100 Essential Alt Comedy Sketches You Can Find on YouTube
Fifty years of sketch comedy in one field guide, from Monty Python to Tim Robinson. For every sketch we name the show and the channel to search, not a link that will die next month.
The best sketch comedy ever made is mostly on YouTube, scattered across official channels, fan uploads and clip compilations. This is a field guide to 100 of the sketches that matter most, from Monty Python's pet shop in 1969 to Tim Robinson's hot dog costume in 2019, with each one tagged by show and year so you can find it in a single search.
We have not linked to individual videos. Clips get taken down and re-uploaded constantly, and a link that works today will be a dead end next month. Instead, every entry tells you which show to search and, where one exists, which official channel carries it. Type the show name and the sketch title and you'll have it in seconds.
The list is numbered for reference, not ranked. It runs roughly in chronological order, grouped by era, because sketch comedy is a conversation: Mr. Show is answering Monty Python, Key & Peele is answering Chappelle's Show, and I Think You Should Leave is answering all of them. For the shows themselves, see our ranking of the 25 greatest sketch shows.
The foundations (1969–1987)
Before anyone called it "alternative", these were the sketches that broke the rules everyone else would later break again. Most of the Python material is on the official Monty Python YouTube channel, which the troupe launched themselves; SNL classics are on the official Saturday Night Live channel and Peacock.
Dead Parrot
John Cleese tries to return a very dead Norwegian Blue to Michael Palin's shopkeeper, who insists it is resting. The template for a sketch that is really about one man's refusal to admit the obvious.
Nudge Nudge
Eric Idle's leering pub bore pesters Terry Jones with innuendo that turns out to be built on almost nothing. A short masterclass in a character who is funnier than anything he says.
The Funniest Joke in the World
A joke so funny it kills anyone who reads it is weaponised by the British Army. The joke itself is never told in English, which is the whole point.
The Lumberjack Song
Palin's barber abandons his job to declare that he always wanted to be a lumberjack, backed by a chorus of Mounties whose enthusiasm curdles as the lyrics get stranger.
The Spanish Inquisition
Palin, Jones and Gilliam burst into scenes nobody expected them in and can't get their own list of weapons right. A running gag that kept interrupting the rest of the episode.
The Ministry of Silly Walks
A civil servant (Cleese) reviews funding applications for new silly walks. It's remembered for Cleese's legs, but the bureaucratic satire underneath is what makes it last.
Spam
A café where every dish contains Spam, and a table of Vikings who drown out the conversation by singing about it. The sketch gave the internet its word for junk email.
Argument Clinic
A man pays for a five-minute argument and gets simple contradiction instead. Palin and Cleese turn a pedantic premise into a perfectly built escalation.
Four Candles
Ronnie Barker's customer reads out a shopping list that Ronnie Corbett's hardware-shop owner keeps mishearing. Not alt at all, but the cleanest wordplay sketch in British television and a lesson in rhythm. Search the BBC's comedy channels.
Land Shark
A Jaws parody in which the shark knocks on apartment doors pretending to be a delivery man. Chevy Chase-era SNL at its silliest.
The Wild and Crazy Guys
Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd as the Festrunk brothers, two Czech swingers who are completely sure of their own charm. A character piece built on confidence with nothing behind it.
Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood
Eddie Murphy relocates Mister Rogers to a run-down apartment and keeps the gentle cadence. The satire of who gets to be a kindly neighbour on television still lands.
Andy Kaufman breaks Fridays
Mid-sketch, Andy Kaufman stops playing his part and the live broadcast collapses into a scuffle. It was later revealed that some of the cast were in on it. Required viewing for the anti-comedy tradition; read our profile of Andy Kaufman for the context.
The Great White North
Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas improvise as Bob and Doug McKenzie, two beer-drinking brothers in toques, in a segment made to satisfy Canadian-content rules. It became a hit record and a feature film.
Farm Film Report
John Candy and Joe Flaherty as two rural film critics who only care whether things blow up. SCTV's fake TV-station format at its most efficient.
The Sammy Maudlin Show
Joe Flaherty's oily talk-show host and Eugene Levy's insufferable comic Bobby Bittman fawn over each other. A merciless portrait of show-business sincerity that predates The Larry Sanders Show by a decade.
Lola Heatherton
Catherine O'Hara as a Las Vegas entertainer whose love for her audience is a little too intense. You can draw a straight line from here to Moira Rose in Schitt's Creek.
