Earlier this week, Nineties MTV sketch comedy group The State reunited via Zoom to raise money for the NAACP and the California Immigrants Resilience Fund. Fans that paid $20 were able to see them tell old stories, auction off props and recreate some of their greatest sketches, including The Bearded Men of Space Station Eleven, Monkey Torture and Taco Mailman.
The show opened up with a new version of The Jew, The Italian and the Redhead Gay for the COVID-19 era. In this one, the Jew (David Wain) needs money for the rent because their landlord is refusing to give them a quarantine rent freeze, the Italian (Ken Marino) has to spray his pasta sauce with Lysol before he can cook it and the Red Head Gay (Kevin Allison) is sewing masks out of curtain patterns and getting ready to attend a virtual orgy on zoom. Just like the original, it wraps up with a Hair-like hippie dance party. (If you were somewhere between the age of 13 and 24 in 1994, this will make a lot more sense to you.)
The reunion show raised $85,000. That included funds they pulled in by auctioning vintage State props. One fan even paid $6,000 for Thomas Lennon’s Booger Booger & Fartybutt plaque.
Every member of the State participated in the reunion besides Robert Ben Garant, who was vacationing at Sequoia National Park and couldn’t make it. State member Todd Holoubek, who now loves in South Korea, took on his role in Sideways House. In April, the State (Garant included) redid their musical sketch Porcupine Racetrack.
The State haven’t been an active sketch comedy troupe since CBS pulled them off the air after a single special in 1995. They last appeared as a group in public at the 2014 Festival Supreme.
