PEOPLE REALLY LIVE THIS WAY! 78 . FILTER 0078-85_TheState-1.indd78-85_TheState-1.indd 7878 66/11/07/11/07 88:07:44:07:44 PMPM THE BIZARRE EXUBERANCE OF A THING CALLED THE STATEBY CHRIS MARTINS FILTER . 79 0078-85_TheState-1.indd78-85_TheState-1.indd 7979 66/11/07/11/07 88:08:13:08:13 PMPM YOUR QUICK GUIDE TO THE WRETCHES STATE I.D. AND SKETCHES THAT MADE UP THE STATE DAVID WAIN and I know “it’s great,” but I just don’t designed… Still makes me laugh. feel like she’s overreaching. I was… the whipping understand it. Least favorite: “Miraculous Fetishist,” Favorite sketch: “Pudding” pointed boy. We are now in the State of… [cont. which I wrote. It looks really great and it’s the way toward that absurdist yet famil- Favorite Stater: Me. from Tom’s answer] …California, mostly. pretty much, all the way through, unfunny. iar world the group would inhabit. It’s a certain indefinable We are now in a State of… decline. Least favorite: This horrible rant I did charisma, raw skill and talent, and I think KERRI KENNEY about The Real World and how they got to it’s just also...looks. I was… the chick. KEN MARINO go to Mexico. Stupid. Favorite sketch: I have a great fondness Favorite Stater: Kevin I was… the handsome We are now in a State of… mild for “Taco Man” and “Popes-a Visit.” Allison. He made me Italian with anger man- disrepair. Least favorite: “Gunter Brothers”— laugh every time. agement problems. three guys who all just do the setup and Favorite sketch: “Porcupine Race- Favorite Stater: Kerri. MICHAEL none of them do the punch line. I loved track,” both to make and to watch. A She could be sexy to completely goofy. SHOWALTER it but it got cut down to 10 seconds. close second is “Taco Man.” She was a chameleon, and enormously I was… the sensitive We are now in a State of… Least favorite: I’m definitely embarrassed talented. collegiate guy. confluence. about “Real Estate Lady.” Not funny. Favorite sketch: “$240 Worth of Favorite Stater: Tom. We are in now a State of… [silence]. Pudding” is the definition of what made He’s got an energy completely different THOMAS LENNON The State different. from everyone else’s. The humor is I was… a creepy, KEVIN ALLISON Least favorite: “Louie and the Terror- internal. white, Middle American I was… the authority ists.” We were a bit lazy with recurring Favorite sketch: “Waltons’ Theme.” person. figure who turns out to characters; we didn’t really want to do We’re a ’70s Christian a cappella group Favorite Stater: For be insane. them. singing The Waltons theme and sud- utter nonsense, I look to David Wain. Favorite Stater: We are now in a State of… a long denly our mouths start bleeding. Favorite sketch: “Cannonball Run Showalter, playing with weird ways of pause before I come up with a fairly Least favorite: I wish we’d only done Credits” was so ahead of its time. All we talking. It’s the most retarded thing in bland answer. the one “Doug” sketch. did was recreate the credits shot for shot the world. We are now in a State of… and line for line. Funniest thing we’ve Favorite sketch: “Taco Man.” There’s JOE LO TRUGLIO awkwardness. ever done. something very funny about the subtle I was… the sap, and Least favorite: “The Boner Song.” So way that the logic is (or isn’t) working. the guy with weird TODD abjectly unfunny that it actually makes Least favorite: “Dinner at Marky buggy eyes. HOLOUBEK me mad and embarrassed to this day. Mark’s”—cut from the show. We were Favorite Stater: Kevin. I was… just being We are now in the State of… New trying to get some pop culture in. I find him rubbery and funny. And I like To d d . York and… [see Ben’s answer] Horribly forced. his expressions. Favorite Stater: Mike We are now in a State of… Favorite sketch: “Cutlery Barn” and Jann. He could just stand there, have BEN GARANT reconnecting. “Cannonball Run Credits.” no lines, and be the biggest laugh of I was… the heartthrob Least favorite: “Prom,” where we all the sketch. who fucks chickens. MICHAEL JANN go to the prom of some high school, Favorite sketch: “The Bearded Men of Favorite Stater: I was… tall, silent and hang out and think of gags. Space Station 11.” Almost everyone was a Mike Jann looking over sleezy. We are now in a State of… sponges. straight man, which we never really did. his shoulder with a cocktail in that weird Favorite Stater: Tom. Least favorite: None. We scrutinized brown leather jacket. There was something MICHAEL everything endlessly. Favorite sketch: “Porcupine Race- so cold-blooded about his attack on the IAN BLACK We are now in a State of… wonder. track.” It had a choreographer and extras audience. He was deadly. I was… the gay guy. and a train… It was huge. Favorite