The League of Gentlemen: Created and performed by quartet of Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson.
Fridays: In 1980, while SNL’s pioneering first cast and Lorne Michaels were exiting their station, “ABC wanted to literally clone SNL and we all resisted like crazy.
Human Giant: Somewhere between their training ground at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and three thriving TV careers.
The Amanda Show: By the age of 13, Amanda Bynes was already the breakout star of one trailblazing kid-sketch show, All That.
Little Britain: It was called both the heir apparent to The Goon Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus and, per a Guardian columnist, “one of the most sneering.
The Idiot Box: Hosted by, and frequently starring, Alex Winter (Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure), this MTV sketch show offered.
The Andy Dick Show: One of the most reckless comics alive, NewsRadio star Andy Dick briefly hit the sweet spot between Andy Kaufman and Borat Sagdiyev.
Funny or Die Presents: The bizarre, hit-and-miss sketch comedy shorts usually relinquished to websites like Funny or Die briefly lived on HBO under the banner of Funny or Die Presents.
Exit 57: The opening sequence from the short-lived Exit 57 said quite a bit about the show’s acute juxtapositions and unsettling tone.
Mad TV: A more cultish weekend cousin to Saturday Night Live aimed squarely at teens, Mad TV‘s skewering of pop culture was a “steady diet of schadenfreude.
