The 25 best sketch comedy shows of all time

With the rise of streaming, social media, TikTok and YouTube, there's never been a bigger market for short-form comedy, or a bigger audience. Here's a look, in no particular order, at the 25 biggest sketch comedy shows of all time, which you can watch as full episodes or on a sketch-by-sketch basis.

It’s now the 49th season of "Saturday Night Live," meaning the show is two decades older than its target audience. It’s a television program, but it's also a boot camp for young performers, a feeder system for Hollywood comedies, a showcase for hot musical acts and in 2024, a way for hosts Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney to escape the stink of "Madame Web". "SNL" has done 962 episodes with 164 different cast members over the years, won 84 Emmys and even expanded its empire into late night with former cast members Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers hosting Lorne Michaels-produced talk shows during the week.

Signature sketch: Motivational speaker Matt Foley lives in a van down by the river.

"The Kids In The Hall" was a Canadian sketch show named after the young writers who used to pitch jokes to Sid Caesar for "Your Show of Shows." Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Scott Thompson and Mark McKinney were known for surreal sketches, comedic shorts and dressing in drag. They eventually ended up with five seasons, 102 episodes, one movie ("Brain Candy"), one mini-series, 30 Helens, thousands of crushed heads, and so many Daves we know. 

Signature sketch: Girl Drink Drunk.

"Upright Citizens Brigade" is best known for its improv schools and theaters on both coasts, but the three seasons of its sketch show were hilarious, dark television. It linked sketches together with the overarching device of a fictional organization, devoted to spreading chaos. The shows also included related gonzo stunts filmed on the streets of New York. The group, which launched the careers of Amy Poehler and Matt Walsh, also functioned as a repertory company for Conan O’Brien's show in the early days, where Poehler memorably played Andy Richter’s lovestruck little sister.

Signature sketch: Titular Line.

The first two years of Dave Chapelle’s sketch show on Comedy Central were such a cultural phenomenon that the success drove Chapelle out of the country. It pulled no punches right from the start, especially in pilot episode's sketch about Clayton Bigsby, the blind, African-American white supremacist. The show revitalized the career of Charlie Murphy, whose stories about Rick James and Prince — and their reenactments by Dave — were instant classics. Eventually the sheer volume of people yelling “I’m Rick James!” at Chappelle in public helped provoke a premature end to the series after just two real seasons.

Signature sketch: "The Racial Draft"

"Second City Television," or "SCTV," was a Canadian sketch show that came out of the Second City theater in Toronto, structured around the behind-the-scenes antics and on-screen programming of a fictional television station in "Melonville." There were shows like "Great White North," hosted by stereotypical Canadian brothers Bob and Doug MacKenzie, "SCTV News," fake commercials, and "Battle of the PBS Stars," in which Julia Child fought Mr. Rogers in a boxing match. The show would eventually cross over to American television. just like many of the performers, including John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short and Rick Moranis.

Signature sketch: Half Wits

You can tell that Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele were serious talents even before Peele won an Oscar for his debut film, "Get Out." They also had some of the best wig and makeup people in the business, as Peele and Key played nearly all of the show's important characters themselves. The sketches were all over the place, from an angry substitute mispronouncing his students' names, to a flamboyant "sequel consultant" working on "Gremlins 2," to the greatest event in college sports, the East-West Game. They won two Emmys and a Peabody, and their partnership will likely continue into feature films, even beyond their initial effort, the kitten-rescue action comedy "Keanu."

Signature sketch: Obama's Anger Translator

Monty Python's Flying Circus is one of the most influential sketch shows of all time. Though the original series had only 45 episodes, the group expanded into five feature films, comedy albums and even a hit Broadway musical, "Spamalot." Terry Gilliam, whose animations often created the segues between sketches, became a successful film director. The Pythons were defined by their absurdist humor, the stream-of-consciousness style of their episodes and willingness to break the fourth wall. They often dealt with the age-old problem of how to end a comedy sketch on a big laugh by sending in a police officer to stop it - in other words, a cop-out. It's the only place you'd see a high-concept sketch about the Spanish Inquisition existing side-by-side with a sketch devoted to John Cleese doing silly walks.

