Alt Comedy in the 2000s: UCB, Adult Swim and Early Podcasts

In the 1990s, American alt comedy was a handful of back rooms. In the 2000s it became a system. The Upright Citizens Brigade turned improv classes into a talent pipeline, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim gave absurdist comedy a nightly home, indie record labels sold stand-up to music fans, YouTube let anyone publish a sketch, and in 2009 two new podcasts quietly changed how comedy was made and heard. By the end of the decade, alt-trained comics were writing and starring in network sitcoms, and the word “alternative” was starting to feel like a historical label.

This is part two of our decade series. It follows the 1990s and continues in the 2010s and the 2020s; the alt comedy timeline puts it all in one sequence.

UCB and the improv pipeline

The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre opened in Chelsea in 1999, and in the 2000s it became the most important comedy school in America. Its classes taught long-form improv built around finding and heightening “the game” of a scene, and its house teams and sketch shows became a proving ground. A Los Angeles theatre followed in the middle of the decade, and other New York improv venues, such as the Peoples Improv Theater (founded in 2003), grew up alongside it.

The results showed up on television. UCB-associated performers and writers fed Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer, regulars of the UCB scene, made the sketch show Human Giant for MTV (2007–08). On the West Coast, Scott Aukerman and B.J. Porter's weekly Comedy Death-Ray show became the LA alt stand-up showcase, and later gave its name to a podcast.

The downside, critics said, was standardisation: a school can teach technique, but it also teaches everyone the same technique. That tension would come to a head in the 2010s.

Adult Swim and the absurdist explosion

Cartoon Network launched Adult Swim as a late-night block in 2001, building on the deadpan weirdness of Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Its early hits, including Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, were cheap, fast and deeply strange. The Venture Bros. (from 2003) showed the block could also do long-form serialised parody.

The defining Adult Swim auteurs were Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Bob Odenkirk saw their homemade videos and helped them make Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004–06), then Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (2007–10). With its fake commercials, public-access video effects, non-actors and songs that went on far too long, it was the most influential American sketch show of the decade and a direct ancestor of I Think You Should Leave. Its spin-off Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule (from 2010), starring John C. Reilly, carried the style forward. Over on MTV2, Wonder Showzen (2005–06) did something similarly unsettling to children's television.

The stand-up scene: indie labels and rock clubs

Rooms

New York's downtown scene moved from the Luna Lounge (closed in 2005) to new rooms. The most influential was Invite Them Up, a weekly stand-up and variety night at the East Village bar Rififi from 2002 to 2008, hosted by Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale. Drawing on a downtown scene that included comics like Kristen Schaal, Todd Barry and Michael Showalter, it helped define a gentler, more whimsical style of alt stand-up than the angry 1990s.

The Comedians of Comedy

In 2004 Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford and Zach Galifianakis launched the Comedians of Comedy, a tour that played rock clubs rather than comedy clubs. A 2005 documentary and a Comedy Central series followed. The tour made the case that alt stand-up's natural audience wasn't comedy club regulars but indie-rock fans.

Albums

The record industry agreed. Seattle's Sub Pop, famous for grunge, released David Cross's Shut Up You F**king Baby! (2002) and Patton Oswalt's Werewolves and Lollipops (2007), and signed Flight of the Conchords. Comedy albums became objects that indie fans collected. Our guide to essential alt comedy albums covers the best of them.

Specials

Comedy Central's Comedy Central Presents half-hours were the main TV showcase for new stand-ups, and many alt comics, from Mitch Hedberg to Demetri Martin, reached a national audience through them. Martin's Person (2007) turned a stand-up hour into a structured one-man show with drawings and music, and led to his series Important Things with Demetri Martin (2009–10). Zach Galifianakis's Live at the Purple Onion, filmed in San Francisco in the mid-2000s, introduced his piano-accompanied, deadpan-surreal act shortly before his film career exploded.

Sitcoms: alt goes to the networks

The decade's biggest surprise was how much alt sensibility reached prime time.

