Mr Show With Bob and David: "The Limits of Science"

"Mr Show With Bob and David" 1995-1998. David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, Home Box Office (HBO). Youtube 10.07.06

Mr Show was a sketch comedy show starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross inthe mid to late 1990s. The show featured sketches based on absurd premises often dealing with religion, politics and relatively taboo topics. In the clip below, the show makes fun of religious beliefs of the past by showing how ridiculous they were. As people of the 21st century we can look at this and laugh, wondering how people could possibly believe the things they did, because in the clip, as in real life back then, people really did believe these things and other similar ideas. This clip not only makes fun of beliefs from the past, but it can also be transposed as an observation on today's spiritual and religious beliefs. Granted science has come a long way since the middle ages, but there are still those (many people) who hold on to beliefs. As a documentary made during the middle ages (an absurd idea in itself) people watching it at the time would have believed what it said. Viewers now look at it and scoff. Which makes us wonder, what present day documentaries about science or religion will people hundreds or thousands of years from now watch and view as being absurd? This sketch works on the level of making fun of religion and it also comments that science is an ever moving forward process and it is important to always be skeptical.

Saturday Night Live: Word Association

Saturday Night Live, today in its 34th season, is a live, 90 minute sketch comedy show that appears every weekend on NBC. Created in 1975 by Lorne Michaels, the show is centered around a standard cast that appears every weekend and a guest host, who is a well-known celebrity, either in the entertainment or political sphere. This particular clip is from the 9th episode of the 1st season, which Richard Pryor hosted. The first black host for the show, Richard Pryor is seen in this particular sketch, sitting at a table with Chevy Chase, being interviewed for a job. The last part of the interview is a word association exercise, in which Chevy Chase starts off using very simple, non offensive terms. The exercise gets out of hand very quickly, with Chevy Chase using progressively offensive terms for blacks, while Richard Pryor fires back with progressively offensive terms for whites. Upon Chevy Chase's use of the "N" word, Richard Pryor calls him a "dead honky," which leads to Chevy Chase hiring Richard Pryor for $15,000 a year, the highest paid janitor in America, all after the initial offers of $5,000 and $7,500 per year garnered responses of "your mama" and "your grandmama," respectively.



Chase, Chevy, and Richard Pryor, perf. Saturday Night Live. NBC. 13 Dec. 1975. Hulu. 17 Feb. 2009.

Weekend Update: Celebrity

These are two Saturday Night Live Weekend Update skits, both featuring Seth Meyers as the host. The first also stars Kenan Thompson as Charles Barkley. SNL, a sketch comedy show started in the mid-seventies which now airs every Saturday night at 11:30 pm, is well-known as a parody show, taking current events and trends and turning them on their heads. This first sketch, originally aired on 1/10/09, starts off with the political news of the week, followed by an in-depth interview with Sir Barkley on his recent traffic violation. The second clip, aired 2/7/09, is Seth's analysis of Michael Phelps marijuana scandal.

Barkley and Phelps are the latest in a line of celebrities to be skewered by the SNL crew for immature behavior. These sketches bring up the debate on how celebrities and potential role models ought to be punished for behavior that would probably go unnoticed if they were not famous. Any other young adult male, for example, could have used a bong profusely and not suffered the consequences, but Phels only did so once (to our knowledge) and is loosing millions of dollars because of it. While the Barkley sketch doesn't have much of a complete argument, Seth and the writers clearly see Phelps' treatment as too harsh. Meyers points out how ridiculous the standards are for Phelps, and how the 12-time-gold-medal-winner ought to be given a few breaks every now and then. As the show is aimed at Phelps' age group, the audience will probably tend to agree with them.

The Kids in The Hall

The Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson) was a Canadian sketch comedy show that ran for 5 seasons from 1989-1995. Episodes ran twenty minutes (not including commercials) and contained various sketches with themes ranging from gender and sexuality, police, business, family life, religion, and sex to the completely absurd like a man with meat for hands and a killer shark named Skoora that feels remorse.

Some famous recurring characters include: the Head Crusher, a man who sits in public and "crushes" the heads of passers-by with his pointer finger and thumb. Cabbage head, a misogynistic man with, surprise, a head of cabbage for a head, who continually fails on dates due to his rude and womanizing attitude. Buddy Cole, the opinionated owner of a gay bar who goes off on long monologues after closing time with a martini in his hand. Danny Husk, a hopelessly stupid and unlucky businessman. Gavin, a talkative and inquisitive adolescent. Simon and Hecubus, a self-proposed demonic prophet and his man-servant, and many more.

The Kids in the Hall are most known for dressing in drag. All of them straight except for Scott Thompson, they wanted to push the limits and show that it's okay to be yourself and to be a little gay. They frequently performed sketches dealing with homosexuality, gender roles and homophobia, portraying very convincing but very manly women as well as homosexual characters. The Kids in the Hall was the first sketch comedy show to openly and frequently deal with this issue.

This first video clip is a sketch from the season 1 finale, poking fun at the ridiculousness of the bible:



The second video is one example of the Kids dealing with homophobia (in an extreme way):




"The Kids in the Hall" Produced by Lorne Michaels, 1989-1995. Toronto, Canada. Accessed from Youtube February 8, 2009.