Signature sketch: The Dead Parrot

David Cross and Bob Odenkirk started working together on the much-loved and short-lived "Ben Stiller Show." Two years later, they co-created "Mr. Show" for HBO. Like Monty Python, the sketches on Mr. Show all connected with one another, with shows beginning and ending with live segments in front of a studio audience. Sketches included a mad scientist holding a telethon to raise money for him to not destroy the earth, the rivalry between mayostard and mustardayonnaise and one of the most brilliantly written sketches of all time, where Cross hosts a call-in show that's taped a week in advance. It's no surprise Cross and Odenkirk went on to long careers as actors, as did occasional featured player Jack Black. The duo reunited in 2015 for a limited Netflix series, "...with Bob and David."

Signature sketch: The Story of Everest

"MADtv" may have been considered the poor man's "SNL," but it lasted for 15 seasons and won five Emmys, albeit only for hair, makeup and costumes. Originally inspired by MAD Magazine, the Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin shorts gradually dropped away in favor of the show's regular cast of characters, including Will Sasso, Michael McDonald, Alex Borstein and briefly, both Key and Peele. Though it lacked the same marquee name and cast continuity, some of "MADtv's" best sketches hold up to "SNL's" from the same era.

Signature sketch: Malcolm X In The Middle

Based out of Seattle, "Almost Live!" started in 1984 as a late-night talk show, but when the original host left, John Keister took over and turned it into a half-hour, sketch-heavy program — a Pacific Northwest-centric sketch show decades before "Portlandia." That's why you got sketches like "COPS In Ballard." The show eventually made it to Comedy Central and also birthed one sketch that became a national sensation: Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Signature sketch: High-Five'n White Guys

Keenen Ivory Wayans created "In Living Color," wrote the show and starred alongside four of his family members: Kim, Damon, Marlon and Shawn. The show was full of future stars. Besides the Wayans family, there was Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier and Jamie Foxx, who ensured that the cast of "In Living Color" would win an acting Oscar before any "SNL" performer. Carrey was one of only two white cast members, as "In Living Color" featured minority performers whom shows like SNL had ignored. Damon was the first breakout star, playing various characters like "Homey D. Clown," while Carrey's biggest smash was "Fire Marshal Bill". The show also featured live hip-hop performances and dances from the Rosie Perez-choreographed Fly Girls, featuring an unknown Jennifer Lopez. But things fell apart once Keenen departed and the rest of the family followed.

Signature sketch: Homeboy Shopping Network

"The State" had a brief but spectacular two-season run on MTV from 1993-95, though various permutations of its 11 members have worked together ever since, in "Reno 911!," "Wet Hot American Summer" and countless other shows. "The State" featured high-energy, short sketches and a mix of live sketches and filmed pieces. All were packed with wall-to-wall contemporary music, as befitting its place on MTV, but the music rights fees made a DVD release prohibitively expensive for many years. 

Signature sketch: Monkey Torture

"Your Show of Shows" was a sketch program, filmed live, featuring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner, who was also part of a staggeringly talented group of writers. The writing staff included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Selma Diamond, while Caesar's subsequent programs used Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen. The show was also groundbreaking for the 1950s because it had narrative-based, situational sketches, rather than the character pieces that defined earlier variety shows.

"The Carol Burnett Show" ran from 1967-78 on CBS and was headlined by, who else, Carol Burnett. The show was heavy on sketches, particularly TV and movie parodies like "Went With The Wind."  The small ensemble — Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, and Lyle Waggoner – stayed together for years, even working on a sitcom spun off from one of the sketches, "Mama's Family." Burnett also ended each show tugging on her earlobe, which she did to say hello to her grandmother.

Signature sketch: Rhoda Dimple

Creator and star Tim Robinson has described "I Think You Should Leave" as centered around the comedy of avoiding embarrassment. The show, which has had three seasons consisting of six brief episodes, is full of that, whether it's a guy in a hot dog costume angrily demanding to know who crashed his Wienermobile into a store, or in the show's very first sketch, a man who accidentally tries to push open a pull door and nearly gives himself a hernia forcing it the wrong way rather than admit he was wrong. Robinson stars in most sketches, bringing a lot of the surreal comedy from his sitcom "Detroiters" but adding a heaping dose of discomfort.

Signature sketch: "Coffin Flop," the hidden-camera funeral show from Corncob TV

"The Chris Rock Show" featured Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes and Mario Joyner, among others, mixing in musical guests, interviews both fake and real, and man-on-the-street bits, like when Rock goes out to drum up support for a Tupac Shakur Boulevard. They also produced parodies like the emotional after-school special, "Daddy Still Has A Flat Top." One sketch even became a movie: "Pootie Tang." 

