Sketch comedy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Sketch comedy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches,"
commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic
actors, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting. Often
sketches are first improvised by the actors and written down based on the outcome of these improv
sessions; however, improvisation is not necessarily involved in all sketch comedy.
An individual sketch or vignette is a brief scene or skit formerly used in vaudeville and used today
on variety shows, comedy programs, adult entertainment, talk shows, or certain children's television
programs (such as Sesame Street). Such a sketch can include footage of a "man on the street" on
evening comedy television interview programs like the Tonight Show.
More serious sketch comedians differentiate their art from that of the skit, maintaining that skits tend
to be a (single) dramatized joke, while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or
situation.

Contents

1 History

1.1 Festivals

1.2 Amateurs

2 See also

History
Sketch comedy has its origins in vaudeville and music hall, where a large number of brief, but
humorous, acts were strung together to form a larger program. In England, it moved to stage
performances by Cambridge Footlights, such as Beyond the Fringe and A Clump of Plinths (which
evolved into Cambridge Circus), to radio, with such shows as It's That Man Again and I'm Sorry, I'll
Read That Again, then to television, with such shows as Monty Python's Flying Circus and Not the
Nine O'clock News.
Historically, the sketches tended to be unrelated, but more recent groups have introduced
overarching themes that connect the sketches within a particular show, with recurring characters that
return for more than one appearance. Examples of recurring characters include "Ted & Ralph" from
The Fast Show; the "Head Crusher" from The Kids in the Hall; Martin Short's "Ed Grimley", a
recurring character from both SCTV and Saturday Night Live; and "Kevin & Perry" from Harry
Enfield and Chums. The idea of running characters was taken a stage further with shows like The
Red Green Show and The League of Gentlemen, where sketches centered around the various
inhabitants of the fictional towns of Possum Lake and Royston Vasey, respectively.
In North America, contemporary sketch comedy is largely an outgrowth of the improvisational
comedy scene that flourished during the 1970s, largely growing out of Chicago's The Second City.
British ensembles, in contrast, have more usually been built on talent - with writers often working in
pairs.
Notable contemporary American stage sketch comedy groups include The Second City, the Upright
Citizens Brigade and The Groundlings.

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Other notable television sketch comedy shows include

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Air Farce Live
Alas Smith and Jones
Alexei Sayle's Stuff
All That
Almost Live!
At Last The 1948 Show
Bo' Selecta!
Chappelle's Show
Chocolate News
CODCO
Comedy Inc.
Double Take
French & Saunders
Fridays
Goodness Gracious Me
House of Venus Show
Horne and Corden
Human Giant
Important Things with
Demetri Martin
In Living Color
Jam
Little Britain
Little Miss Jocelyn
MADtv

Magic Plus
Michael and Michael
Have Issues
Mind of Mencia
Mitchell and Webb
Monty Python's Flying
Circus
Mr. Show
Mr Bean
Newman and Baddiel in
Pieces
Not the Nine O'Clock
News
Paul Merton: The Series
Q
Robot Chicken
The Ronnie Johns Half
Hour
Rowan & Martin's
Laugh-In
Royal Canadian Air
Farce
Saturday Night Live
SCTV
Spitting Image
Talkshow with Spike
Feresten
That Mitchell and Webb
Look
The Amanda Show
The Carol Burnett Show
The D-Generation

The Dana Carvey Show

The Fast Show
The Idiot Box
The Kevin Bishop Show
The Kids in the Hall
The Mary Whitehouse
Experience
The Micallef Programme
The Mr. Men Show
The Red Skelton Show
The State
The Whitest Kids U' Know
The Upright Citizens Brigade
The Vacant Lot
This Hour Has 22 Minutes
Tim and Eric Awesome
Show, Great Job!
TV Offal
TV Pirata
Wayne and Shuster
You Can't Do That on
Television
Your Show of Shows

Festivals
Many of the sketch comedy revues in Britain included seasons at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Further information: If.comedy award
Since 1999, the growing sketch comedy scene has precipitated the development of sketch comedy
festivals in cities all around North America, including festivals in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles,
New York, Montreal, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Amateurs
Besides more professional, properly theatrical performers, there is also a tradition of amateur fun.
There are many purposes: to entertain crowds or troops, when no professional entertainment is
available, sometimes with a mild hope of fund-raising.

See also

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British Comedy Awards

List of sketch comedy groups

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Categories: Sketch comedy | Television sketch shows

This page was last modified on 18 February 2010 at 07:50.

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