If you weren’t an avid MTV watcher back in the 1990s, you’ve probably never heard of The State, but large portions of it were repeated ad nauseam around the halls of my high school, no matter how inappropriate, or whether or not we grasped the finer subtleties of the depths of its occasional depravity. When I wasn’t bellowing out The Lumberjack Song in the science halls between classes, that is.

Perhaps way ahead of its time, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time, The State was notoriously mishandled and prodded by MTV during its initial run on TV. Maybe a sketch comedy show never really fit in with the whole Beavis & Butthead crowd, but we loved it, and we’ve been waiting for over a decade to get it on DVD. After further complications and many missed release dates, the entire series of The State has actually, finally, truly come to DVD. I wouldn’t believe it if I couldn’t see it in front of me. Its relative obscurity places this firmly in that land of ‘cult classic’, and absolutely one of the best sketch comedy shows to ever exist. Have you seen SNL lately? How many talk show parody / blind date sketches can you fit into 90 minutes?

As an ensemble of eleven people, The State was an incredibly well-honed group, with every member featured well enough in any given episode to really establish a sense of camaraderie through ridiculousness. You might recognize a bunch now on Reno 911, or as a voice on SuperJail, or spitting out pithy, emotionless commentaries about the 80s on VH1.

While the sketches are mostly timeless, a few require some knowledge of how MTV was run back in the nineties – which makes them even more awesome for me. Ironically, MTV pushed The State to include as many hip, popular MTV references into their shows as possible – but MTV’s later inability to properly license many of these references is one element that held back the release of the DVD. While initially very distracting, there are a few sketches that require heavy blurring of shirts, faces and walls full of posters. Eventually, they fade out of notice, but I’m dying to know what parts of my teenagerhood are secreted behind the giant blurs that dominate the screen, and why we can’t have them. Purists should also note that the music that MTV initially insisted be included (to appeal to their demographic) has also been replaced – though by the composer of the show’s theme song, so all is not lost to a lack of forethought.

Four seasons of the show are spread across four discs, with insightful and hilarious commentary, deleted scenes and outtakes from every episode. Critics have pointed out certain seasons as stronger than others, but even across hours of watching them all at once, I feel no unevenness in the humor. A bonus fifth disc includes a treasure trove of extra material : the unaired pilot episode, 90 minutes worth of never-before-seen sketches with full commentary, plenty of outtakes (which are always great on shows with such spontaneity), commercials, and four non-episodic appearances of the ensemble during their early MTV days. It’s genuinely encyclopedic, and as I slowly recall every sketch as it plays, it’s awesome to see some new ones. It’s like finding a whole album of lost songs by your favorite band before they started to suck. I’m talking to you, 1980s Jethro Tull and mid-2000s Barenaked Ladies.

The State informed my sense of humor, which is frankly awesome. You deserve to have some of this awesome for yourself, too. This is a part of my DVD collection that has been waiting to be filled for years, and it’s been handled exceptionally.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.