Mongo Nation

Hands on with the DVD we thought we’d never, ever see

By Jeremy Azevedo

I won’t bore you with the details about what The State is or why it’s important… If you’re reading this, then chances are that you are a fan of the show and need me to tell you how funny it was (and still is) like your dog needs a stockbroker.

And if you’re a fan, you’re probably wondering three things:

1.    Does the show hold up after all these years or will I find myself feeling vaguely disappointed?
2.    Does the loss of all those music licenses cheapen the overall presentation?
3.    How are the special features?

To answer your first question, yes, the humor holds up to modern standards, even exceeding your expectations in many regards. I can’t really vouch for people that are in their early 20s or younger, however, as much of the humor directly parodies the kind of programming that was running on MTV in the early 90s (which was when The State originally aired). Captain Monterey Jack and those “Free Your Mind” spots are still funny either way, I’m sure, but having some frame of reference as to what they’re specifically ripping on makes it significantly more funny. It’s like, if you saw a guy fall off his bicycle into a puddle of mud, it’d be funny right? But put that guy in a polar bear suit and make him retarded, and you have comedy gold! What I’m getting at is, prerequisite knowledge of early 90s MTV programming and “Gen X” style is the polar bear suit that ties the comedy all together.

Exhibit A: Captain Monterey Jack

The loss of music licenses is certainly a disappointment in certain sketches. You may not realize it, but there was popular music in nearly every single sketch on the show, some of which was integral to the joke. The sound-alike filler music is particularly noticeable in the skit in which Michael Ian Black discovers “Pants” in a montage that was originally set to “Cannonball” by the Breeders. Or the Spin Doctors bit in “The Lenny Lipton Show”. (You have to laugh at shitty washed up bands like the Breeders and the Spin Doctors holding out like they did but that’s the breaks I guess.) Not being able to afford Gn’R songs for “Mouse Problems” or Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” for “$240 Worth of Pudding” isn’t unbelievable but I almost wish that there were a workaround, like a “play without music” feature and a bootleg CD that you could play along with the video like The Wizard of OZ and Dark Side of the Moon…

Where the DVD lacks in music, however, it more than makes up for in special features. This may be one of the most fan-hand-jobbing DVD extras packages I have seen in all my days. There are interviews, commentaries, outtakes and deleted scenes from each season. The original pilot of the show is included, as well as each of the group’s special appearance videos and over 90 minutes of additional unaired sketches. I spent all weekend watching this DVD with my friends and barely got halfway through it.

Exhibit B: Don Law

Fans of the show and n00bz alike should get their hands on The State: The Complete Series at their earliest convenience. If you’re lazy or agoraphobic, don’t worry, you can order your copy HERE!

I award The State: The Complete Series an admittedly biased 10 out of 10 Unicorns Fighting a Robot Dolphin:

-1 if you love 90s music so much that you can’t bear to watch this show without it. Me personally, I can live without ever hearing 4 Non Blondes ever again and be just fine.
+1 if you can forgive Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon for writing Taxi, The Pacifier, Night at the Museum and Balls of Fury. (Hey, a man’s gotta eat, amirite?)

Our top 5 clips from the cult classic sketch comedy show

By Jeremy Azevedo

In just 3 short seasons, MTV’s The State established itself as one of the most influential sketch comedy series of all time, and kick-started the careers of some of the most successful comedy actors, writers and directors of our generation.

From Thomas Lennon and David Wain to Michael Showalter and Kerri Kenny-Silver, the original cast of The State reads like closing credits of nearly every good comedy in the last few years (that wasn’t produced by Apatow). Despite all this, fans have waited over a decade for The State to be available on DVD, even paying obscene amounts of money on eBay for the one shitty VHS compilation that MTV releases years ago. The reasoning behind the excruciatingly long wait has to do with music rights or some such bullcrap, but the fact remains that the the wait is now officially over. So you can stop sending those 400 page manifestos to MTV now.

The irreverent humor exhibited by The State was hugely influential on comedians and humorists in the 90s and beyond, as it stood as an (actually funny) alternative to the more structured comedic formula established by dead horse-beating shows like SNL. Probably no one was sitting around wondering what you would do with $240 worth of pudding, but The State was more than happy to tell you what they would do with it… Or what goes on in the sub-molecular world of teenage hormones… Or how to catch a Muppet in the wild, or what to do when your mailman stops delivering mail, and starts delivering delicious tacos. Fans of Reno 911, Stella, I Love You Man, Hot Wet American Summer, Drop Dead Gorgeous and all the dozens of projects that have been produced by this comedy collective over the years should take this opportunity to revisit the genesis of The State’s particular brand of offbeat humor.

