Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show

Network: Fox; Genre: Sketch; Content Rating: TV-PG (for adult content and dark comedy); Classification: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Season Reviewed: Complete Series (6 episodes)

It may have been slight, shallow, short-lived and a overseas concept anyway, but "Kelsey Grammar Presents The Sketch Show" solves one of the biggest problems that come with the sketch comedy series. Many sketch shows present us with a funny idea and then stretch the life out of it trying to get it to full sketch length. "Sketch Show" keeps things alive with a unique format that packs several unrelated sketches into 22 minutes - with a different sketch every few seconds, some of which connect.

"Sketch" was the 2005 British remake that wasn't "The Office". Produced and lending his credible appearance to some of the skits is sitcom legend Kelsey Grammar himself. The show is fast enough to keep up with the attention of the MTV generation but the jokes feel at least 30 years behind the times. The sketches are made of quick one-liners, puns or a stupidly funny piece of slapstick. Two knights show up at a hotel asking for a room for two nights, an astronaut locks himself out of the lunar rover, two cops give news that a man's wife has died through song. A low point comes in a psychiatrist (hot Kaitlin Olson) who whines back at her patients. It is all intensely lame stuff, but done as such a fast pace it becomes watchable, even addictive. If only to see what will come next. Proving the shorter-the-better theory with sketch comedy, it is usually the longer sketches that become the most tiresome.

The biggest attraction is the inclusion of Mary Lynn Rajskub. Fans will be interested to see Rajskub outside of her role as socially dysfunctional Chloe O'Brien on a hiatus during "24's" 4th season and in her comic element. A bit in which Rajskub plays a wedding photographer is a series high. Which also says a lot about the show's limits.

There is no satire, no parody here, no desire to appeal to the kids and nothing that can be identifiable as coming from this decade. I'm sure Grammar was going for a timeless quality, which is rather refreshing on an American network. Grammar has succeeding in bringing something that is distinctly British to American shores once again. It's almost karma that "The Sketch Show" lasted about as long as the average British TV season.

* * / 4

I was flicking through the channels a few days ago and happened to stumble across this. When I saw it was titled 'Kelsey Grammers Sketch Show' I was interested, mainly because I loved the 'Sketch Show'.

sorry, but the only people that I found funny in this pile of wreck was Lee Mack and Kelsey Grammar. Sticking a bunch of American actors in was a really bad idea, they just can't compare to the original cast in this sad attempt of a remake. Lee Mack was funny as always, but his talent is sadly wasted in this. Kelsey Grammar is good and I found him funny, but I guess I like him better in sitcom roles such as 'Frasier'. The rest of the cast in my opinion are not all that good, but did occasionally make me giggle.

If you liked the original than by all means watch this, it isn't a complete and utter waste of time, though it comes pretty close. Still, be prepared to be disappointed, it just does not compare.

Alright, so I really wanted to enjoy this show. Veterans of Mr. Show With Bob And David will always have a soft spot in my heart (yes, even Paul F. Tompkins), and Kelsey Grammar is a good guy as well. But the show has to meet me half-way at the very least. The writing just isn't all that clever, and this is made excruciatingly clear in the longer routines. Were there some laughs? Yes. Some of the visual gags were decent, and a couple the fifteen-second / one-liner skits worked fairly well, but a four-minute skit about moronic group of backup vocalists really just makes the half-hour drag. The show is entirely hit-or-miss, and the hit ratio is going to need a whole lot of improvement if this program is going to outlive The Downer Channel's six-or-so-episode run. Mad TV at least makes me expect less, but with this show's cast, I'm going to have to be a bit more demanding.

Just saw the first episode. The best sketches were a downright copy of the original UK series. They still got me laughing, because the original was so good, it could never become bad. But the phobia sketch was horribly mutilated and wasn't funny at all. The bad sketches were those where Kelsey came in, except for the psychiatrist sketch maybe. They just weren't up to par with the others.

If you can watch the original UK series, don't bother with this. If you can't, this is not really a bad replacement. I have seen worse remakes. For example, the US version of Red Dwarf comes to mind, amongst a lot of others :)

This show is a hark back to the halcyon days of sketch-variety-show TV--all the way from Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers to the early Saturday Night Live. There's nothing like it on TV today. No, they don't hit one out of the park with every sketch, but neither did SNL every time, did they now? And no, maybe it's not cutting-edge or avant-garde or whatever y'all seem to be looking for who don't like it, but you know what? It's darn funny. It's simple humor, and if there's not an audience out there these days for simple humor, well, that's just their loss. I for one thank Kelsey Grammar for taking a chance. And Lee What's-His-Name, the British guy, is the next big thing or I'll eat my hat. (And when was the last time you heard somebody say THAT?) Just sign me...Somebody Who Still Reads Robert Benchley For Laughs