![]() ![]() Not just funny, but unflinchingly bizarre: Now bring in the dancing lobsters! She’s not afraid of that.” Leading The Amanda Show, the All That spin-off that dominated the Nickelodeon crowd from 1999 to 2002, Bynes crafted not only an entire universe of goofy, quotable characters (the show’s superfan Penelope Taynt, the stars of teen soap parody Moody’s Point), but she led an ensemble that turned out to be a launching pad for several other stars - including Drake Bell and Josh Peck of Drake & Josh and Saturday Night Live‘s Taran Killam. “That’s what’s so great about her,” said Bynes’ What I Like About You co-star Leslie Grossman to ELLEgirl. “She’s this beautiful girl, but she will spaz out and look weird for a laugh. Fluent in pop culture and showbiz tropes, Human Giant hit hardest with smart, simple premises (e.g., Scheer creating a time machine but only uses it to bring back Crystal Pepsi) and hilarious takedowns (like the Criss Angel/David Blaine-style magician parody the Illusionators).īy the age of 13, Amanda Bynes was already the breakout star of one trailblazing kid-sketch show, All That, and a perfect balance between Kristen Wiig’s malleability with Chris Farley’s surrealist physicality. “ will always be our special thing that we made just the way we wanted to make it,” Huebel told Serial Optimist in 2013. The show grew out of live performances at a time the internet was not yet overcrowded with sketch comedy, and felt like an extension of the same scrappy, lo-fi UCB sensibility that is at once immediate and accessible. Somewhere between their training ground at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and three thriving TV careers ( Parks and Recreation, The League, Children’s Hospital and more), the charismatic trio of Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and Aziz Ansari made 14 episodes of MTV sketch show Human Giant. Show creator John Moffitt noted, “I think that night alone got us a pickup for the next year.” In a 1981 skit that boosted Kaufman’s legacy more than the show’s, he and Richards broke the fourth wall with a live on-air staged fight over Kaufman’s refusal to play stoned. ![]() Pre- Seinfeld Michael Richards and Larry David stood out, especially Richards with his awkward physicality, which produced some of the shows biggest laughs. Regardless, it was actually a pretty good knockoff, with a versatile ensemble cast, great guests (Devo, the Clash, Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal), and tight satire that earned solid early ratings until Nightline bumped it later and later during the Iran hostage crisis. In 1980, while SNL’s pioneering first cast and Lorne Michaels were exiting their station, “ABC wanted to literally clone SNL and we all resisted like crazy,” Fridays cast member Melanie Chartoff told TV Party. “It’s meant to be primarily a comedy show, and if you go too far down the line of making it a genuinely creepy horror film, you’ve got to always remember to have the gags….You need a little bit of light and dark.” “We always knew we needed a balance,” Pemberton told a crowd at Phoenix Cinema in London in 2007. Though narrative filaments connect regular characters with the village’s strange happenings, the LoG‘s three seasons are written as a series of linked sketches often dark and disturbing, the best sequences combine elements of childrens’ nightmares, pathos and laughs. ![]() The limited geography of the setting provides good excuses for the odd characteristics and creepy habits of the inhabitants to emerge. Created and performed by quartet of Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson, The League of Gentlemen takes place in the cloistered, fictional Northern English village, Royston Vasey. ![]()
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