The New Show was the very short-lived (5 episodes) sketch comedy show that Lorne Michaels produced during his self-imposed exile from Saturday Night Live. As in most sketch comedy programs, The New Show was very hit or miss but it did contain an amazing assortment of writers and performers (John Candy, Jeff Goldblum, Dave Thomas, Buck Henry and Catherine O’Hara were some of the regular performers while George Meyer, Jack Handey and (supposedly) John Swartzwelder were just three of the writers). The New Show was very reminiscent of SCTV and should’ve been a success.
This sketch seems like it was wholly improvised by Candy and it’s incredible just how many laughs he can get out of mentioning a bag of flour.
I want to say that Handey wrote this but it’s almost not weird enough.
These two play like lost SCTV sketches. The Twilight Zonettes feels like it was written by Meyer.
If this sketch ever aired on SNL it would be considered a classic. Unfortunately it didn’t. I could’ve sworn I read something about Swartzwelder writing this sketch but Swartzwelder isn’t credited as a writer on IMDB for this show. Maybe Handey? *Update* It was actually written by Meyer (Thanks Sam).
Special Bonus: Here's the opening credits sequence for The Dave Thomas Comedy Show a summer replacement sketch comedy series from 1990. I've never seen this but from the looks of the opening credits sequence I don't think I missed much.
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George Meyer wrote the Food Repair bit. He mentioned it in an article about him. Buck Henry and Paul Simon were the Alec Baldwin and Christopher Walken of their time.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sam. I will change that. It's unfortunate just how obscure Buck Henry is nowadays because it's completely undeserved.
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