'The State' Complete Series DVD

Somebody finally got it right! On Tuesday, July 14th, the full series of the highly underappreciated sketch comedy show The State will be released on DVD.

It was a long time coming, but with the success of the Comedy Central hit show Reno 911 and movies like Wet Hot American Summer, Balls of Fury, and Role Models, the laughable geniuses from the early 1990's MTV hit will be back on screens in living rooms across the globe.

Going to high school in the early 90's was definitely one of the better times in my life. Enjoying the New York Rangers first Stanley Cup victory in half a century back in 1994 was certainly a high point in this very exciting time. But saturating my memory banks for that early part of the decade were all of the good times I had with friends who I grew up... sharing laughs, playing sports, sharing lots of laughs, finding trouble without ever getting caught, and oh yeah... more laughs.

I basically live my life with the notion that you can't really get through each day being serious the majority of the time; you need to laugh. Nothing made my friends and I fall to the floor in near paralized laughter like the State. The show may have been ahead of it's time with it's brand of humor and style of delivery. Although, most of the people who I ask about it (and know it) say they liked it as well.

The show involved eleven very talented young comics, most of which could all write and act, resulting in a fantastic range of comedy that never seemed to disappoint in the laugh department.

The troupe of comics were brought together on the campus of NYU with the idea to bring their own individual thoughts and ideas together as a group to maximize their audiences reaction. With the TV show on MTV some years later, the group would in their own way take the torch similarly carried by the Canadien super troupe The Kids in the Hall; bringing their theatrical sketch comedy to television and getting the same laughs from it.

Though only three seasons, The State was a sure success in the fact that it spawned many talented actors and writers that would go on to do a lot of well-known movies and television shows you see today. A DVD release at last maybe means a new crop of fans emerges to the scene, and hopefully the long overdue respect this show finally deserves.

Here is a classic sketch, a spoof on the closing credits of the 80's cult flick, "The Cannonball Run"... enjoy:

W.F.D.