Arrested Development (Fox, 2003–06): Mitchell Hurwitz's dense, layered family sitcom, with David Cross as Tobias Fünke. It was cancelled after three seasons and became a cult object (Netflix later revived it).
Reno 911! (Comedy Central, 2003–09): The State alumni Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney-Silver's improvised parody of COPS.
Stella (Comedy Central, 2005): Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain's absurdist, suit-wearing trio, transferred from their New York live show.
Flight of the Conchords (HBO, 2007–09): the New Zealand musical duo's deadpan sitcom, with Kristen Schaal and Arj Barker. See our Flight of the Conchords profile.
The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central, 2007–10): Silverman's oblivious, faux-naive persona as a surreal sitcom.
30 Rock (NBC, 2006–13) and Parks and Recreation (NBC, from 2009): mainstream network comedies with alt-trained writers and performers all over them.

The web: YouTube, Funny or Die and the digital short

YouTube launched in 2005, and in December of that year the Lonely Island's “Lazy Sunday”, an SNL Digital Short, became one of the first comedy videos to go viral online. Sketch groups like Derrick Comedy (with Donald Glover) built followings that would have needed a TV deal a few years earlier. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Funny or Die launched in 2007, and in 2008 it started airing Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis, a deliberately awkward interview show that became one of the decade's signature alt formats.

The new generation

The comics who came up in the 2000s were the first to treat alt comedy as a career path rather than a rebellion. Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal anchored the whimsical downtown New York style. Aziz Ansari came through UCB to MTV and then to Parks and Recreation. Donald Glover went from Derrick Comedy to the 30 Rock writers' room. Late in the decade, John Mulaney (who joined the SNL writing staff in 2008) and Hannibal Buress were working the same New York rooms and writing for television at the same time. Meanwhile Tig Notaro and Maria Bamford were refining the quiet, odd and deeply personal styles that would make them stars of the next decade. For a who's who, see our alt comedy all-stars.

Britain in the 2000s

British alt comedy had a strong decade. The Mighty Boosh (BBC Three, 2004–07) brought Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding's handmade surrealism to television. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (Channel 4, 2004) parodied cheap 1980s horror TV. Peep Show (Channel 4, from 2003) used point-of-view camera work and internal monologue to make cringe comedy feel claustrophobic. And Stewart Lee, after a period away from stand-up, returned with acclaimed shows including 90s Comedian (2006) and 41st Best Stand-Up Ever (2008), leading to Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle on BBC Two in 2009. See our full British alt comedy history.

2009: the podcast arrives

Comedians had been podcasting for a few years. The Ricky Gervais Show (2005) was a huge download hit, and Jimmy Pardo's Never Not Funny and Doug Benson's Doug Loves Movies both began in 2006. But 2009 changed the medium. In May, Scott Aukerman launched Comedy Death-Ray Radio, later renamed Comedy Bang! Bang!, where comics improvised absurd characters as interview guests. In September, Marc Maron, out of work after the collapse of his radio career, started WTF with Marc Maron, long and frank interviews recorded in his garage. Between them they invented the two main forms of comedy podcasting: the character show and the deep interview. In 2010 Aukerman co-founded the Earwolf network. See our guide to the best comedy podcasts of all time.

How the decade ended

By 2009 the alt generation of the 1990s had moved into mainstream jobs (Bob Odenkirk joined Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman that year), a new generation had trained at UCB or posted on YouTube, and the podcast had given comics a direct line to their audience. The 2010s would add the biggest change of all: streaming. Continue with alt comedy in the 2010s.

Frequently asked questions

What was alt comedy like in the 2000s?

In the 2000s alt comedy became an infrastructure. UCB trained a generation of improvisers and sketch writers, Adult Swim aired absurdist shows like Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, indie labels such as Sub Pop released stand-up albums, and YouTube and podcasts let comics reach audiences without TV networks.

What was the Comedians of Comedy?

A touring show launched in 2004 by Patton Oswalt with Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford and Zach Galifianakis that played rock clubs instead of comedy clubs. It was filmed as a 2005 documentary and later a Comedy Central series, and it helped market alt stand-up to indie-music audiences.

When did comedy podcasts start?

Comedy podcasts appeared in the mid-2000s, with The Ricky Gervais Show (2005), Never Not Funny (2006) and Doug Loves Movies (2006). The format exploded after 2009, when Marc Maron launched WTF and Scott Aukerman's Comedy Death-Ray Radio, later Comedy Bang! Bang!, began.

What was Kristen Schaal doing in the early 2000s?

Kristen Schaal was part of New York's downtown alt stand-up scene in the early and mid-2000s, known for her childlike, surreal persona. She broke through to a wider audience as the obsessive fan Mel on HBO's Flight of the Conchords (2007-09) and as a Daily Show correspondent.