The 25 Greatest Sketch Comedy Shows of All Time, Ranked

The greatest sketch comedy show of all time is Monty Python's Flying Circus, and the argument is not close. Almost everything that followed, from Mr. Show to I Think You Should Leave, uses tools Python invented in 1969. But "greatest" is more interesting further down the list, where a two-season MTV show can outrank a 50-year institution. Here are the 25 sketch shows that matter most, ranked.

Our criteria are simple. We favoured shows that changed what sketch comedy could do, that were consistent across their run rather than coasting on a few famous bits, and that still play well today. We ranked English-language television and streaming series only. Web-native sketch and individual sketches have their own home in our 100 essential sketches on YouTube.

The top five

1. Monty Python's Flying Circus 1969–1974 · BBC · 4 series, 45 episodes

   Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin threw out the punchline. Sketches stopped when they ran out of steam, were interrupted by a colonel complaining they were too silly, or dissolved into Gilliam's cut-paper animation. Episodes became streams of consciousness instead of a list of bits. Every show below operates in the space Python opened up.

   Start with: the Dead Parrot, the Ministry of Silly Walks, and any full episode from series two.

2. Mr. Show with Bob and David 1995–1998 · HBO · 4 seasons, 30 episodes

   Bob Odenkirk and David Cross took the Python idea of linked sketches and made it rigorous: every scene flows into the next through a character, an object or a camera move. The writing room (including Sarah Silverman, Paul F. Tompkins and Brian Posehn among performers and writers) was a who's who of the 1990s alt scene. It never found a big audience on HBO, and it became the most influential American sketch show of its generation. Our definitive guide to Mr. Show goes season by season.

   Start with: season two, in order.

3. The Kids in the Hall 1988–1995 · CBC / HBO · 5 seasons; revived 2022 on Prime Video

   Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson played men, women and everything else, without winking. Their sketches were moody, surreal and often ended on a shrug instead of a laugh. Thompson, who was openly gay, made his Buddy Cole monologues some of the most visible queer comedy on North American television at the time. Read our full Kids in the Hall guide.

   Start with: any episode featuring the Head Crusher, Chicken Lady and a Buddy Cole monologue.

4. SCTV 1976–1984 · Global / CBC, then NBC and Cinemax

   Second City's television show was set inside a fictional, low-budget TV station, which gave the cast a reason to parody everything on the dial. John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis and later Martin Short built characters that lasted for years. The fake-network frame shaped everything from The Larry Sanders Show to Kroll Show.

   Start with: the Great White North, Farm Film Report and the Sammy Maudlin Show.

5. Chappelle's Show 2003–2006 · Comedy Central · 2 seasons, plus "The Lost Episodes"

   Dave Chappelle and co-creator Neal Brennan made sketch comedy about race that was funnier, bolder and more widely quoted than anything else on TV at the time. The Clayton Bigsby, Racial Draft and Charlie Murphy sketches became a shared language. Chappelle walked away during production of the third season, and that short run is part of why the show still feels concentrated.

   Start with: season one, episode one.

Six to fifteen

1. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson 2019–2023 · Netflix · 3 seasons, 18 episodes

   Short episodes, each a handful of sketches about people who will not back down from a terrible decision. Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin turned social embarrassment into an art form, and quotes from the show became a language of their own online. The shortest show on this list in running time, and among the most rewatchable. See our guide to I Think You Should Leave.

2. Key & Peele 2012–2015 · Comedy Central · 5 seasons

   Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, both MADtv alumni, made sketch look like cinema, with real production values and a range from pure silliness (the Valets, East/West Bowl) to sharp satire (Auction Block, Obama's Anger Translator). Peele's later horror films (Get Out, Us, Nope) are clearly by the same mind.

3. Saturday Night Live, the original era 1975–1980 · NBC

   As a 50-year institution SNL is too uneven to rank as one show. Its first five years, with Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner and later Bill Murray, belong here: live, loose, a little dangerous, and the reason "sketch comedy" means something to American audiences at all.

4. Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! 2007–2010 · Adult Swim · 5 seasons, 50 episodes

   Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim built a show from the textures of public-access TV, corporate training videos and broken VHS tapes. It was divisive and it rewired internet comedy; a decade of absurdist YouTube owes it a royalty. See our Tim and Eric guide.

5. The Day Today 1994 · BBC Two · 6 episodes

   Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci's news parody was so exact about the self-importance of TV news that it still feels current. It also introduced Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge as a sports reporter. Morris's follow-up, Brass Eye (Channel 4, 1997, plus a 2001 special), turned the same tools on real public figures.

6. A Bit of Fry & Laurie 1989–1995 · BBC · 4 series

   Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's sketch show is the most verbal on this list: long, playful riffs on language, class and English manners, often broken by direct address to camera. It shows how much a two-hander can do with nothing but words.

7. The State 1993–1995 · MTV

   An 11-person troupe out of NYU, including Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, David Wain, Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney and Ken Marino, given a network show while still in their twenties. Its members went on to Reno 911!, Wet Hot American Summer and Stella, which makes it one of the most important talent pipelines in alt comedy.

8. In Living Color 1990–1994 · Fox · 5 seasons

   Created by Keenen Ivory Wayans, with Damon Wayans, David Alan Grier, Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx, among many others. It gave sketch comedy a hip-hop sensibility and a mostly Black cast on network TV, and its influence on Chappelle's Show and Key & Peele is direct. Some of its broad characters haven't aged well; the best of it has.

9. Big Train 1998 & 2002 · BBC Two · 2 series

   Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, between Father Ted and Black Books, made a deadpan sketch show with a cast including Simon Pegg, Mark Heap, Kevin Eldon and Julia Davis. Underseen outside the UK and worth hunting down.

