“Mr. Magina, are you baked?”
“You can’t even joke about it…you just can’t say ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be great if we shot the President…’” <Secret Service agents flood the classroom>
“Chips. Isn’t it time you had a bag?”
“This is Captain Monterey Jack…”
The best reason MTV ever had for existing, IMHO. Thanx for the link, epraz.
Yup, Roadwalker. The taco mail sketch was brilliant.
Still, nothing will ever be as good as the monkey torture sketch.
“In all of your years of monkey torture, what have you learned?”
“They hate it.”
The State was probably the best comedy show out there. Unfortunately, what killed it was CBS, not MTV. They moved to a network, aired one show, it got bad ratings, and like so many others, was killed based off of that.
Some of the best skits I still remember are:
The House that was Built Sideways. The father walks in the front door and drops ten feet. The son’s dead from falling out of the bathroom while taking a crap and all you can see are his feet hanging over the side of the couch with his underpants around his ankles. Crazy shit.
Father and Son walking in the woods. It starts off with a father and son walking along, and then they decide to race. Soon, they’re beating the shit out of each other and the father throws the son down a hill. After the father beats his son to the house, grandpa jumps out and kicks his ass.
of course, Grace, with “God, please kill my little brother.” Great.
My toss up for the absolute best: Porcupine Racetrack! Musical numbers are wonderful, especially when pulled off this well.
And: Muppet Meat Two couples having lunch, and they start talking about what wonderful blue meat they served. “What is it?” “Oh, it’s muppet.”
Last one: “Sea Monkeys.” A guy goes to a friends to watch his friend’s pets for him while he’s out of town. the pets are Six Foot Tall Sea Monkeys he’s had since he was ten. Everytime the owner leaves the room, they become very serious and start harrassing the pet sitter. Great shit.
I miss that show, and found Viva Variety to be very piss poor and lacking, but you have to admit Wet Hot American Summer was fucking brilliant. I mean, the DVD’s got a FART TRACK!!!
Dang, epraz beat me to the punch.
Anyway, although I love many of their sketches, one of my all-time favorites is:
*“What is this blue meat? Is it fish?”
“No, it’s muppet.”
*
Sorry to copy and paste, but I think I worded it sufficiently back in September:
Source thread here.
Basically, the show was hosted by Jon Stewart, people wrote in, and the members of The State performed the scenes. Some of it (like the B-52 skit) was among the best work done by The State.
Now here’s the question: Kids in the Hall vs. The State
Who triumphs?
This thread has gone on way too long without a wet blanket.
I hated, hated, hated that show. Nothing but a bunch of smug doofi who thought that being “zany” enough would make up for the lack of solid material. Even “The Ben Stiller Show” tempered their holier-than-thou schtick with a good joke every once in a while. And the worst is that they managed to snake their tendrils out into the media and plant their unholy brood on every other channel – one of the guys does those stupid Snickers commercials, and another smarmy one has been on VH-1 all weekend with that “I Love the 80’s” crapfest with all the other media bottom-feeders telling insipid “jokes” about whatever video or fad they’re talking about for that 15-minute block. Yelch.
When I was a freshman in college, one of the guys in my dorm was an insufferable glory hound who’d trot around doing unsolicited impressions and telling tedious “anecdotes” that all had the same general theme of how much smarter and cooler he was than anyone else. That guy went on to be one of the castmembers of “The State.” One of them was unpleasant enough to be around; I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to suffer through all of them in the same place.
The whole bit with the pudding could’ve been funny, though, if they’d tried harder.
This is a series I would love to have on DVD in its entirety. One day perhaps.
The Monkey Torture skit was my all-time favorite. Brilliant.
My favorite skit was “win a date with the state”.
They were not KITH but damn funny in the own right.
If, for example, I were to say I was going to, oh, I don’t know, kill the president…
(Message to all FBI agents reading this thread. This is just a quote from a show, I don’t actually want to kill the presiden…)
SDMB members laugh as SWAT team converges on Eonwe and takes him away
First guy: (forlornly) “Shot down again. Sigh”
Second guy: “Have you considered wearing pants?”
“240 dollas worth-a puddin”
“What’s for dinner?”
“Butter!”
I still have a few episodes of this on tape. We watched them for New Years!
I really love the Japanese theater version of all the characters. I also love The Nutcracker In A Tiny Tiny Room.
Be sure to check out the link epraz gave. It has little quicktime movies of the sketches!
“Monkey Torture? You mean like whips and chains?”
“No. It’s mostly psychological.”
And of course, he’s on Ed.
EASY-PEASY, it’d be The State. I mean, c’mon - there were like eleven of them. And they had baseball bats.
I LOVE the State… a few quick corrections: There were at least 2 seasons on MTV and Upright Citizens Brigade was completly different people. So tragic that CBS screwed them. Best sketch comedy show ever. hands down.
Their book State by State with the State is quite good. I went to a book signing for it and got mine signed by all of them. they did some request sketches from memory for us, too. That was so cool! Porcupine Racetrack is by far their best work.
<the Oracle of ‘The State’ speaks>
I should hurt you all for these misquotes! There’s just too many to correct! And the State went on for four seasons, plus the CBS show, plus an MTV live performance at, I believe, a spring break (The shakespeare/penis sketch)… this is in addition to all the lame shit they’ve done since. I’m praying that Tom is good in that new Jason Lee movie (I really like Jason Lee, but that movie just looks lame)
However you’re all doing my all-time favorite sketch comedy a good service by remembering it so I guess I can let it pass. 
a few more classics…
Host: Name a form… of transportation?
Tom: … (looks around) …Blue?
Host: Ooooh… i’m sorry… blue is not a form of transportation
Tom: You’re kidding about the beards, right?
Marshall: No. Men cannot grow beards in space.
Ben: But I have a beard.
Marshall: Well, then you’re an alien.
Ben: (long pause) No I’m not.
Marshall: Yes you are.
Ben: No, I’m not.
Marshall: Then, you can’t grow a beard.
David: But he has a beard.
Marshall: Then he’s an alien.
Tom: He’s not. He’s from Pittsburg
<snip>
My mistake. And aplogies elfkin for the apocryphal mis-reference earlier. I concede to your wisdom. I now remember Viva Variety. The under-rated sketch comedies are running together in an amalgam in my brain I think. Ben Stiller, The State, Viva Variety, Upright Citizens Brigade, et al… I love those shows, but my memory doesn’t seem to be what it used to be… or was it…
I don’t remember
My favorite was the eating & swimming sketch, where just about everyone is drowning in the pool, while one of the characters is drinking lemonade, saying he’d like to save them, but he knew to wait 30 minutes after eating before swimming (unlike them).
Dude, which one?
I liked how they went to a high school prom.
And then the Jew, the Italian, and the Redhead Gay went to work for Michael, a WASP in a Charlie’s Angels type thingy.
They had to find an Irishman, so they went to a bar.