“What does a yellow light mean?”
Surprised nobody’s mentioned that already…
Hmm. Some more.
I forgot a Frantics sketch: “You Were Speeding”.
Kevin Nealon on SNL doing “Mr. Subliminal”.
Steven Wright’s “Irregular phone”. As far as I can recall, it’s the only thing he does that isn’t a simple one-liner.
A few choice bits from Howie Mandel: Howie’s chat with the FAA guy in the audience. And the time during one of the HBO concerts where, after he spotted a woman leaving to go to the restroom, he made the people in her section of the audience trade seats with people in another section…
Shelley Berman’s phonecall to the department store about a woman hanging from a ledge outside their building…
“I’m Tough”, a routine by an Australian punk stand-up comedian named (I think) Jock Serilovich.
Stan Freberg: The Payola Roll Blues.
– Bob
I love Monty Python and The Kids in the Hall. In KitH, I’m reminded of the aliens who have been abducting people and anally probing them for years, but they don’t see the point: “All we’ve found out is that ten percent of them like it.” Or the French trappers who paddle their canoe down Yonge Street, trapping business people for their clothes; one gets away by chewing his leg off. “No, let him go, he’s got spunk” or something like that.
I also like the Smothers Brothers (Dicky: “There were no pumas in the crevices, okay?” Tommy: “Okay. So they were building the railroads over these huge crevices and their were these nasty… beasts in the crevices… sure smelled like pumas…”) and Bob Newhart’s one-man skits, like Sir Walter Raleigh and the discovery of tobacco: (on the phone) “What’s a cigarette, Walt? …that’s when you take the tobacco leaf… shred it up, uh huh… put it on a piece of paper… roll it up, (laughs) no, don’t tell me Walt, don’t tell me. You stick it in your ear, right? (laughs) No, in your mouth, well… what do you do then, Walt… (laughs uncontrollably) you set fire to it, Walt!”
Then there was this comic I heard once, nick-named the Bulldog or something, very politically incorrect (warning, some of this is very rude):
“The one time I was genuinely funny was when we had been eating at an Indian restaurant, and I went to pay the bill at the front. Well, the guy at the front was named Kashir, and I said, ‘hey, your name’s the same as your job! Your name is Kashir and you’re a cashier.’ But he didn’t get it.”
“These guys tell me I’m going to go to hell. I don’t care if I go to hell. The gays will decorate, the blacks will entertain, the Jews will cater… it’ll be a blast!”
“Mexico is a very dirty place. You wouldn’t think so with all the cleaning ladies that come out of there…”
"If you’re a straight, white male, you can’t make jokes about anybody. You’ll get called a homophobe, racist, or mysoginist. I mean, they can make a movie called “White Men Can’t Jump,” but you’ll never see a movie called “Black People Can’t Shut Up in a Theatre.”
Sorry if anyone was offended by any of that, but I love subversive, you’re-not-supposed-to-say-that humor. That’s why South Park does it for me, too.
And before you ask, yes, that’s the Canadian spelling of misogynist.
[sub]::wonders if he pulled that off::[/sub]
Not really a sketch, but Jackie Vernon’s “Vacation Slide” routine was hilarious:
<click>This is my guide.
<click>This is my guide leading me around a pool of quicksand.
<click>This is my guide from the waist up.
<click>This is my guide’s hat.
<click>This is the rescue party.
<click>This is the rescue party from the waist up.
<click>That’s a lot of hats and ropes and things.
<click>This is my new guide.
<click><click><click><click><click>That’s his hat there.
Some great SNL included “Slumber Party” and “The Last Voyage of the Enterprise.”
I could go on forever on Monty Python sketches.
Danny Kaye’s “The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true.”
The “Dr. Kronkheit” sketch in Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys,” thought that may have originated elsewhere.
Peter Cook’s “Coal Miner.”
One sketch from “The Secret Policeman’s Ball,” where someone is trying to sight read “Let’s call the Whole Thing Off” (“You say tomato and I say tomato.”)
SNL with John Malkovic “You mock me?”
SNL Gilda Radner’s Candy Slice.
Kid’s In The Hall “My PEN!”
Carol Burnett’s Gone With The Wind parody.
The Holy Grail’s guard: “It’s only a flesh wound.”
Bob Newhart’s Road Test
Richard Pryor’s Mudbone (I’m in love with a bitch I can’t stand).
Thanks, St. Attilla for mentioning Bob Newhart. I got his three cd’s for Christmas, and my husband and I were on the floor! Especially liked “Bus Driver’s School” (and off the record, doesn’t this seem ESPECIALLY true? “Did’ja notice how he slammed the door in her face that time?”) also “The Driving Instructor”.
Not exactly SKETCHES, but I’m also a huge fan of Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer. I love “The Masochism Tango” ("My heart is in your hand. . . . YECCHHH!!!)