Acorn Antiques
Victoria Wood's parody of a cheap soap opera, complete with wobbling sets, fluffed lines and Julie Walters as the tea lady Mrs Overall. Later turned into a stage musical.
Canada and the American 1990s
The decade when sketch went cable, and when American comedians started building shows with no studio audience and no catchphrase quota. The Kids in the Hall and Mr. Show clips circulate widely on YouTube, though mostly as unofficial uploads; both shows are worth watching in full (see our guides to The Kids in the Hall and Mr. Show).
Head Crusher
Mark McKinney's bitter little man "crushes" the heads of passers-by between his finger and thumb, using forced perspective. One visual gag, repeated until it becomes a character study of resentment.
Chicken Lady
McKinney again, as a half-woman, half-chicken who is desperate for romance. Grotesque, oddly sweet and impossible to imagine on network TV.
Buddy Cole
Scott Thompson's monologues as a flamboyant gay socialite, delivered straight to camera. In the early 1990s these were some of the most openly queer material on North American television.
Homey D. Clown
Damon Wayans as an ex-con forced to work as a children's entertainer, who refuses to play along. The anger under the greasepaint is the joke.
Fire Marshal Bill
Jim Carrey's scarred safety inspector demonstrates hazards by setting himself on fire. Pure physical commitment, and a preview of Carrey's film career.
Stuart
Michael McDonald plays an overgrown child with a smothering mother. Uncomfortable in a way SNL rarely risked, and a good example of MADtv's stranger side.
Lowered Expectations
A recurring parody of video-dating tapes, each one a tiny, sad character portrait. The format was perfect for a large cast and short attention spans.
Louie
Ken Marino plays a character who exists only to deliver his catchphrase, a running parody of the catchphrase-driven sketch characters on network TV. The State's knowingness in one premise.
The Story of Everest
An anecdote about climbing Everest keeps being interrupted by the same physical mishap, and the joke lives in how the room's reactions change each time. A definitive example of Mr. Show's patience.
Pre-Taped Call-In Show
Bob Odenkirk hosts a call-in show that was recorded in advance, so he cannot respond to a single caller. A perfect format joke, played completely straight.
Ronnie Dobbs
David Cross as a man arrested on a Cops-style show who becomes a national celebrity. It loops through several sketches in one episode, the show's signature technique.
God's Pottery
A Christian youth-ministry folk duo singing earnest songs about abstinence. The parody is precise enough that it could pass for the real thing for about ten seconds.
British alt sketch (1987–2010)
After the alternative cabaret boom of the early 1980s (see our history of British alternative comedy), British sketch split into two streams: the character shows and the media satires. The BBC's official comedy channels carry a lot of this; Brass Eye and The Day Today mostly turn up in unofficial uploads.
Mr. Dalliard
Stephen Fry's shopkeeper keeps calling for an assistant, Mr. Dalliard, who never appears. The richest example of the pair's love of language for its own sake.
Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan
Chris Morris's anchor savages a hapless reporter (Patrick Marber) live on air. The sketch nails the aggression of television news so precisely that it still feels current.
Cake
Morris persuades real celebrities and a sitting MP to warn the public about "cake", a drug he made up. Less a sketch than a trap, and one of the most consequential pranks in British TV.
Suit You
Paul Whitehouse and Mark Williams as two tailors who turn every fitting into innuendo. The Fast Show's machine-gun format made catchphrases feel like jazz.
Rowley Birkin QC
Whitehouse as an elderly barrister whose fireside anecdotes dissolve into mumbling. A character sketch with almost no intelligible words.
Kevin the Teenager
Harry Enfield's boy who turns into a sulking, grunting teenager at the stroke of midnight on his 13th birthday. Every parent in Britain recognised him.
Going for an English
A group of British Asians go out for an English meal after the pub and behave exactly as drunk English diners behave in curry houses. A perfect role-reversal sketch.
A Local Shop for Local People
Tubbs and Edward run a shop in Royston Vasey that is hostile to anyone who isn't "local". Horror-comedy that defined the show's tone.
World Stare-Out Championship
A staring contest covered like a major sporting final, with breathless commentary over two men doing nothing. Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews's deadpan at full strength.
The dating agency videos
Doon Mackichan, Fiona Allen and Sally Phillips record video-dating messages that reveal far too much. The show's recurring opener and a great way into one of the most underrated sketch shows of its era.
Calcium
Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz's perfect parody of 1970s schools science programmes. Every sound cue and font is exact; the facts are gloriously wrong.
