The 10 Best Kroll Show Characters
If you’ve watched SNL with any regularity, you know how difficult it can be for a sketch show to do a recurring character well. For every Stefon and Matt Foley, there are a greater number of Mangos and Gillys, figures that played well one or two times but quickly overstayed their welcome.
What made Kroll Show such a delight these past three seasons was that Nick Kroll and his team knew that they had some amazingly funny characters on their hands, but for the most part didn’t keep sticking them in the same situations over and over again. They evolved these personas by plucking them out of one scenario and plopping them in another.
Larry Bird became the star of a Cheers-like sitcom. Bobby Bottleservice and Peter Paparazzo were injected into a half-dozen different idiotic reality shows and even a pseudo-action film. Ref Jeff went from an obnoxious basketball court presence to convicted felon trying to direct games in The Yard. Even when the writing staff came up with stuff that didn’t really work, you had to applaud their efforts to keep things fresh and not get stuck in a rut.
In honor of Kroll Show concluding its three season run this week, we chose the best of the many recurring characters that Kroll and his team cooked up over their many years working together. If we’re lucky, they haven’t closed the door completely on these brilliant creations and we’ll get a chance to see some of them in even stranger situations in the future.
1. and 2. Liz B and Liz G of PubLIZity (Nick Kroll and Jenny Slate)
Having been around the world of movies and TV for as long as Kroll and Slate have, they surely have encountered plenty of PR reps like Liz G. and Liz B. Their performances are so spot on, capturing the vapid attitudes, eardrum torturing voices, and entitled attitudes of a certain sect of women. As fun as it was to watch Liz B. totter through her strange love story with C-Czar and Liz G.’s reality show odyssey looking for her true love, the two characters were never better than when they were together, slurping out of their plastic cups and squeaking through another shoddy publicity campaign.
3. Gene Creemers (Jon Daly)
Of all of the male pals that Kroll welcome aboard his titular TV show, his best foil was Jon Daly. The comic and actor always brought such a weird energy to each of his characters, a feeling that something was just a little bit off with them mentally. That spirit was utilized best when he played Gene Creemers, the Canadian actor and co-star of Wheels, Ontario. His jerky body movements and strange sputtering diction felt like the mirror image of every self-important older dramatic actor found in every part of the Commonwealth.
4. Farley (Chelsea Peretti)