Python’s “Scott of the Antarctic” sketch…which I’ve only ever seen once years ago but still remember it (vaguely) - the one where Cleese plays the drunken director, and Palin’s the actor whose contract calls for him to fight a lion. Absolutely great sketch from start to finish.
Larry Miller’s “Five Stages of Drinking”
I’m convinced. I’m invisible.
No, you’re not. The SNL Malkovich “mocked” sketch is one that’s stuck with me through the years, long enough that I forgot that Malkovich was in it; all I remember is Dana Carvey as one of the courtiers. I only ever saw it the one time, on its first broadcast, but to this day I use “You mock me, woman, and I will not be mocked” on my wife on a regular basis. <grin>
And the Carol Burnett GWTW parody? Classic line: “I saw it in the window and just had to have it!”
Holy Grail: The Black Knight wasn’t the guardian of the Grail, though. That was the old man from scene 24. But the Black Knight scene is a classic. Then again, so is most of the movie. It’s got a recitable quote for every occasion.
– Bob
My favorite was SCTV with John Candy, Martin Short et al. I preferred it to SNL because it had a story line through the show. Some of my favorites were the “mob” type war between the ABc, CBS, NBC and SCTV. When the Russians took over the SCTV satellite and broadcast its shows. And when they took the the 30 second Great White North with Bob and Doug Mackenzie and made it an hour special.
One of the best skits by it self was the “Leave it to Beaver” skit where Ward is a drunk and Beaver shoots Wally, so Ward, in order to teach the boys a lesson calls the police.
I am sorry that show is off the air and we are stuck with SNL.
Hi Bob,
I only said that because this is the 3rd time this week someone attributed something I said to the poster directly above me. It’s eerie.
Mr. Show with Bob & David - East Coast vs. West Coast Ventriloquists. That and Wycked Scepter.
I’ll have to agree with Chimaera on SCTV.
Some of John Candy’s best work was on that show, I think. I still laugh when I recall Johnny La Rue, Harry The Guy With A Snake On His Face, and the Shmenge Brothers. Not forgetting “Hey, Yorgi,” from the Soviet TV hijack, of course.
But it went further. The impersonations were almost eerie in their accuracy: Rick Moranis as Woody Allen and Dave Thomas as Bob Hope in the send-up of “Play It Again Sam.” Fantastic.
Of course, I have to say that one of my favourite sketches remains the high school quiz program hosted by, IIRC, Eugene Levy playing “Alex Trebel”:
Alex: “What is the–”
<BZZT!>
Alex: “Margaret Meehan, Central?”
Margaret: “The Dewey Decimal System?”
Alex: "Wait for the question, Margaret!
Okay, all you epicurian comedy people are going to hate me for this one, but: Eddie Murphy’s album he did wearing that red leather suit. Freakin’ hilarious.
Thanks to that one, everytime I start a campfire, I have to say, “Now that’s a FIRE!”.
Also, Steve Martin’s album where he does the sounds (“I can do any sound”) and then proceeds to tell a tale where every sound is alike ("…then the atom bomb went off."). That whole album is a riot.
I was just going to mention that album!
I still chuckle over “Gus, your wife is a Bigfoot! And all she can say is Goony Googoo! She scares my kids Gus!..”
I still think “Now that’a a FIRE” whenever I see the guys in the backyard with the BBQ and a can of fluid. 
OMG, I completely forgot about SCTV! Alright, I gotta add Dave Thomas in the tv biography of Nostradamus. It was just “Nostradamus” going around and saying “I knew you were going to say that!” whenever anyone said anything. Completely stupid, but I couldn’t stop laughing…
Geez, there are so many.
Best of Eddie Murphy SNL
-"'Scuse me George, but what’s that yo puttin on yo bread?"
-Eddie Murphy going undercover as a white person
Mr. Show with Bob & David
-I’ll have to second the Wycked Scepter
-The freestyle rap competition
-It’s insane, this guys tape
-Change thief action squad
Also from the Rowan Atkinson skits, Rowan as the Devil. “All the male adulterers, please line up in front of that little guilliten, thank you.”
MP - ‘How not to be seen’
Sid Ceasar - The one where he is the hotel bellhop listening to the newlyweds. ‘I know, lets both get on top!’ ‘WHAT!?!?’
Eddie Murphy Raw. The whole thing. Especially “Eddieeee-what have you done for me lately, Edddiieeeeee?” “I want half, Eddieeee.”
And the classic “hamburger on Wonder Bread.” The other kids making fun of him, sing-song, “We got McDonald’s. You ain’t got McDonald’s 'cuz you is on the welfare!” His mama makes him a hamburger on the Wonder bread, with GREEN PEPPER hanging out the side, and the juice turns the bread pink. Freakin’ hilarious…
I recently let my 16-year-old watch this. (Actually we were at a friend’s house who had HBO, and it came on.) It was funny by itself, but watching him see it for the first time had me almost rolling on the floor.