Old Gregg
Noel Fielding as a lonely merman-like creature who has a crush on Howard Moon (Julian Barratt). The Boosh's surrealism in its most quoted form.
Are We the Baddies?
Two SS officers notice the skulls on their caps and start to wonder. Possibly the most shared British sketch of the internet era, because it works as a meme and as a moral question.
Numberwang
A game show whose rules nobody, including the contestants, can explain. David Mitchell's host announces wins with total authority.
The RAF pilots
Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller as Second World War airmen who speak in clipped RP but use modern street slang. A one-joke idea executed so cleanly it never wears out.
Saturday Night Live (1990–now)
SNL is not alternative comedy, but it is the institution every alt sketch show defines itself against, and it has absorbed plenty of alt talent along the way. Almost everything here is on the official SNL YouTube channel.
Matt Foley, motivational speaker
Chris Farley's speaker who lives in a van down by the river. Farley's total physical commitment, and the cast's inability to keep straight faces, made it legendary.
Schweddy Balls
On a parody of an NPR food show, Alec Baldwin's baker discusses his holiday treats with Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon's hosts. Double entendre performed in the most soothing voices imaginable.
Celebrity Jeopardy!
Will Ferrell's exasperated Alex Trebek against Darrell Hammond's taunting Sean Connery and Norm Macdonald's Burt Reynolds. A recurring game whose rules are the contestants' stupidity.
More Cowbell
Christopher Walken's record producer demands more cowbell from Will Ferrell during a recording of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". One of the most quoted sketches in the show's history.
Debbie Downer
Rachel Dratch's relentlessly gloomy character ruins a trip to Disney World, and the cast famously falls apart laughing. The breaking is now part of the sketch.
Lazy Sunday
Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rap about cupcakes and The Chronicles of Narnia. The Lonely Island's short helped show TV networks what YouTube could do for them.
Stefon
Bill Hader's club-kid city correspondent recommends nightspots of escalating horror, with jokes the writers changed at the last minute to make him break.
Close Encounter
Kate McKinnon's Colleen Rafferty describes an alien abduction in deadpan detail while the other abductees had lovely experiences. Ryan Gosling's attempt not to laugh is half the fun.
Black Jeopardy! with Tom Hanks
Kenan Thompson's quiz show welcomes Hanks as Doug, a Trump-supporting contestant who turns out to agree with the other players more than anyone expected. The sharpest political sketch SNL made that year.
Papyrus
Ryan Gosling's man is tormented that the Avatar logo uses the Papyrus font. Written by Julio Torres, it is an alt sensibility smuggled into prime time.
Diner Lobster
Host John Mulaney turns a diner order into a full Les Misérables production about a lobster. A perfect example of the musical-theatre obsession Mulaney brought to the show.
Three Sad Virgins
The Please Don't Destroy trio's pre-taped song about their own loneliness, with Pete Davidson and a Taylor Swift cameo. The group brought a scrappy internet-video energy back to the show.
Sarah Sherman vs. Colin Jost
Sarah Sherman's Update appearances, where she roasts Jost with escalating, gleefully disgusting jokes. Her body-horror sensibility (see her comedy profile) on network TV.
The cable boom (2003–2014)
Comedy Central and Adult Swim spent the 2000s letting comedians make the strangest shows on American television. Chappelle's Show clips are on Comedy Central's official channel; Tim and Eric and Adult Swim specials are on Adult Swim's.
Clayton Bigsby
Dave Chappelle as a blind Black man raised to believe he is white, who becomes a white-supremacist author. The show's first episode announced how far it was willing to go.
Reparations 2003
A newscast imagines the day reparations are paid, and the market reaction. Satire that gets more pointed the more you think about it.
Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories: Rick James
Charlie Murphy recounts his run-ins with Rick James while Chappelle plays James in re-enactments. Probably the most quoted sketch of the 2000s.
Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories: Prince
Murphy's story of a basketball game against Prince, followed by pancakes. Chappelle's Prince is a model of how to play a real person with affection.
The Racial Draft
Racial groups pick celebrities to claim as their own, staged like a sports draft. Fast, funny and still a lesson in how to build a premise.
Wayne Brady
Wayne Brady plays a menacing version of himself to escape his squeaky-clean image. Brady's willingness to go there is what makes it work.
Shutterbugs
Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel as cut-throat talent agents for child actors. The Ansari, Huebel and Paul Scheer show was short-lived and influential.
