If 2020 has been good for anything, it’s been good for online reunions of classic ‘90s sketch comedy shows. Mr. Show did a Zoom show last month, and now The State have set up one of their own. This Wednesday, June 10, the 11 members of The State will be hopping on Zoom to read sketches from their classic MTV show, as well as sketches that have never been seen before. They’ll also be auctioning off memorabilia. Tickets cost $20 in advance and $25 the day of the show, and all proceeds will go to benefit the California Immigrant Resilience Fund and the NAACP.
The show will start at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, and here’s the official page where you can register for your ticket. If you’re interested, don’t wait too long to register—your confirmation email will have the info on how to log into Zoom, and that will apparently take about 15 minutes to show up in your inbox, so if you want to be there right at 9 p.m. you’ll want to plan ahead.
For the uninitiated, The State is an 11-person sketch troupe that started at NYU in 1988, and included Michael Showalter, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Todd Holoubek, Kevin Allison, Michael Patrick Jann, Michael Ian Black, and David Wain. In the early ‘90s they created sketches for a Jon Stewart-hosted MTV show called You Wrote It, You Watch It, before graduating to their own eponymous sketch show that ran on MTV for four seasons between 1993 and 1995. They then had a one-time special on CBS that was supposed to precede a new series on that network, but the special tanked and CBS didn’t pick the show up. They also wrote the book State by State with The State in 1997. After the CBS deal fell apart the members fragmented out into all walks of media, with members responsible for an increasingly big and complicated family tree of comedy that includes Wet Hot American Summer, Reno 911, Childrens Hospital, Stella, Role Models, Drop Dead Gorgeous, the podcast RISK!, and much, much more. These people wind up everywhere—Michael Ian Black was ubiquitous on those old VH1 talking head shows and was on NBC’s Ed, Joe Lo Truglio is a regular on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Ken Marino has pretty much been on every TV show of the last 20 years, and Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant wrote the Night at the Museum movies, along with another dozen or so Hollywood films. Still, despite conquering all forms of entertainment, the entire troupe has rarely gotten back together over the last 25 years, so fans will no doubt be excited by this Zoom reunion. Thankfully it’s also for a couple of good causes.
If you’re interested, register for the Zoom at this page, and mark it down in your calendar for Wednesday, June 10, at 9 p.m. ET.