A Red-Letter Day for the Cult of The State

For a brief, shining period of MTV — precisely measured between December 17, 1993 and July 1, 1995 — an absurdist group of NYU sketch comedy performers calling themselves The State planted a flag in the comic sensibilities of a very precise demographic of people with its post-modern premises and lampooning of popular culture, and then disappeared. Just like that. Today they return as the entire series, after a long absence, is released on DVD. 

If you were lucky enough to fall into that very small niche that followed The State during its brief, 24-episode MTV run, I don’t need to tell you about them — you undoubtedly still have all your favorite lines and sketches memorized. The troupe’s one-time fans still evoke their names in reverence over beers, in conversation, or when you’re describing someone who was an alum of the 11-member group. “You know, he was in The State.”

Truly, for those who absorbed The State, the love was almost instant — the characters were memorable (Hepcat, Doug, Barry and LeVon, the Bearded Men of Space Station 11), the sketches bizarre and fresh (Porcupine Racetrack, Monkey Torture, Grandma’s Potato Chowder). And that love had to be instant, because only two years later the show was gone. MTV didn’t re-air reruns, it couldn’t be found in syndication, the network refused to release it on VHS due to the massive royalties it would incur in its use of popular-at-the-time music. So The State, as much as anything these days possibly could, went completely underground — forced to exist only in hearsay.

The success of a comedy troupe is a strange thing; on one hand, there are thousands of them. Yet only a handful ever truly make the pantheon: Monty Python, Second City, Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show (more or less a troupe), Upright Citizens Brigade. The State, the irreverent kids too smart for their host network MTV, slid in somewhere behind the leaders, memorable if never truly surpassing or equaling them (and who could?).

It even became possible to tell the age of a comedy fan, simply by asking if he or she was into The State — because unlike a group like Kids in the Hall, where a fan could go back and find past episodes, there was no historical record of The State.  You’d either get “Yes,” or “No, I didn’t really watch MTV when they were on,” or “No, I missed that. I was too young.” Those too young had no way of finding it, since MTV kept the rights behind lock and key. So it remained in its comedy time capsule. 

Shortly after the show’s demise, random members of the troupe began popping up here and there, which had to be good enough to sate fans. First there was Comedy Central’s Viva Variety, with Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kinney-Silver, and Michael Ian Black. Then David Wain wrote and directed the strange, underseen and fantastic Wet Hot American Summer and brought us the surreal web series Wainy Days. Reno 911! appeared on Comedy Central, featuring several former members with a host of random pop-ins. The comedy trio Stella (made infamous by a series of sublime short films that can still occasionally be found on the internet), which featured Wain, Black and Michael Showalter, became the most talked-about high concept comedy act in New York City. Hell, Lennon and Robert Ben Garant even wrote the Ben Stiller blockbusters Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. In short, State members were popping up everywhere — just not all together on the same screen. 

Fans clamored for the State DVD. Petitions were started. Fan sites still flourished, though no content was available. Troupe members were always asked about the DVD possibilities and forced to answer with “you’ll just have to ask MTV.” It just didn’t look like it was going to happen.

Until today. Today, July 14th,  the entire run of The State is available on DVD. Sure, you may have to deal with some pixelized product names, or filler music in place of former hits (especially noticeable in Ian Black’s “Pants” sketch, which formerly used the Breeders’ Cannonball). But there it is. The State in all it’s glory. Those of you who were never fans of the troupe, or missed your moment with them, may never realize exactly how great that is — but for those of use who fondly remember The State, it’s been worth the wait.