Cinco products
Fake commercials for useless, often unsettling products from the fictional Cinco corporation. The core of Tim and Eric's aesthetic of public-access cheapness.
Dr. Steve Brule
John C. Reilly as a confused health reporter who mispronounces everything. The character got his own spin-off series, Check It Out!
Celery Man
Paul Rudd demonstrates a baffling piece of office software with a dancing "Celery Man". It became an early internet meme.
Too Many Cooks
Casper Kelly's parody of an 1980s sitcom title sequence that never ends and slowly turns into a horror film. Aired as an unannounced late-night "infomercial".
Unedited Footage of a Bear
From the Wham City collective: a fake allergy-medicine ad that slides into a nightmare. Another unannounced Adult Swim infomercial slot, and another reason those slots are legendary.
Between Two Ferns: Barack Obama
Zach Galifianakis interviews a sitting president with open contempt, as he does every guest on his deliberately awful show. See our Galifianakis profile.
Web-native sketch
Sketch made for the internet, not for broadcast. These are the channels people mean when they search for "comedy sketches on YouTube", and most still have huge back catalogues.
The Landlord
Will Ferrell is threatened by his landlord, played by Adam McKay's toddler daughter. The video that launched Funny or Die.
Jake and Amir
Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld's office web series, in which Amir is unbearable and Jake barely tolerates him. Hundreds of short episodes and the basis of the CollegeHumor style.
Scott Sterling
A soccer goalie who stops every penalty with his face. Studio C, from BYUtv, makes clean, family-friendly sketch, and this is the one that went worldwide.
Epic NPC Man
The New Zealand group's long-running series about non-player characters in a fantasy video game who must repeat the same lines forever. Great for anyone who has played an RPG.
Pitch Meeting
Ryan George plays both a screenwriter and a producer in a fast pitch for a famous film, exposing every plot hole. A format sketch that has run for years.
September 21 videos
Every year, Demi Adejuyigbe released an increasingly elaborate video built around Earth, Wind & Fire's "September", and ended the series in 2021. A great example of a comedian treating YouTube as an art form.
Foil Arms and Hog
The Irish trio's regular sketches about language, Irish manners and modern life. Search the channel and start with anything about Irish mammies or awkward small talk.
Good Neighbor
Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett, Nick Rutherford and Dave McCary's awkward, lo-fi shorts. Several of them later joined SNL, bringing that awkward tone with them.
The 2010s prestige era
The decade when sketch got cinematic. Comedy Central runs an official Key & Peele channel with most of the show's sketches; Portlandia and Documentary Now! clips are on IFC's channel.
Substitute Teacher
Keegan-Michael Key's inner-city substitute, Mr. Garvey, takes the register in a suburban class and mispronounces every name. The show's most famous sketch.
Obama's Anger Translator
Jordan Peele's calm Obama is "translated" by Key's furious Luther. Obama himself appeared with Key as Luther at the 2015 White House Correspondents' Dinner.
East/West Bowl
College football players introduce themselves with increasingly impossible names. It spawned sequels and became a favourite in actual locker rooms and sports media.
Auction Block
Two enslaved men at auction are offended when nobody wants to buy them. A bold sketch that uses ego and status to say something about history.
Valets
Two valets gush about movies and celebrities, including their love for "Liam Neesons". A recurring pair whose enthusiasm is the joke.
Meegan & Andre
Peele's self-absorbed Meegan and Key's long-suffering boyfriend Andre in a toxic, repeating loop. Peele's best recurring character.
Put a Bird on It
Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein decorate everything with birds. The sketch that defined the show's affectionate mockery of Portland's craft culture.
Is It Local?
A couple at a restaurant question their server about the chicken's life story, then go to visit the farm. A perfect sketch about ethical consumer anxiety.
Women & Women First
Toni and Candace run a feminist bookstore where every customer is wrong. Brownstein and Armisen in their most beloved roles.
Last F***able Day
Amy Schumer stumbles on Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Patricia Arquette celebrating Louis-Dreyfus's last day of being considered desirable by Hollywood. Sharp industry satire with a superb cast.
12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer
A full episode parodying 12 Angry Men, with a jury of men debating whether Schumer is attractive enough for TV. Paul Giamatti leads the cast.
PubLIZity
Nick Kroll and Jenny Slate as Liz and Liz, two vain publicists in a parody of reality TV. Kroll's show was a whole fake TV network of these characters.