Signature sketch: How Not to Get Your A** Kicked by the Police

"The Ben Stiller Show" lasted only 13 episodes but still won the Emmy in 1993 for Outstanding Writing. The celebrity impressions and parodies were spot on, like "Cops In Medieval Times" and "The Last Stand of Yakov Smirnoff" where a despairing Smirnoff realizes he's out of material after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Signature sketch: Drugs Are Bad

"Portlandia" brings SNL's Fred Armisen together with Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein in an affectionate parody and celebration of Oregon's biggest city. There's the duo who urges you to "put a bird on it" and the artisanal knot store (featuring Jeff Goldblum). Armisen and Brownstein both show off their ranges, while the show is the first to truly recognize and explore the annoyances of our social media, binge-watch modern world.

Signature sketch: "Dream of the '90s" which explains that Portland is "where young people go to retire."

"Awesome Show, Great Job" is Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's follow-up to "Tom Goes To The Mayor," which uses the aesthetic of public access television along with some actual public access stars. Its general absurd, often cringey humor that nonetheless remains unforgettable, like hidden camera star Spagett. Tim and Eric go for awkward or disturbing endings to sketches rather than big punch lines, and the show features enough music that they released a soundtrack album. "I Sit On You" is a choice selection.

Signature sketch: Business Hugs

The concept of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin's sketch show was that, in a time of love-ins, sit-in and teach-ins in the late 1960's, they had a laugh-in. Rowan was the dumb guy of the duo, while Martin was the frustrated straight man. Sketches tended to be short and fast-moving, and helped launch careers of performers like Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn and longtime "Family Feud" host Richard Dawson. 

Signature sketch: News of the Future 

"That Mitchell and Webb Look" centers around performers David Mitchell and Robert Webb and is the follow-up to their successful pairing in the sitcom "Peep Show," which was written by Jess Armstrong of "Succession." (He also worked on this show.) Other performers included Daniel Kaluuya ("Get Out") and reigning Best Actress Olivia Colman, who also wrote for the show. Perhaps the definitive Mitchell and Webb sketch — surreal, loud, and fast-paced — is "Numberwang," a fast, complicated, completely incomprehensible game show.

Signature sketch: Numberwang (with trampolines)

Jim Henson's madcap variety show was also a send-up of variety shows, a combination of backstage drama and actual comedic sketches, all delivered with a Catskills-style sensibility. Each episode featured a celebrity guest star who was featured and also tormented by their co-stars, who all happened to be pigs and frogs and chickens and monsters and one tremendously bad bear stand-up comedian.

Signature sketch: Pigs In Space

"You Can't Do That On Television" is a Canadian sketch show featuring a cast made up almost entirely of children and the best kid sketch show in TV history. It was Nickelodeon's flagship show for years and the source of its iconic green slime (dumped on anyone who said "I don't know" — water came down if you said "water"). It leaned on recurring bits — kids emerging from lockers to tell groan-worthy jokes, disgusting cook Barth, and strangely for a children's show, a firing squad sketch. Overall it was essentially a kiddie version of "Laugh-In." There are a plethora of sketches about children being shot or driven off cliffs on this show because the '80s were a weird time.

Signature sketch: Enemies and Paranoia

The Tracey Ullman Show" was Fox's second original prime-time series ever, mixing sketches, musical numbers and dance performances choreographed by Paula Abdul. In between sketches and songs, animated interstitials were shown, including the first version of "The Simpsons" (voiced by cast members Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner). Ullman could sing and dance as well as disappear into elaborate characters, which she'd explore more on HBO's "Tracey Takes On..." It also eschewed parodies and absurdity in favor of grounded characterizations, even if Ullman was under a mountain of makeup and prosthetics.

Signature sketch: Sir

Actress Robin Thede created "A Black Lady Sketch Show" with Ashley Nicole Black, Gabrielle Dennis and Quinta Brunson, who would go on to create and star in "Abbott Elementary." The sketches are primarily written and performed by a cast of black women, including high-profile guest stars like Angela Bassett, Issa Rae and Tracee Ellis Ross.

Signature sketch: Bad Bitch Support Group