What's up everyone? Even though today is one of those days where I would have liked to just stay in bed all day, it is a glorious day indeed. For after many long years of waiting, today is the day that THE STATE, finally, comes out on DVD!
This whole thing has almost taken on a bigger-than-life stature at this point. And I daresay that The State is perhaps the last, great, unreleased TV DVD. But it is a legendary release in its own right. I mean, when DVD first exploded onto the scene, it seemed like every crappy TV series ever made was getting the deluxe treatment. Everything from The A-Team to Mr. Belvedere was hitting storeshelves with director commentary and bright, shiny packaging. And yet ... where was The State? Tied up in all kinds of rights and clearances issues, not getting full support from MTV / Viacom, etc. Sure, there were music clearance issues (back in the day, shows on MTV were given free reign to utilize songs played on MTV - now, those rights have expired, making music clearances for old MTV stuff a nightmare). But, hope was continually kept alive. Every so often, some tidbit of news would emerge. A member of The State would assure us that the DVD was on the way. There were multiple stops and starts, numerous times when the loyal fans of The State thought they had reason to rejoice, only to inevitably go back to playing the waiting game. There's no doubt about it: The State is one of the great pieces of vaporware in the world of home entertainment.
I even created a Facebook group a couple of years back to express my frustration with the lack of THE STATE on DVD, entitled: "How is THE STATE still not on DVD? Are you kidding me, MTV?!?!" It was amazing, because I had never really done such a thing before, and I kind of created the group for fun and thought that maybe a couple of people would join. But check this out, fools: the group now has ALMOST 900 MEMBERS. That's ridiculous! The FB group page even received posts from members of The State!
The group mission statement was a humble one, and read as follows:
"For those of us who are huge fans of one of the greatest sketch comedy shows ever made, THE STATE, and who have been patiently waiting for it to come out on DVD since like, well, the beginning of time. When it was announced that it was finally coming out a few months back, we rejoiced. But now, MTV has decided to cancel its release ...? WTF?!?! We the people who have awesome taste in comedy demand for this to be released ASAP. We need our Doug, our Louie, and our Porcupine Racetrack, and we need to be able to watch these classic sketches over and over again at our convenience, and finally show all of our dumbass friends who never watched THE STATE what the hell it is we've been referencing all these years. Dammit all, we want THE STATE on DVD.~!"
So it was a true moment of glory when, a couple of months ago, word spread on the interwebs that, after all this time, The State was really, actually, positively headed to DVD on July 14th. You could practically hear the collective cries of "I wanna dip my balls in it!" from the masses.
And you know what? This isn't just about a beloved sketch comedy show finally becoming available for new fans to discover and old fans to rediscover. Well, it mostly is. But also, this is about fighting the good fight, making our voices heard, and showing that the fans can in fact make an impact. Sure, I may now be a bigtime Hollywood professional (sort of), but I am and always will be a fan first. And by gum, today is a victory for fans everywhere, so take that heartless multinational entertainment corporations!
But let me talk for a minute about THE STATE, specifically, why it is, in fact, so damn funny. I think that, for me, the show was kind of the logical progression of all the absurdist humor that I was steadily growing to love as a kid. The Simpsons, Ren & Stimpy, You Can't Do That On Television, etc., all gave me an early love for humor that was funny by virtue of circumventing reality and reveling in its own wackiness. Unlike the more straightforward Saturday Night Live, The State was a show that, during my middle school years, just blew me away with its inventiveness and flat-out hilarity. The show was completely self-aware and played upon the various conventions of sketch comedy. It didn't waste time with obligatory pop-culture parodies, instead every sketch had some crazy *new* idea that was thought up for no other reason other than that the premise itself was inherently hilarious.
I'm not sure how or why, exactly, but in my small Jewish day school of Solomon Schechter in West Hartford, CT, The State became something of a phenomenon among the boys in our class. I'm not sure what it is about the comedy of The State that so connects with young east-coast Jewish boys, but a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that guys like Michael Showalter, Michael Ian-Black, and David Wain (aka Stella) were, in fact, young Jewish guys from the east coast. But yeah, back in the day I think we all stumbled onto The State because all of us 13 year old boys were already MTV junkies. And in between Nirvana and Alice in Chains videos, we watched Beavis & Butthead, The Maxx, Aeon Flux, and yes, The State. Oh man, what a channel MTV was back in the mid 90's. But I digress ... the point is - we all become State-quoting comedy afficionados. I even remember that my friends and I once made a project for Bible class (like I said, it was a Jewish day school) called "The Garden," in which we took the premise of various sketches from The State and twisted them around to be biblical parables. Damn, we were some creative and sophisticated seventh graders. And yes, just to show you how cool I was, I even had The State's logo on my 8th grade yearbook page, alongside Playstation, Aerosmith, and quotes from Fox Mulder. Yep, I was pretty much the man at that point ...
If you aren't one of the initiated, I can only say that The State is the kind of show that will instantly expand your comedy horizons beyond the all-too-often formulaic confines of the Saturday Night Live mold. If you like your comedy crazy, random, smart, and off-the-wall, The State is for you. Perhaps you may have enjoyed some of the great post-State work that the members of the troup have done? Wet Hot American Summer. Stella. Reno 9-11. The Ten. Role Models. Or maybe, just maybe, you've heard somebody exclaim "I wanna dip my balls in it!" and wondered "hmm, I wonder what in the blue hell he's talking about?"
There are so, so many classic sketches to discover and/or re-watch ...
- Louie, the "I wanna dip my balls in it" guy
- Doug
- the perverted lighthouse keeper
- sideways house
- "I'm a blueberry"
- "get the man a grape soda, Karl!"
- father-son racing
- Porcupine Racetrack
- Barry and Levon
- sideways house
- "please lord, kill this boy"
- The Jew, the Italian and the Redhead Gay
- "toothbrush, you've started a family!"
- the pope is coming
- the monkeys do it
So run out to Best Buy on your lunch break, break out $5,000 worth of pudding, and pop in The State on your DVD player and bask in its comedic glory. You know you want to.
Holy crap, THE STATE is actually out on DVD.
Victory!
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