The latest, debuting Aug. 16, is ABC’s new summer series “She TV”-billed as strong enough for a man, but made for a woman." Five women and three men do “Mildly amusing bits about Barbie dolls, Mrs. Beavis & Butt-head and a supermodel named Bagitta. “Saturday Night Live’s” Al Franken guest stars with a speech on why “women aren’t funny.” Punch line: he’s wearing a skirt and heels. Produced by ex"SNL” scribes Bonnie and Terry Turner (the married writing team Wayne’s World and the Church Lady) and “Laugh-in” creator George Schlatter, “She TV” wants to take back the mike from the guy-dominated history of sketch comedy. “It’s a boys’ club,” complains Mrs. Turner. But her distaff staff may be trying too hard, with their “Women in History” moments and all-girl band. The best piece is a parody of “NYPD Blue” (whose macho time slot “She” gets for the next six weeks), in which Nick Bakay’s dead-on Detective Kelly wears a strap-on bare butt around the squad room. So far, the funniest person on “She TV” is a he.
The true heir to Schlatter’s “Laugh-in” is “Limboland,” which started on Comedy Central last month. Shot entirely against a white cyclorama, its goofy non sequiturs speed by with digital effects and visual puns. Doctor to distraught woman: “Your husband is going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life.” Cut to a human-size carrot in a hospital bed. “But there’s no reason why you can’t have a normal sexlife.” The host is a wisecracking skeleton called the Late Jackie Lenny, a lively computerized X-ray of “Limboland” creator Lol Creme. “I like meaningless twaddle,” says Creme, a British adman. So do Americans, even if they don’t know what “twaddle” means.
Television was supposed to have been the box they buried vaudeville in. But “variety” remained a TV staple from the ’50s through cheesy ’70s incarnations like “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.” “Saturday Night Live” revived the form but also monopolized it for nearly two decades. Not until the advent of Fox’s street-smart “In Living Color” and Canada’s cross-dressing “The Kids in the Hall” in the late ’80s did TV’s decision makers realize that “SNL” didn’t own the franchise. “A number of executives walked around at the same time saying the next thing is sketch-I being one of them,” says HBO producer Stu Smiley.
Going into its 20th season, “SNL” has become an institution both revered and reviled. “The Newz,” a syndicated Harvard Lampoon product starting in late-night this fall, is its most slavish imitator, complete with a “Weekend Update"style topical rant. But other shows want nothing to do with “SNL.” Comedy Central’s sweetly surreal “Exit 57,” starting in November, is the cleverest departure. “We don’t do impersonations and we don’t do parodies,” says producer Nancy Geller, whose resume includes “SNL” and the Rosetta stone of sketch comedy, “SCTV.” MTV’s subversively anarchic sketch show “The State” even developed a character whose sole purpose was to utter a marketable (and unprintable) catch phrase, mocking “SNL’s” relentless formula.
For his part, “SNL” creator and comedy potentate Lorne Michaels continues to expand his empire. After importing “The Kids in the Hall” from his native Canada, he’s doing the same with a dour Toronto quartet known as “The Vacant Lot,” whose first (nonamusing) show aired last week on Comedy Central. While critics say his “SNL” has become “Saturday Night Dead,” Michaels keeps spinning off everything from movies to greeting cards. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that Michaels may be planning a chain of restaurants with an “SNL” theme- a far cry from the days when he wouldn’t even do “Coneheads” lunch boxes.
Gimmicks or not, sketch comedy could be a lucrative bandwagon. “SCTV” alum Martin Short abandoned his troubled movie career to do a sketchcom on NBC this fall. Judging from a bunch of last-minute cast and concept changes, this may be equally troubled. it’s a show-within-a-show where he plays a guy named “Martin Short” who hosts a sketch-comedy program. It’s basically an excuse for Short to reprise his many characters (Ed Grimley, Katharine Hepburn) and have a wacky sitcomic home life. “The assumption will be ‘I guess he’s broke’,” Short jokes about the career move. But in the current sketch climate, who knows? It just might make him rich.
