Items15The creator’s order
  1. 1The Carol Burnett Show (1967)The Carol Burnett Show (1967) 8.7/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 11, 1967The 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…0
  2. 2Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985)Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985) 8.0/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 11, 1985Victoria 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…0
  3. 3French & Saunders (1987)French & Saunders (1987) 7.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Mar 9, 1987Dawn 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…0
  4. 4Tracey Takes On... (1996)Tracey Takes On... (1996) 7.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 24, 1996Tracey 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…0
  5. 5Smack the Pony (1999)Smack the Pony (1999)First aired Mar 19, 1999Created 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…0
  6. 6The Catherine Tate Show (2004)The Catherine Tate Show (2004) 7.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired Feb 16, 2004Catherine 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,…0
  7. 7Knallerfrauen (2012)Knallerfrauen (2012) 7.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Feb 3, 2012The 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…0
  8. 8Inside Amy Schumer (2013)Inside Amy Schumer (2013) 6.0/10 on IMDbFirst aired Apr 30, 2013Amy 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,…0
  9. 9Funny Girls (2015)Funny Girls (2015) 7.1/10 on IMDbFirst aired Oct 23, 2015Rose 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…0
  10. 10Baroness von Sketch Show (2016)Baroness von Sketch Show (2016) 7.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jun 14, 2016Four 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,…0