10. Portlandia 2011–2018 · IFC · 8 seasons

    Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's affectionate send-up of a city's earnest craft culture. Its best sketches ("Put a Bird on It", the feminist bookstore) captured a whole decade of consumer anxiety.

11. Documentary Now! 2015–2022 · IFC · 4 seasons

    Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers and Rhys Thomas parody a specific documentary in each episode, with real formal precision. The parodies of Grey Gardens and Original Cast Album: Company are among the best things any sketch team has made.

Sixteen to twenty-five

1. The Ben Stiller Show 1992–1993 · Fox · 1 season

   Cancelled after one season on Fox, then won an Emmy for its writing. The writers' room included Judd Apatow and Bob Odenkirk, and its dense parody of 1990s pop culture was a rehearsal for Mr. Show.

2. That Mitchell and Webb Look 2006–2010 · BBC Two · 4 series

   David Mitchell and Robert Webb, better known for Peep Show, made the most quoted British sketch show of the internet era ("Are We the Baddies?", Numberwang).

3. The Fast Show 1994–1997 · BBC Two

   Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson's show cut sketches down to a few seconds and a catchphrase. It turned the catchphrase from a cliché into a rhythm.

4. Inside Amy Schumer 2013–2016 · Comedy Central; revived 2022

   Amy Schumer's show used sketch for pointed satire about gender and Hollywood, peaking in its third season with "Last F***able Day" and the 12 Angry Men parody. It won the Emmy for best variety sketch series in 2015.

5. Human Giant 2007–2008 · MTV · 2 seasons

   Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer made short, sharp, filmed sketches that grew out of the New York UCB scene. Short-lived, but a template for the decade's web sketch.

6. Upright Citizens Brigade 1998–2000 · Comedy Central · 3 seasons

   Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh linked their sketches through a group of agents of chaos. More important as an institution (see our history of the UCB Theatre) than as a show, but the show is the record of their style.

7. Smack the Pony 1999–2003 · Channel 4

   Doon Mackichan, Fiona Allen and Sally Phillips made a sketch show with almost no catchphrases and a gentle, absurd tone that was rare in British comedy. Underrated on most lists.

8. Look Around You 2002 & 2005 · BBC Two

   Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz's parody of old schools science films is so precise that it's almost unsettling. Each episode is ten minutes; the whole first series takes little more than an hour.

9. A Black Lady Sketch Show 2019–2023 · HBO · 4 seasons

   Robin Thede created the first sketch show written and performed by a cast of Black women, and gave it production values to match Key & Peele. Its absurd, cinematic sketches built a cult audience fast.

10. MADtv 1995–2009 · Fox

    Long dismissed as the other SNL, MADtv was weirder and more willing to make audiences uncomfortable. It gave Key and Peele their big television break, and characters like Michael McDonald's Stuart hold up.

Honourable mentions

A few shows that came close, or that sit just outside our definition:

• Stella (Comedy Central, 2005): Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain's one-season absurdist sitcom-sketch hybrid.
• The League of Gentlemen (BBC Two, 1999–2002): a horror-comedy town built from sketches, eventually closer to a serial.
• Goodness Gracious Me (BBC Two, 1998–2001): sharp, funny British Asian sketch comedy.
• The Mighty Boosh (BBC Three, 2004–2007): more surreal sitcom than sketch, but beloved by the same audience.
• Kroll Show (Comedy Central, 2013–2015): Nick Kroll's fake TV network of reality-TV parodies.
• Nathan for You (Comedy Central, 2013–2017): technically a docu-reality show, but it belongs in the conversation. See our Nathan Fielder profile.

What these shows have in common

The best sketch shows share three traits. First, a point of view: Python's anarchic intellect, the Kids' moody surrealism, Chappelle's racial satire, Robinson's study of embarrassment. Second, a structural idea: SCTV's fake TV station, Mr. Show's segues, Documentary Now!'s one-film parodies. Third, a small, stable core of performers who wrote their own material. The shows that faded fastest were the ones built around a network's idea of what was funny.

That's also the thread that connects sketch to the wider alternative comedy movement. Most of the shows above were made by people who came up in small rooms, wrote for themselves and only later found a network willing to let them be strange on television.

For stand-up's equivalent canon, see our 50 greatest alt comedy specials. For the British side of the story, read our history of British alternative comedy.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best sketch comedy show of all time?

Monty Python's Flying Circus is the most common answer, and ours, because it invented the grammar almost every later sketch show uses: sketches without punchlines, sketches that interrupt each other and running jokes across an episode. Mr. Show and The Kids in the Hall are the strongest challengers.

What is the best American sketch comedy show?

For sheer quality across its whole run, Mr. Show with Bob and David (HBO, 1995–1998). Chappelle's Show had the bigger cultural impact, and the original 1975–1980 era of Saturday Night Live defined the format for the country.

What sketch shows are like Key and Peele?

Chappelle's Show is the closest relative, and Key & Peele owes a lot to it. In Living Color, Mr. Show and A Black Lady Sketch Show also share its mix of sharp social observation and committed character work.

Is Saturday Night Live the best sketch show?

It is the most important institution in American sketch, but its quality varies hugely across 50 seasons, so we rank its original 1975–1980 era rather than the whole show. Many of the shows on this list were made in reaction to it.

Where can I watch classic sketch comedy shows?

Availability changes often, but most of these shows are streaming somewhere, and the biggest ones have official YouTube channels with hundreds of clips. Our list of 100 essential sketches on YouTube names the channel to search for each show.