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The State (American TV series)

The State is an American sketch comedy television series originally broadcast on MTV from 1994 to 1995. The show combined bizarre characters and scenarios to present sketches that won the favor of its target teenaged audience. The cast consisted of comedy troupe The State, who were 11 comedians who created, acted, wrote, directed and edited the show. In various combinations, the former members of The State have continued to collaborate over the years, with alumni playing major creative, directing and acting roles in a number of notable projects including Reno 911! and Wet Hot American Summer.

About the show
"Contrary to popular belief", says the troupe's official FAQ, "the show was never canceled." For a variety of reasons, including network television politics, The State decided to pursue other interests and "establish ourselves as an entity that exists apart from any particular employer or TV Network." On the series' DVD commentary, cast members revealed that MTV had offered a contract guarantee for 65 additional shows, but the cast turned it down to leave to CBS, against their agent's advice. ==Episodes==
Reviews
The State received mixed reviews from critics during its original run. In January 1994, the Daily News TV guide called the show "so terrible it deserves to be studied". Entertainment Weekly called the show "significantly less than sporadically funny" and gave it a C− rating. The show has fared better with critics in the years since it went off the air, however; TV.com says many of The State's "sketches remain funny to this day and — unlike most shows of the age — would not be considered dated or stale... Even the few mediocre sketches on the show are better than 99% of today's sketch comedy." == Cast ==
Theme song
The opening sequence was set to "Boys and Girls – Action" by Craig Wedren of Shudder To Think and Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys. The song is built around samples of The Nation of Ulysses songs "The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken By Storm" ("Boys and girls!") and "The Hickey Underworld" ("Action! Action!"). == Recurring characters==
Recurring characters
The cast (notably David Wain) have said that they were not interested in creating recurring characters, but were repeatedly pressured by the network to emulate Saturday Night Live in this manner. In turn, some of the recurring characters were made as satires of recurring characters (notably, "Louie" was made to satisfy network pressures for both a recurring character and catch-phrases, according to the casts' DVD commentary track). == Home media ==
Home media
The first season of The State, digitally re-mastered along with a new musical score, was made available on Apple’s iTunes Store on September 26, 2006. Several episodes were also made available on Amazon Unbox as well as the Xbox Live Marketplace. A DVD box set was released July 2009. ==References==
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