke about the references, not about representing a government with the endemic problem of doing that.) 30 Rock, however, owes a ton to...
6. The Larry Sanders Show
Larry Sanders is maybe the greatest satire of the entertainment world ever created. Every celebrity who appears on the show, as themselves, is self-mocking in subtle but ruthless ways, to the point where I'm kinda surprised that people kept lining up to guest on the show. It either proves that Hollywood is pretty okay with making fun of itself, or that Hollywood doesn't realize when a team of brilliant writers (including Judd Apatow, Richard Day later of Arrested Development, Paul Simms of NewsRadio creation and now Flight of the Conchords, John Riggi now of 30 Rock...the list goes on) is savaging them. Here is the greatest news of all: every episode of Larry Sanders is currently available on YouTube. FOR FUCKING FREE. This is the greatest day of your life. Here, I'll start you off:
(Another good idea for a list: "Ways 30 Rock is indebted to Larry Sanders." Or maybe "Ways every single good comedy since Larry Sanders is indebted to Larry Sanders.")
5. Bill Hicks
Bill Hicks probably wins the award for all-time greatest satirical stand-up comedian. He was never content to make easy political jabs at an issue; he goes straight into it and talks very directly about everything that is wrong with the viewpoint of those who oppose him. "It's funny because it's true" is something often associated with observational comedy, but the best satire hits right there, too. And man was this guy funny. This is maybe the greatest takedown of fundamentalist Christianity ever done:
RIP, Bill.
4. The Onion's Our Dumb World
I know this is awfully high-up for something not that well-known and very recent, but I recently finished reading this entire thing through, and wow, does it have some of the best satirical writing I have ever seen. On nearly every country, the jokes cut straight to the most horrible and problematic stuff, and there is absolutely no apology made. A few examples:
on the map of South Africa, an "X" labeled: "Woman having consensual sex fantasy."
in the facts section on Iraq: "Leading Cause of Death: victory"
the subtitle of Germany: "Genocide-free since April 11, 1946"
I highly, highly recommend you buy this book right now. It's more relentless and probably better than America: the Book, which I loved.
3. The Thick of It
This is almost certainly the most savage serial comedy I have ever seen. It deals with the innerworkings of British government, only the main character, the Minister of Social Affairs, spends about 99% of his time making it look like his department is doing something worthwhile and 1% of the time doing something, which is usually not worthwhile. If The West Wing is essentially a show about how we all wish government were actually run, The Thick of It is a show about how we all fear it probably is run. Spot on, and hilarious. And like Larry Sanders, YouTube currently has every single episode available online, You're welcome.
2 and 1. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
This. This ought to be the first thing anyone thinks of when they think of modern satire. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report consistently take angles on stories covered by every other comedian that cut to the basic problems and idiocy behind them. They don't sit on the sidelines and snipe easy targets, they make jokes that hurt because their targets are so deserving. There's a lot of crap made about people getting their news from The Daily Show, and I think that's basically a non-issue for several reasons:
1) The only studies I have seen are about people preferring The Daily Show to other TV news. Most people who are smart enough to enjoy The Daily Show probably do not watch TV news because TV news is awful. They read newspapers in print or online. The Daily Show isn't really that funny if you're not up on political events, so I don't really get how they assume that people get their news from it.
2) In a way, The Daily Show is not basically "worse" than most news. The difference is that most news makes the assumptions that politicians and news outlets act in a basically sensible manner, and The Daily Show assumes that they act in a nonsensical manner. If you're really cynical, you might say that means The Daily Show is at least as valid. I'm not that cynical, but I also don't think that normal news assumptions and Daily Show assumptions receive a 100/0 split.
3) The Daily Show, more than a show critical of politicians (which it also is), is very much a show generally critical of most news media. And usually what they do there is simply show montages of idiotic news media and have Jon Stewart react. That's not confusing, it's simply presenting.
Anyway, I love The Daily Show. When I said in that other list that South Park isn't that sane eye watching over the rest of the world for hypocrisy--the way it thinks of itself--well, The Daily Show is that. Almost every joke is pointed and the targets are deserving.
All of this goes again for The Colbert Report, which is perhaps framed more aggressively as a satire of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc., but acutally veers off into absurdism a little more frequently.
If there is a perfect example of The Daily Show both being funny and sane when it seems like everyone else has lost it, here it is:
Okay, it's not embedding, so here you go.
8. Mr. Show
Alright, so Mr. Show is a sketch show, which obvoiusly means that not every single sketch can be satirical. But Mr. Show picks targets and tears things down more aggressively and more frequently than any other sketch show I've ever seen, and I'd be surprised if any sketch show I haven't did it better. (Chappelle's Show might be close, but it degenerated into catchphrases a little too often.) Sure, there's a decent amount of absurdism, but when the absurdism drops out, sketches like this one hit you right in the fucking face:
That's one of the tightest, most merciless satires of capitalism I've ever seen. Awesome. And I don't even hate capitalism.
7. 30 Rock
It's awfully funny that Aaron Sorkin clearly intended his show, Studio 60, to be the intelligent commentary on the state of the television and entertainment industry, and 30 Rock, which didn't nearly stretch as far trying to be that, ended up doing it about a thousand times better. On Studio 60, the writers on the titular sketch show railed against reality TV. They also did on 30 Rock, right before all admitting that they watched it. Much smarter, much funnier.