Dumb Starbucks
Nathan Fielder opens a coffee shop that copies Starbucks exactly, using parody law as a loophole. The stunt made real news. More in our Nathan Fielder profile.
Sandy Passage
Fred Armisen and Bill Hader's flawless parody of Grey Gardens, with a twist the original never had. Watch the source first if you can.
Original Cast Album: Co-Op
A parody of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary about recording the cast album of Company, with a full score of pitch-perfect original songs. A parody so detailed it is practically a musical.
The 2020s: I Think You Should Leave and after
The current era of sketch belongs to Tim Robinson, whose Netflix show turned a man who cannot admit he's wrong into a national language. Some ITYSL sketches are posted officially on Netflix's comedy YouTube channel, Netflix Is A Joke; the rest circulate in clips. Our full guide to I Think You Should Leave covers all three seasons.
Hot Dog Car
A hot-dog-shaped car crashes into a clothes store, and Tim Robinson, wearing a hot dog costume, insists he is also trying to find the driver. The show's purest image of denial.
Focus Group
Robinson's focus group participant hates every question and invents absurd features for a new car. The sketch's escalation is a masterclass in commitment.
Baby of the Year
Sam Richardson hosts a pageant for babies that goes completely off the rails. A great showcase for the show's frequent collaborator.
Dan Flashes
A man's obsession with the absurdly expensive, overly complicated shirts at Dan Flashes. Season two's breakout sketch.
Detective Crashmore
A trailer for an action film starring Robinson as a detective whose only skill is ludicrous violence. A parody of action-film machismo played completely straight.
Bad Bitch Support Group
Robin Thede's ensemble play women in a support group for being too successful and too fabulous. One of the first sketches from the show to travel widely, and a sign of how cinematic sketch had become.
How to find these sketches on YouTube
Search the show name plus the sketch title, then check the channel name before you click. Official channels are more stable and usually higher quality. The most reliable ones:
- Monty Python: the troupe's own channel, with a large selection of Flying Circus material.
- Saturday Night Live: the official NBC channel has decades of sketches, including most of the entries above.
- Comedy Central and the separate Key & Peele channel: Chappelle's Show, Key & Peele, Inside Amy Schumer and Kroll Show.
- Adult Swim: Tim and Eric, plus the late-night infomercial specials.
- BBC Comedy and BBC Studios: Fry & Laurie, Mitchell and Webb, The Fast Show and more.
- IFC: Portlandia and Documentary Now!
For shows without much official presence, like Mr. Show, The State and The Kids in the Hall, the full series is usually streaming somewhere, and it is worth watching the episodes in order. Mr. Show's sketches flow into each other, so a single clip loses half the joke.
What's not on this list
Every list leaves things out. Ours skips a few categories on purpose:
- Hidden-camera and prank shows, like Impractical Jokers, because they're not scripted sketch.
- Late-night talk-show packages, like lip-sync battles, because they're promotional segments.
- Sitcoms with sketch-like episodes, like Atlanta's "Teddy Perkins". Great TV, different form.
- Short-form TikTok and Vine comedy, which deserves its own list. Our page on comedy and digital media covers how the platforms changed things.
For the stand-up equivalent of this list, see our 50 greatest alt comedy specials.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best sketch comedy channels on YouTube?
For classic TV sketches, the official Saturday Night Live, Key & Peele, Comedy Central, Monty Python and Adult Swim channels have the biggest legitimate archives. For sketch made for the web, look at Studio C, Viva La Dirt League, Foil Arms and Hog and the old CollegeHumor and Funny or Die libraries.
What sketch comedy is like Key and Peele?
Chappelle's Show is the closest in spirit, with sharp writing about race and character. I Think You Should Leave and Mr. Show share its commitment to one escalating premise, and A Black Lady Sketch Show has the same cinematic production values.
Is Impractical Jokers sketch comedy?
No. Impractical Jokers is a hidden-camera prank show built on real reactions from strangers. Sketch comedy is scripted and performed by actors, which is why this list starts from shows like SNL, Mr. Show and Key & Peele instead.
Why don't you link directly to the YouTube videos?
Clips on YouTube are uploaded, removed and re-uploaded constantly, and many are unofficial. Searching the show name plus the sketch title finds a working copy in seconds, and it points you to the official channel first.
What is the most famous sketch of all time?
Monty Python's Dead Parrot (1969) is the usual answer, with SNL's More Cowbell and Chappelle's Show's Rick James sketches close behind. Each has outlived its original broadcast by decades.