sketch: “Manzelles.” The way Favorite Stater: Kerri. AND NOW, ON Least favorite: “Manzelles,” from the they run and move, everyone standing She can do these out- CBS special. I know everybody loves it around in their stupid costumes that I landish, crazy characters and you never WITH THE SHOW... 0078-85_TheState-1.indd78-85_TheState-1.indd 8080 66/12/07/12/07 66:01:13:01:13 PMPM “Porcupine Racetrack” ALL PHOTOS COURTESY JANA ROSENBLAT UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. OTHERWISE UNLESS ROSENBLAT JANA COURTESY PHOTOS ALL WE’RE IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS on a gorgeous afternoon—Ken Marino, Joe Lo actually do it. episodes) and less than two years on air, the Truglio and myself—drinking from dew-dappled The State (all 11 of them) formed at NYU in State left MTV for the big leagues. But their beer bottles, crunching salted almonds and breath- 1988, and after a brief post-grad stint creating under-promoted 1995 Halloween special on ing freely in the clear air as we round the subject of segments for Jon Stewart’s You Wrote It, You Watch CBS (with musical guests Sonic Youth, no less) the key to success in comedy. Today, The State —the It, MTV offered them 11 cubicles and a shot at was a complete flop. They were fired, along briefly aired sketch comedy show that these two a series. They wrote furiously, acted furiously, with an executive at the network indirectly helped helm—is legendary, but its debut on MTV filmed, directed and edited furiously, and when they outed as a racist by the State via their damning in 1994 was greeted by scathing reviews. “Eh,” were done, they’d created a show amongst shows: Details feature, “They Died Laughing.” And offers Ken, “we were trying something new; if you fiercely irreverent, endlessly energetic, unapolo- die laughing they did. Sort of. didn’t like that, you didn’t respond to it. I hate getically silly. From its first episode, The State was a The State’s comedic diaspora began with Viva critics who go too far, but I understand why people constant barrage of sketch (averaging less than two Variety in 1997 and has grown to include a stagger- didn’t—” half a beat: he scrunches his right eyelid, minutes per) that never bothered waiting around ing amount of work created by Staters in various twists up his lips, pushes his left eyebrow toward for the laugh. Just as we’d begun to decipher the permutations. On the small screen: Viva (actually the heavens, and then BRRRRRRRAAAAP! “—get cracked motivational gibberish of Michael Ian based on a State sketch), Stella (David Wain’s enfant it.” The air is clear no more; in fact, it smells funny. Black’s Captain Monterey Jack (“Brrring, brrring. bizarre), Reno 911! (duh), the upcoming Michael “That was so planned,” says Joe, lowering his head Hello, cheese? No. Cheese can’t dial a phone!”), or, Ian Black Doesn’t Understand (an outgrowth of his in disgrace—or reverence. say, pulled ourselves back up onto the couch after VH1 I Love the… residency) and hundreds of Timing. shouting about our balls with Marino’s infamous commercials directed by Michael Jann (his work It was the near mid-’90s and reality television Louie, Thomas Lennon would sucker punch us in for the State was mostly behind-camera). On the was still a new idea. So was having a president the gut with an absurdist dream where two men in big screen: Wet Hot American Summer (classic), The named Clinton. So was the World Wide Web. velour leisure suits are rubbing their asses in $240 Baxter (Showalter’s moving rom-com deconstruc- A string of goofy names—Buttafucco, Bobbitt, worth of pudding. The group fought MTV’s man- tion), Diggers (Marino’s paean to blue collar New Gillooly, Kato—were charged with keeping scandal date for recurring characters, but did them so well England), Reno 911!: Miami, Black’s upcoming fresh for the diminishing attention spans of TV (see Michael Showalter as Doug, the troubled teen Wedding Daze, Lennon and Garant’s Balls of Fury, viewers everywhere, just as the network blamed who can’t out-cool the authority figures in his life), and Marino and Wain’s The Ten (featuring cameos for that generation’s main deficit (MTV, of course) while ever excelling at the esoteric (Kevin Allison from every member, co-starring Kerri Kenney). began to venture into longer form programming. as a mailman with a passion for taco delivery) None of which has done anything to stem the tide And amidst the buzz bin of pop culture weirdness and pimping plain nonsense (Ben Garant singing of The State zealots (re: us) calling for the series’ that would eventually spawn such monstrosities about—and wearing a dress made of—bacon).