Alec Baldwin's Jack and Tracy Morgan's Tracy should be taught in classes as almost perfectly-realized satirical characters. Baldwin's role is more obvious--the conservative, ratings-driven suit--and he is probably the most reliably hilarious part of the show, but I don't think that the brilliance of the writing for Tracy--a satirical version of self-exploiting black actors--gets as much credit as it should. Sure, there's a fair amount of wackiness in this too (most of it funny), but 30 Rock is at its core a pervasive satire of television. And the line in the most recent "Cooter," at a government building with a leaky ceiling: "No, it's not. We looked into it and it's not...I'll show you the study." That is fucking satirical gold right there. (Contrast it to South Park, which would have centered an entire episode on that joke, getting comedy out of the many similarities between the leak and other leaks and instances of government-in-denial. Which, again, makes the joke about the references, not about representing a government with the endemic problem of doing that.) 30 Rock, however, owes a ton to...
6. The Larry Sanders Show
Larry Sanders is maybe the greatest satire of the entertainment world ever created. Every celebrity who appears on the show, as themselves, is self-mocking in subtle but ruthless ways, to the point where I'm kinda surprised that people kept lining up to guest on the show. It either proves that Hollywood is pretty okay with making fun of itself, or that Hollywood doesn't realize when a team of brilliant writers (including Judd Apatow, Richard Day later of Arrested Development, Paul Simms of NewsRadio creation and now Flight of the Conchords, John Riggi now of 30 Rock...the list goes on) is savaging them. Here is the greatest news of all: every episode of Larry Sanders is currently available on YouTube. FOR FUCKING FREE. This is the greatest day of your life. Here, I'll start you off:
(Another good idea for a list: "Ways 30 Rock is indebted to Larry Sanders." Or maybe "Ways every single good comedy since Larry Sanders is indebted to Larry Sanders.")
5. Bill Hicks
Bill Hicks probably wins the award for all-time greatest satirical stand-up comedian. He was never content to make easy political jabs at an issue; he goes straight into it and talks very directly about everything that is wrong with the viewpoint of those who oppose him. "It's funny because it's true" is something often associated with observational comedy, but the best satire hits right there, too. And man was this guy funny. This is maybe the greatest takedown of fundamentalist Christianity ever done:
RIP, Bill.
4. The Onion's Our Dumb World
I know this is awfully high-up for something not that well-known and very recent, but I recently finished reading this entire thing through, and wow, does it have some of the best satirical writing I have ever seen. On nearly every country, the jokes cut straight to the most horrible and problematic stuff, and there is absolutely no apology made. A few examples:
on the map of South Africa, an "X" labeled: "Woman having consensual sex fantasy."
in the facts section on Iraq: "Leading Cause of Death: victory"
the subtitle of Germany: "Genocide-free since April 11, 1946"
I highly, highly recommend you buy this book right now. It's more relentless and probably better than America: the Book, which I loved.
3. The Thick of It
This is almost certainly the most savage serial comedy I have ever seen. It deals with the innerworkings of British government, only the main character, the Minister of Social Affairs, spends about 99% of his time making it look like his department is doing something worthwhile and 1% of the time doing something, which is usually not worthwhile. If The West Wing is essentially a show about how we all wish government were actually run, The Thick of It is a show about how we all fear it probably is run. Spot on, and hilarious. And like Larry Sanders, YouTube currently has every single episode available online, You're welcome.
2 and 1. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
This. This ought to be the first thing anyone thinks of when they think of modern satire. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report consistently take angles on stories covered by every other comedian that cut to the basic problems and idiocy behind them. They don't sit on the sidelines and snipe easy targets, they make jokes that hurt because their targets are so deserving. There's a lot of crap made about people getting their news from The Daily Show, and I think that's basically a non-issue for several reasons:
1) The only studies I have seen are about people preferring The Daily Show to other TV news. Most people who are smart enough to enjoy The Daily Show probably do not watch TV news because TV news is awful. They read newspapers in print or online. The Daily Show isn't really that funny if you're not up on political events, so I don't really get how they assume that people get their news from it.
2) In a way, The Daily Show is not basically "worse" than most news. The difference is that most news makes the assumptions that politicians and news outlets act in a basically sensible manner, and The Daily Show assumes that they act in a nonsensical manner. If you're really cynical, you might say that means The Daily Show is at least as valid. I'm not that cynical, but I also don't think that normal news assumptions and Daily Show assumptions receive a 100/0 split.
3) The Daily Show, more than a show critical of politicians (which it also is), is very much a show generally critical of most news media. And usually what they do there is simply show montages of idiotic news media and have Jon Stewart react. That's not confusing, it's simply presenting.
Anyway, I love The Daily Show. When I said in that other list that South Park isn't that sane eye watching over the rest of the world for hypocrisy--the way it thinks of itself--well, The Daily Show is that. Almost every joke is pointed and the targets are deserving.
All of this goes again for The Colbert Report, which is perhaps framed more aggressively as a satire of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc., but acutally veers off into absurdism a little more frequently.
If there is a perfect example of The Daily Show both being funny and sane when it seems like everyone else has lost it, here it is:
Okay, it's not embedding, so here you go.
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