Sketchfest Salutes The State

Koshi and I went to the Sketchfest tribute to The State yesterday at Herbst Theater, and while it wasn't "music" per se, it was on MTV long enough that I think I can justify posting about it here. And as the cast pointed out, the Spin Doctors came up at least once every episode.


While many think The State is one of the stupidest shows on MTV in a time when MTV still showed music videos, I liked it. A lot. It was unpretentious, absurd, and with its endless stream of catch phrases and recurring characters, it was extremely viral. And with present-day gems like Next and The Hills, even those who hate The State have to admit it's really not the stupidest thing MTV has ever aired.

Here's an MTV promo for the show using quotes from the abysmal reviews they got:

This weekend marks the first time that all 11 cast members have been on stage together in over 10 years. They did two shows of new sketch comedy at Cobb's on Saturday night but I was unfortunately out of town, in lovely Tempe, Arizona in a hotel on Mill Avenue at the corner of Slut and Douchebag. But I got back in time for the 2pm tribute at Herbst so dropped my stuff off at home and headed straight to the theater.


It was a hilarious and worthy tribute, and Janeane Garofalo was a fantastic moderator. In addition to making them talk about the end of times—their leaving MTV for CBS (they weren't canceled) to getting hammered in the Bahamas while making an album—she stepped back and let them sort of run their own panel. The audience even asked good questions!


We don't have any pictures because I'm a huge fan and just bought the tickets instead of trying to get in as press. But Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black both posted some shitty but charming iPhone pics of the rehearsal for Saturday night's performances at Cobb's on their blogs.


Fans of The State who haven't discovered this yet should know that you can download Season 1 in the iTunes Store. But if you need a quick fix, here are some videos from back in the day (the ones that Viacom hasn't pulled from YouTube yet, anyway, fuckers... PS Viacom, I'd be happy to buy the DVDs—yes, buy them with actual money—if you would stop being vindictive and just release them already).

Some more clips... And of course there are Barry and Levon, but embedding is turned off on this video and it looks like Viacom had all others pulled.