Filed Under Sketch Comedy
Sketch Comedy Closes on Fridays
Dennis Perrin, who keeps the blog Red State Son, has a great interview with Tom Kramer, a filmmaker who worked on the sketch show Fridays. Fridays has become somewhat lost to TV Past save for the legendary staged meltdown by Andy Kaufman on the show. Dennis knows something about comedy, as he penned the wonderful (but perhaps too detailed) biography Mr. Mike
Though Tom fully admits that Fridays was a knockoff of Saturday Night Live, he still describes a great gig - an opportunity to work with very smart people doing whatever they wanted. One of the things that’s a bit fascinating about Fridays is how much drug humor played a part in the show. Tom says:
“Fridays” aired during possibly the last time in America that drugs were at all acceptable. It was the early-80s, and drugs were open and everywhere in Hollywood. Some of the writers were veterans of the 60s drug culture, so drug humor, like that of Cheech and Chong, was popular. I personally had very little experience with drugs at the time and didn’t seem to get the humor like most others.
Which explains a sketch like this, where The Three Stooges are played as drug-addled morons (with Larry David sporting very real, very appropriate Larry hair):
Dennis mentions in the interview’s introduction that he’d like to do a larger project on Fridays, either in print or on video. As someone who was too young to catch it, I’m hoping he can get it off the ground. The show does seem uneven - check out the horrible puns in this sketch “Diner of the Living Dead” . (Tom mentions that the live audience was so loud it drowned out the actual sketches - which is quite apparent after some of the groaners like “Hand Sandwich” are delivered here.) Still, Fridays was the start for a few great current comedians and probably where they learned a lot of lessons they apply today.
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