Posts tagged 'Sketch comedy' (7)

Sketch he's most proud of writing

The sketch I was the most proud of was probably one called Do You Go Runnin Round Re Ro and it was a take on British Gangster movies and how we Americans can't understand what the actors are saying with those thick Yorkshire accents and all.

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The first time we did it, Fred just starting doing that voice ("Whaaaaaat are you doing here?!") and Kristen and I were like "What?" It was so funny. I hadn't heard him do it before. Man o man it made me laugh. Then it became a game of who could stretch out the vowels in their sentences the most. It got crazy.
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer is amazing. Probably my favorite sketch. There's another Jack Handy one called "Deerheads" with Harvey Keitel that's sublime.
I will say that off the top of my head, the two favorite sketches that I was a part of had to have been the Harry Caray space show with Jeff Goldblum and, of course the cowbell sketch with Christopher Walken. My favorite cast member to work with was Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Well, here's what I did, Victoria. Any sketch I would write, I would call my character "Stan Hooper" and he didn't really do anything, you know? And I would be very careful to name him Stan Hooper, and then have someone in the sketch say "Hey Stan Hooper" and one time I read a list of recurring characters and Stan Hooper was way up there. And of all the characters he had no real qualities of any kind. Just a bland empty vessel of a man.
It was the first sketch I ever did. I got confused with stage direction, and literally did not know what color I was on the cue cards, so I just froze! Hey people, it's live TV, and the experience has made me a better performer. AND took away the fear of being in sketches!
99% of the time, David and I agreed on what should go on, and why, and what was good. That's one reason the show was so great. I never just wrote off a sketch and thought "You don't like it, but I do..we'll put it on." However, the sketch about the waiter dropping food in the guy's lap and offering to pay for half the dry-cleaning never really worked and everyone agreed "Date With the Queen" was a huge clusterfuck of incomplete thinking. Those two sketches were real stinkers. Some writers hated "Hunger Strike," which i loved. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTdyMBtuDYI . I'm not sure everyone liked "The Story of Everest." That's a sketch that divides people. It's probably my favorite, though....