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I’m going to start this newsletter with an apology. In front of you are about one thousand words regarding the just over 2-years-old sketch show I Think You Should Leave. No one should have to read that much about a 100 minute Netflix series, but that’s what I have for you today. If you want to stop reading now, I get that! Essays about comedy are rarely any good. Substack doesn’t give me the stats about how long people spend on this page, so I’ll just count you opening it as a view and go on with my day. Having said all that, if you’re still here I promise that I will do my best to make this an exciting piece! Or at least a good way to kill a couple of minutes between work emails.
Now that everyone who doesn’t want to read about a sketch show is gone, let’s get to the good stuff. For my money I Think You Should Leave is the best sketch show of the 21st Century. As I type this I can hear Chappelle’s Show, Key & Peele, Saturday Night Live, and Tim & Eric stans coming to get me. Their feet pounding on the pavement ready to excoriate me for my comedy show takes. That’s fine! Comedy is subjective, and people are going to have their favorites. They’re wrong, but they’re free to have their opinions. I just think they should leave.
A little bit of background. I Think You Should Leave is a sketch show created by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, two ex-Saturday Night Live writers. The Lonely Island guys – Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg – produced it. Tim was a one-season cast member before being, unfairly, demoted to writer. Before that he was a mainstay in Chicago’s comedy scene, working for Second City and playing on the beloved improv team Cook County Social Club. After leaving SNL he created the much-loved and too quickly cancelled Detroiters with his friend Sam Richardson. ITYSL reunited him with Zach Kanin and allowed Robinson to show off his electric comedy energy. It also gave the pair a chance to air several sketches that were considered too outré for the staid SNL. Each episode of ITYSL runs less than twenty minutes and the entire season only lasts six episodes. In total it’s about 100-minutes’ worth of comedy. That’s less of a time investment than pretty much every Marvel movie.
I hesitate to write this next part for two reasons. One, lots of people have tried to dissect I Think You Should Leave already, attempting to figure out what makes it tick. Two, telling people why something is funny almost always ruins the show for people who haven’t watched it yet. Nothing more of a mood-killer than explaining a joke. That being said, I am confident enough in my ability as a writer to know that some newsletter with a sub-100 person readership can’t do anything to destroy the reputation of such a sterling show. So, let’s get to it.
ITYSL works because of three things: Tim Robinson’s performance, thematic consistency, and understanding of what makes the show funny. Don’t worry I will explain what I mean by that last one. And remember if at any time you wish to bail and just watch a bunch of clips from the show feel free to do that.
Tim Robinson is the center of this show. Even though he’s not in every sketch and sometimes isn’t even the comedic center of it, everything revolves his unparalleled comedic intensity. It’s probably rude to describe someone as “bug-eyed” but in this case it is correct, and meant with the utmost amount of love. Few people can do bug-eyed well as Tim Robinson. It’s his number one comedic tool. He uses it to convey confusion, frustration, anger, shock, happiness, pretty much any emotion you can think. Whatever the situation calls for Mr. Robinson – here’s to you - can display that by popping his eyes out a little bit. Beyond having control over a very specific set of facial muscles Robinson also is an expert at finding the little differences that differentiate all of his characters. The show relies very little on wigs and other prosthetics as crutches for its actors, outside of a couple hundred slicked back hair wigs. Despite this, Robinson creates a whole spectrum of different characters just by changing their mannerisms and speech patterns, not something every actor can do.
Robinson is far from the only thing that makes ITYSL work. The show, especially for a sketch show, is incredibly thematically consistent. In fact, this may be the most remarked thing about it, at least in the pieces written about the show. 90% of the sketches in this show are about people who are wrong, don’t want to admit they are wrong, and will do everything in their power, including ruining their own lives, to not have to come to terms with the fact that they’re wrong. This may come as a shock to some people. Isn’t comedy supposed to be about the surprising? The unexpected? How can a show where every sketch is about the same thing be funny? Wouldn’t that get stale a predictable? The answer to that is no. People being wrong is such a strong comedic vein that ITYSL feels like it could have gone one hundred more episodes without losing any steam. There are a lot of ways people can be wrong and the writers explore a fair amount of them. Because of this thematic consistency the show feels like it’s all taking place in the same world. A cohesive whole. None of the sketches really reference each other and yet everyone feels like they live in the same, sightly deranged, neighborhood. It’s hard for a 100-minute show to create a fully realized world and yet through the strength of its theme the show does exactly that.
I recently bought a bottle of wine from a store which the clerk described as “not trying to be anything it’s not.” While that is a not very helpful description for a bottle of wine, it is a great description for a TV show. ITYSL knows that it’s a sketch show starring Tim Robinson and it sticks to that. It doesn’t try to have narrative through lines, or be overtly political, or even mess around with the sketch format. It’s content to be a series of sketches. I don’t want to argue that that stretching the boundaries of genre is bad, or that it shouldn’t be done, but that a show that doesn’t want to do that can be just as good as a show that doesn’t. Everything the show does is for the purpose of the joke at hand. Nothing is spared, no 15-minute long “writers sketches,” no looking into the camera and making a point about “how both the left AND the right are bad.” Just people trying to make their audience laugh. That’s the good shit.
I recently had the pleasure of watching ITYSL with three friends who hadn’t seen it before. Two of them did not like it, one did. That’s a pretty good hit rate for a sketch show. Especially when two of other people watching with you have already seen it and keep going “oh this one is great,” whenever a new sketch starts. A lot of pressure to laugh. So, if you haven’t watched it yet I say, “Give it a shot!” What the hell else are you doing? And in any case it will give you a chance to boo Bart Harley Jarvis, something everyone needs in their life.
It’s my favorite show right now by a mile. My wife said in the 18 years she has known me, she’s never heard me laugh like this. I thought I was going to die many times. I can quote a lot of this show and use the quotes like playing cards throughout my day. There are so many times to use them.
Also, watch Tim’s episode on The Characters on Netflix. “It’s hilarious. Have you seen it?”
This is a good essay! You don't have to be so apologetic! But, and I'm sorry to have to correct you, it is "Bart Harley Jarvis." Not Brett. You absolute fucking idiot