Purists be damned, recurring characters are the best! Chicken Lady was a bit much for me after a while, but not as skippable as Buddy Love. Glad they beat head crusher to death. That was classic. Crusher vs. Squisher!

Also a big fan of their art pieces. (Sausages..!)

My favorite Chicken Lady sketch, my wife and I still use some of these quotes, like "scarred for life!" and "may God have mercy on your soul, yeah you too, eh?"

auto upvote for any KITH.

I think Kids did recurring characters better than SNL. SNL beats them to death and the sketches are WAY too long.

Kids in the Hall sketches are also more thought provoking than SNL. SNL is more of a contemporary pop culture reference machine like Mad magazine and Family Guy.

The pop cultural references in KitH are to things of higher value like early cinema classics (Citizen Kane), Nietzsche, Morrison Hotel, surrealism, film noir; and with heavy pro LGBT, pro environmental (the beaver!) and anti corporate themes; displaying the frivolity of office politics, and the HARDCORE Canadian law enforcement.

What does SNL give but a couple'a chuckles, eh?

Excellent points. If you look back over the entire SNL catalog there is a lot of great stuff. It's also been on for 40 years or so so yeah there should be. I think SNL is used as a springboard for a lot of comedians and writers. For example, Larry David was a writer.

What do you think of Upright Citizens Brigade or Mr. Show? I looked up a list of sketch comedy shows and it reminded me that the Chapelle show was pretty great. I never thought of Benny Hill as a sketch comedy show (it is), but I loved it as a kid. Probably too slapstick for me now.

I think improv and sketch comedy groups are all springboards from stage to radio, radio to stage, stage yo television, radio to television, television to radio, to other television and ultimately the big screen. Any good YouTube sketch comedy? I've yet to really explore that, I guess Vine is funny sketch comedy. A bit too fast, over and done for me though. Cyanide and Happiness count? Web comics? Cracked? Anyway, on to television, which remains the fascination:

The first years of SNL are phenomenal with Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner. And before that a lot of those guys were together on the National Lampoon Radio. (Speaking of radio, Dr. Demento?)

And there's also SCTV, jesus -- John Candy, Martin Short, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, and Joe Flaherty. Flaherty's vampire killed me as a kid. So funny, but really I haven't watched it since I was a youngster.

When I was growing up PBS played a lot of BBC television. Benny Hill amongst them, such a naughty show. I think I was barely allowed watch. But I enjoy the show as much as its mostly about old horny men and women with big tits.

What do I think about Upright Citizen Brigade? I would choose to be an Agent of U.C.B. before S.H.I.E.L.D. Great as both an improv group and sketch comedy for television. Amy Poehler and Horatio Sanz are awesome, and I love them on SNL as well. Assssscat

Cast transfers, right? Sketch comedy groups are like sports teams. Mark McKinney on SNL, etc. Daily Show anchors from Upright Citizens Brigade. SCTV to SNL, etc. Every sketch comedy floods into SNL. Did you watch Nickelodeon's All That? Kenan and Kell.

Mr Show is on my to watch list. I love David Cross in his stand up, as Tobias Funke on Arrested Dev, and as Todd Margaret, which is fucking RIDICULOUS if you haven't seen it. It's not sketch comedy but it might as well be. It's like a British comedy with brash Americans thrown into the mix. Chaos ensues and many, many, many laws are broken, including the usage of weapons of mass destruction and murder. Dark comedy.

Oh, I know a good dark sort of sketch comedy: The League of Gentlemen? It's sort of like if Simon Pegg produced Monty Python. They say things like "Rape our dead mouths". Psychopaths, murderers and crossdressers.

Now that we've ventured off the beaten path, what are your thoughts about the short run comedy central show Stella? Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain. All three from a funny sketch comedy series called the State. I think I've sifted or promoted some sketches from that series.

And I can't not mention MadTV, you know what? Uh uh, a list about sketch comed without MadTV, ridiculous. I'm running out of steam though, because I'm typing too much, but MO Collins, Orlando Jones, Bobby Lee, Phil LaMar (who does DC comics cartoon voice over work), Aries Spears, and Will Sasso. Damn.

And lest we forget (Thanks, Rudyard), Little Britain -- Britain, Britain, Britain, if it weren't for Little Britain I would scarcely know of the country.

I'm sure I've left off some other great sketch (In Living Color!!), but these came to mind and as I started to think of my favorite cast members and comedians, I began to realize how they all fit in the grand scheme of things. I'm going to watch some Fire Marshall Bill clips now.