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The Carol Burnett Show (1967)
8.7/10on IMDb
First aired
The template for everything after it. Carol Burnett ran this CBS variety hour from 1967 to 1978 with a rubber face, a fearless body and a gift for movie parody, and the show collected 25 Emmys along the way. Its most famous moment is "Went with the Wind!", where her Starlett O'Hara descends the staircase in a dress made from the curtains, rod still attached.
The ensemble includes men, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway among them, but Burnett is the star and the comic center. Start with the movie spoofs, and savor the moments when the cast visibly struggles to keep a straight face: they are part of the pleasure.
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Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Victoria Wood wrote this BBC Two series, which ran from 1985 to 1987, and the writing is the reason to watch: bittersweet, keenly observed Northern comedy, in sketches and songs that mostly celebrate and send up her love of television.
The essential sketch is Acorn Antiques, a spoof of a wobbly low-budget soap, and it gave Julie Walters one of her most famous characters, the elderly tea lady Mrs. Overall. Wood's ear for dialogue is the draw throughout: the comedy is all in the delivery, and it is generous to the people it laughs at.
More about Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV3
French & Saunders (1987)
7.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders wrote and starred in this BBC sketch show from 1987, and its signature is the lavish movie spoof: the two of them dropped into the blockbusters of the day with real production value and absolutely no dignity.
Between the parodies come pop song pastiches and the pair bickering as themselves, and that double-act chemistry is what holds it together. It is broader and sillier than Victoria Wood, closer to dressing up and showing off, and that is exactly its appeal. Pick an era by which films you remember, since the parodies land hardest when you know the originals.
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Tracey Takes On... (1996)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Tracey Ullman plays a whole repertory of characters in this HBO series, which built each episode around one subject and cycled her creations through it. The disguises are uncanny, but what makes it work is that she plays them as people rather than impressions, so each topic becomes a little set of character studies.
It won the 1997 Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series, beating Letterman and Leno. Choose it if you like slower, character-driven sketches with an actor's precision, rather than quick-fire gags.
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Smack the Pony (1999)
First aired
Created by Victoria Pile and starring Fiona Allen, Doon Mackichan and Sally Phillips, this Channel 4 show from 1999 was a deliberate all-woman sketch show, and it still feels modern. The sketches are short, get to the gag fast and skip catchphrases entirely; the laughs come from the cast playing absurd situations completely straight.
The dating video sketches are the place to start, a run of hopeful, deranged self-introductions that predicted the app era almost exactly. It is the driest show on this list and rewards anyone who prefers awkwardness to punchlines.
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The Catherine Tate Show (2004)
7.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Catherine Tate's BBC show, first broadcast in 2004, is the catchphrase sketch show at full power, and its biggest creation escaped into the language: Lauren, the schoolgirl whose "Am I bovvered?" was named word of the year in 2006.
The appeal is the repertory of monstrous, recognizable people, from Lauren to the foul-mouthed Nan, each pushed until the repetition itself becomes the joke. If Smack the Pony is too dry for you, this is the opposite pole: loud, quotable and built for watching with someone who will repeat the lines back at you all week.
More about The Catherine Tate Show7
Knallerfrauen (2012)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
The German entry, and a showcase for Martina Hill on Sat.1. Hill plays the "Knallerfrau" of the title, a woman who takes everyday madness to its extreme: misusing the family pets, dancing far too enthusiastically in public, solving small problems in the worst possible way. The joke usually lies in the gap between her outlandish behavior and the ordinary people reacting around her.
Sketches are short, so they work well as clips. It is broad, quick comedy with a sly domestic edge, and a good change of pace from the British and American shows here.
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Inside Amy Schumer (2013)
6.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Amy Schumer's Comedy Central series mixes scripted sketches, stand-up and street interviews, and at its best it plays a cheerfully oblivious version of Schumer to land sharp satire about sex, bodies and how women are judged. In 2015 it won the first ever Emmy for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, beating Saturday Night Live, Key & Peele, Portlandia and Drunk History.
The humor is crude by design, so it suits viewers who want their feminism with dirty jokes rather than politeness, and the sketches work well watched as standalone clips.
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Funny Girls (2015)
7.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Rose Matafeo and Laura Daniel created and starred in this New Zealand series, which premiered on TV3 in 2015 and wraps its sketches in a sitcom about making a sketch show. The two play writers producing sketches for a fictional comedy series under condescending male bosses and an oblivious producer, so the frame gives the silliness a running joke of its own.
It is a chance to see Matafeo before her international breakthrough, and the youngest, most chaotic energy on this list. A second-season sketch even made headlines when Comedy Central was accused of copying it.
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Baroness von Sketch Show (2016)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
Four Canadian comedians, Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill, Aurora Browne and Jennifer Whalen, created and starred in this CBC series, which ran from 2016 to 2021. It is the most grown-up show here: sketches about the pretension of ordering a fancy coffee, office politics and sexual politics, written with a weary precision anyone in their thirties or forties will recognize.
It won the Canadian Screen Award for best sketch comedy four years running, from 2017 to 2020. The tone is warm rather than savage, the jokes come from tiny social rituals, and episodes are easy to dip into in any order.
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Get Krack!n (2017)
7.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, the pair behind the cooking parody The Katering Show, play versions of themselves hosting a low-budget early-morning program in this Australian ABC satire of breakfast television. The fake segments and forced cheer are the sketches, and the show slowly lets real anxieties leak through the chipper surface.
It is the most pointed show on this list about media itself. Choose it if you love parody that skewers one specific genre of TV, and if you have ever watched morning television with mounting horror.
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At Home with Amy Sedaris (2017)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Amy Sedaris hosts a homemaking show from her own uncanny version of domestic bliss on truTV, and every lesson in crafts, cooking or entertaining goes somewhere deeply strange. She also plays a crowd of characters around herself, so the "how-to" frame keeps collapsing into surreal sketches.
It earned Emmy nominations for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series in 2018 and 2019. Nothing else here looks like it: handmade, kitsch and slightly unsettling, ideal if you liked the weirdness of Strangers with Candy or simply want a sketch show that feels like a craft fair having a breakdown.
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Ellie & Natasia (2022)
6.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Ellie White and Natasia Demetriou write and star in this BBC sketch show, which grew from a 2019 BBC Three pilot, and it is the most gleefully surreal entry on the list. The targets are recognizable types, from busybody moms to trust-fund teenagers, plus pop culture parodies such as their take on Ariana Grande, but the execution goes somewhere stranger, with songs, big guest stars and characters who commit far too hard.
Choose it if you like Demetriou's chaotic energy elsewhere and want a full half hour of it.
More about Ellie & Natasia14
A Black Lady Sketch Show (2019)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Robin Thede created this HBO series around a core cast of Black women, and it is the most inventive sketch show of recent years. Sketches flow into one another inside a loose magical world, with recurring characters and celebrity guests, so each episode feels more like a mixtape than a run of separate bits.
Its Emmy wins came from behind the camera too: in 2022 director Bridget Stokes won the award for directing a variety series, breaking Saturday Night Live's five-year hold on it. Pick it for big characters, music-video polish and comedy that treats specificity as the punchline.
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Lazy Susan (2022)
First aired
Freya Parker and Celeste Dring, both Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees, write and star in this BBC sketch show, which began as a 2019 pilot before a full series. Their characters are sharply observed and oddly joyful: two women who very much do not want any drama, a whimsical French woman, a pair of relentlessly upbeat radio DJs.
With only five episodes, it is the quickest binge here, and the mix of social commentary and people falling over makes it a good introduction for anyone who finds sketch shows hit and miss.
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