In order to show rather than tell that these sketches hold up just as well today as they did ten years ago (because these skits all sound batshit crazy on paper), we’ve compiled a collection of five of our favorite clips from the show. Check ‘em out and be sure to pre-order your copy of The State on DVD, available July 14!

Betty’s Pancake House

Put a bag on your head and hop on the ugly bus to Betty’s No Good Clothes and Pancake House!

The Barry Lutz Show

America’s foremost primate zoologist feels “research” is such a restrictive term and he prefers, “Monkey Torture.”

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An interview with the director of “Role Models”

By Jeremy Azevedo

“Role Models” was easily one of the better comedies of 2008, if not the best. It may not have had the kind of publicity that overrated, Apatow produced comedies like “Pineapple Express” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” had, but it certainly had more laughs in it.

Much of this had to do with the excellent performances by Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott, but the lion’s share of credit most likely goes to writer/director (and former State alum) David Wain.

While not a formula comedy by any means, “Role Models” is was quite a bit more traditional in style than much of David Wain’s previous work (His last two films were “The 10” and “Hot Wet American Summer”). David tells us that this is because he came on around the third draft of the script, adding his (and co-writers Paul Rudd and Ken Marino’s) signature style to the pre-existing story. David’s irreverent sense of humor ultimately transformed what was in danger of being a class-A “bro-down” into a smart and funny picture that lends itself well to repeated viewings.

One of the best things about “Role Models” is the memorable performance by Christopher Mintz-Plasse as a young, hopelessly dorky Live Action Role Player named Auggie. There was some worry on Wain’s part that Mintz-Plasse might be difficult to separate from his instantly typecasting role as McLovin in “SuperBad”.

“There was definitely some concern there”, said Wain. “Christopher had only done the one other film before this, and the character was pretty iconic. But this character of Auggie was really so different… I mean they were both nerdy, but in totally different ways. And I related to him, you know, as a kid. As an adult I related more to Danny (Paul Rudd’s character) but as a kid, definitely Auggie.”

Another young star, Bobb’e J. Thompson, posed a different kind of problem for the director:

“We were limited in some of the things we could have Bobb’e say and do. He had someone there with him at all times to make sure we were within certain guidelines. Specifically, we couldn’t have him say or do anything overtly sexual, though he could talk about boobies and say “fuck” a lot.”

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Hey, movies are always doing it, so why not TV?

By Jeremy Azevedo

Everybody remembers Knight Rider, Airwolf, Miami Vice, the A-Team, etc…. The 80s were a hotbed of wisecracking, ass-kicking, action adventure and vigilante justice, goddamnit!

The only problem is that the way we remember those shows is about 100 times more awesome than they actually appear today. This is something we’ve learned by enduring countless remakes and films that piss on the memory of our beloved shows by trying to pass off some nobody as The Hoff or Ice Cube as B.A. Baracus. Aw, hell no.

But what about all of the great comedies? Networks and studios are foolishly over-looking a barrel full of profitable IPs only because today’s sitcoms are crap. Comedy has more of an evergreen quality to it than Cold War era action shows do. All they require is a little tweaking here and there to update it for a modern audience. Here are five I came up with just now, and I’m not even a big-shot studio producer or anything:

Cheers

A whole bunch of alcoholics sitting around gabbing about how shitty their lives are is great and all, but they don’t even really act drunk or anything. It isn’t realistic. Nowadays, it’d make more sense if they all hung out at one of those places that sells you weed because you told the doctor your back hurts or whatever. I mean, if Pineapple Express can find mainstream success, Why not “Cheers & Chong”? Obviously, Judd Apatow would produce this, and all his little stoner friends would be part of the deal.

Small Wonder

Step 1: Cast Megan Fox as Vicki the Robot.
Step 2: Put her in a metal bikini or better yet, nothing but silver body paint. With sparkles.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!

Small Wonder was about some stupid kid robot who did chores and stuff around the house and becomes, like, part of this family of dorks. But wouldn’t it be totally sweeter if the robot were a total babe, who was only hanging around the family to observe their behavior and report it back to her sexy fembot overlords, who intend on enslaving the human race in the coming robopocalypse? That was a rhetorical question, by the way. Of course it would be totally sweeter, duh. Read the rest of this entry →

The best skits ever to appear on television.