Mr. Show with Bob and David: Genius or Overrated?

no. kids in the hall are the greatest sketch comedy group of all time.

Hadn't watched this for a couple of years until I looked up a few favorites on YouTube yesterday. "Change for a Dollar" and the "Van Hammersley" (the guy who teaches you about history through billiards) sketches are still great.

yeah KITH is better, more consistent, generally weirder and relied much less on direct and obvious parodies

the Bob one you're thinking of Will is in Season 1, I think...? He wanders around complaining about how things change (leaves, streetlights, etc.) Its a pretty short interstitial piece if I recall.

altho yeh in general Bob >>>>>>>>>>>>> David

Kids in the Hall is superior (it's easily my favorite show of all time), but I still heart Mr. Show 2 tha max

maybe the key difference is that KITH stuff is generally character-driven, whereas Mr. Show is more concept-driven...?

Yeah but I have tried to show people KITH who aren't yet into it, and they are never amused... until they start watching many episodes. Not a sitcom, but also, people need to wach a few Seinfelds before they "get it" (which isn't to say everyone enjoys it after some eps, but NOBODY seems to like any of these shows after 1 or 2 episodes)

xpost YEAH, that's the one Shakey!

the dice and sponge sandwich KILLED

Ha ha my wife and I do the "These leaves used to be cool ... but they changed" voice all the time.

maybe the key difference is that KITH stuff is generally character-driven, whereas Mr. Show is more concept-driven...?

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yeah otm. but boy, what concepts!

because it's Halloween, the Monster Parties: Fact or Fiction? sketch

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fo4tzrxyXsA

I'm willing to side with the "funniest american sketch comedy show" people.

Also, the "Video Complaints" sketch has a joke I still say in regular conversation:

"I HAVE NEVER! EVER! ...EVER! ...NERVER! ...NENVER! ...NEVEREVEREN!

which reminds me of another david cross thing that I still oversue, but it's very subtle... in one eisode of arrested development, in one of the best moments, tobias is telling michael why he'd never take marriage advice from him. "And secondively, why would I take marriage advice from you? Your wife is dead!"

Secondively creeped its way into my speech, to the point where I no longer ven use it with a hint of irony in my voice, and just sound uneducated.

I often describe myself as an adventurist, a noveler, and a travelaire

funniest American sketch comedy show was The State.

which is like light years funnier than Mr. Show. and they weren't allowed to cuss!

I liked a lot of the side people, really think they made the show: Brian Posehn, Jay Johnston and my fave Tom Kenny (aka voice of Spongebob). Season (3? 4? the last one) had like way tons tons of Jay Johnston, which was surprising. The best one from that season was called (IIRCE) "The Story of the Story of the Story of Antarctica," where he kept knocking over the thimble cabinet. I wish they were that puzzling and slapstick all the time.

KITH mos defs>>>>>>>Herr Scahuen

Ned's comment upthread about me liking the Ben Stiller Show more still stands. There's still some howlingly funny episodes of Mr. Show, but like Abbott mentioned the side people are underrated (and David Cross is way way overrated)

The show would be horribly suffocating if it were just Bob & David.

Jill Talley, people

sorry to resurrect this old thing, but i just watched the bob lamonta story and laughed my ass off... this seemed like the best place to post about it.

Since they met on the Ben Stiller show, much of the show's precursors can be found in the Odenkirk sketches from there

the dice and sponge sandwich KILLED

― sunny successor, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:22 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^

my favorite odenkirk from the ben stiller show is - besides manson, obv - val the background singer who is fluent in two languages: english and legalese.

Taint Misbehavin'

Was Odenkirk's Hillbilly Industries from Stiller of Mr Show?

stiller

The Bob Lamonta story is definitely one of the more tedious (bar the kid who says "they gave me some beer and frozen peas", and maybe the principle) of the skits on the show, if you ask me, but I tend to be PC that way.

*the principal

MY SHOES HURT

mehlt you are a philistine

if you can't laugh at that sketch what can you laugh at?

'scuse me?

I'm sorry if I don't find half assed, easy mental disability jokes funny.

