We all love Amy Schumer, everyone knows how brilliant Key & Peele are, and you’ve watched Will Ferrell’s classic SNL sketches countless of times. But in this weekly column Sketchy MVPs, The Laugh Button shines a light on comedians from our favorites shows and troupes who don’t often get rightful credit for their contributions to sketch comedy.
Oh… hellooooo. In case you couldn’t tell, we’re pretty excited that Nick Kroll and John Mulaney are bringing the stage show starring their outlandish alter egos Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland to Broadway this coming September. So it seems fitting we dedicate this week’s Sketchy MVP to the TV show that made Oh, Hello! popular: The Kroll Show.
Granted, Nick Kroll’s Comedy Central series is more of a compilation of continuous reality TV parodies than it is a typical sketch comedy show (you could say it’s a more modern version of SCTV). But in the span of three seasons, Kroll was able to deliver a plethora of truly zany characters while also calling out today’s television offerings for its equally crazy attributes. In fact, what made most of Kroll’s recurring characters so great was that they literally could’ve been seen on a real-life reality series.
Besides his own show, Kroll is likely best known for playing the lovable shmuck Rodney Ruxin in FXX’s The League, though has been making his way onto the big screen (he voices a douche in The Sausage Party, and we’ve got high hopes for Joshy). But anyways, relive a few of our favorite moments from The Kroll Show below.
“Too Much Tuna”
Alright, let’s start off with the two characters that inspired this week’s Sketchy MVP entry… while Kroll and Mulaney first performed these two lovable old bigots throughout NYC in the 00s, it was The Kroll Show that truly introduced them to a wider audience. And arguably the best sketches involving Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland was the cheap looking prank show Too Much Tuna where they… well, trick people into eating too much tuna. Whether the victims are regular shlubs like the one above or celebrities onstage, there’s something so enjoyable about watching Faizon and Geegland berate people with a plate of too much tuna in front of them.
“Wheels Ontario”
The fact that all of the teens attending this fiction Canadian high school are in wheel chairs is enough to make Wheels Ontario a stellar parody of everyone’s favorite Canadian teen drama. However, we were already losing our shit when Mikey’s mom says “Take this loonie and buy yourself a bag of milk”… oh Canada…
“PubLIZity – Yogurt Water”
Not only were these recurring sketches a great parody reality series you’d typically see on E! or Bravo, but the two Liz’s (as absurd as they came across) were great parodies of the type of upscale lifestyle publicists you’d probably run into on the streets of L.A.
“Ref Jeff”
Aww, poor Ref Jeff… he’s just looking for someone he can connect with on the court (though don’t worry, he eventually finds a companion in a fellow ref, played by Jordan Peele)… how romantic.
“Chikk Klub”
Sometimes even morals can’t get between a man and his chicken sandwich… so yeah, you could say this sketch hit close to home.