I've watched Mr. Show enough to know what I like, there are skits I've seen more than 25 times.

That pales in comparison to the Taint sketch, Mustardayonaisse, fuzz the musical, philouza, pre taped call in show, dream of a lifetime, change for a dollar, grass valley greg

and so on and so on. . .

MY SHOES HURT

have you tried pulling your socks up?

BAM

Oh wait I just remembered that...haha nevermind.

o man the mustardayonaise/mayostard thing

also I never said the skit was bad, per se, but one of the more tedious skits (it has some moments, e.g. my shoes hurt) but for reasons I mentioned above, i.e. structuring skits around lazy, projected stereotypes of mentally disabled people, which aren't really funny to begin with, and aren't any funnier when translated into a sketch, makes for a tedious sketch that has little to built itself from.

The thing is Bob and David aren't really that great comedians, they're just really good at putting together and presenting skits where all the small details come together. In skits like these (and so many others) the presentation is better than the jokes themselves (cf. the skit preceeding the fad 3 once, with Dylan the asshole purist, which is essentially all detail with no joke, and is one of my very favourite sketches). When you look at the heart of the Bob Lamonta sketch, there really isn't anything funny at the centre of it, although it's easy to be mistaken that there is.

Sorry to pontificate, but I don't much care for being called a philistine.

its structured around a basic cable biopic format - the retards are characters

Yes, but I'd argue that's presentation (which is admittedly done really well), and it has little to do with the actual jokes though, which are essentially "retard this, BJ and the bear that". This is a skit with all structure and no inside, or actually, it's like an apple with a rotten core, looks fine, seems fine, but I can't get past the really bad jokes that are in the centre.

there are a bunch of biopic based non-retard jokes that are really hilarious - for one the fact that hes a marathoner w/a mustache - should be noted too that the dice sandwich is before the retard reveal and is still so funny

Yes, yes, maybe I'm being confusing - I'm starting to feel like the pre taped call in show host - but I think that just further corroborates my point. It's the jokes that satirize bio pic moustache marathon runners that are funny, but those are the 'details', as opposed to the straight up comedy, as in the uttered jokes about retard this retard that, which are what I find not funny.

Either way, it's not high end Mr. Show, I'll leave it at that.

I'm not clear on what the difference is between "details" and "comedy." But I agree that the retarded parents thing is not very funny.

I mean I guess some of their sketches are funnier for the peripheral jokes than the central jokes, but that's their style. E.g. the repeated shot of Josh Fenderman doing the dance is far funnier than the actual Josh Fenderman story. Not sure why that doesn't qualify as "comedy" though.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to get at.

I was thinking about this after watching seeing Bob And David's stand up comedy and realizing that I don't find it funny at all, in spite of loving Mr. Show. Depsite what Bob might say about the better skits being the low budget ones (easy for him to say, as he would find himself to be really funny), it's the gestalt that counts, the periphery being as, often more important that the central jokes. I find approaching the skits in a kind of decentred way is more rewarding that looking at it as a vehicle for stand-up style comedy that you could get on an audio recording.
Take The Dylan skit at 7:30 here, which is a skit without a centre, all periphery without an origin that its supposed to be serve.

i love the bob lamonta sketch more for the "brave choice" satire surrounding it, which i think rescues the "bad retarded caricatures" jokes from what it would be on something like mad tv. still, i will be magnanimous and recognize your right not to like it as much as their other sketches. my two favorite sketches from the show are the story of everest and the pre-taped call-in show. however, the greatest mr. show moment of them all was at the end of the lost episode.

Take The Dylan skit at 7:30 here, which is a skit without a centre, all periphery without an origin that its supposed to be serve.

I wouldn't really even call that a skit. It's only about 60 seconds -- more of a transitional piece between skits. Monty Python used to do very similar things, and so did vaudeville acts for that matter. Plus the Dylan character shows up elsewhere and I think it's pretty clear that the "center" is just a spoof of a literary snob type who can't stand base pop culture -- maybe an easy target, but done well I think.

Besides, I think a lot of their comedy is more about certain television and film narratives as narratives than the content of those narratives.