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Statement of Fact
Corey Stulce's oral history of legendary '90s sketch comedy group The State finds the keys of their story
By Michael Shashoua
Oral histories related to entertainment are often even more
engrossing and compelling than conventional prose accounts. “Live
From New York: The Complete Uncensored History of Saturday Night
Live” by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, and “I Want My MTV: The
Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution” by Craig Marks and
Rob Tannenbaum, are two great examples of the genre.
So on learning that there would be a book about the 1990s cult
favorite sketch comedy group “The State,” many of whose members have
gone on to artistic and popular success in one form or another in
the past 20 years, I wondered what might be compelling or special
about their story to make it interesting to re-tell it as an oral
history. (For the unfamiliar, this means the whole article or book
consists of direct quotes from participants in the story, concerning
the exact events, strung together in chronological order.)
Corey Stulce, a journalist who has covered comedy extensively, has
published “The Union of The State.” His book manages to balance
telling a compelling story for those who may only be casually
familiar with The State, with providing new and interesting details
about the group’s dynamic and progression for those who knew the
group’s work as it appeared on MTV in the early 1990s.
The fascinating thing about The State that Stulce manages to get at
in his history is how the group ended up imploding. It’s an
implosion that probably would not have happened had the group come
along with its TV show in this decade, with so many more media
outlets – and live performance outlets -- available. While members
of The State have worked together over the years, most popularly on
the series “Reno 911!” and the cult film and now Netflix prequel
series “Wet Hot American Summer,” the full 11-member cast has only
rarely completely reunited for live performance (one-off shows in
2008 and 2014) and the 2007 movie “The Ten.”
What Stulce gets at, particularly in quotes from the group’s
managers and producers that are interspersed throughout this book,
is that mistakes were made. A wiser course would have been for The
State to continue its MTV series for more than the four seasons it
had, to let the popularity and reach continue to build. Instead,
they leapt at a CBS network contract that only ended up producing
one rare one-hour special because executives didn’t really
understand their comedy or how to produce, market and promote it.
Paired with half-hearted efforts at a book (“State By State With The
State”) and an audio comedy album (“Comedy For Gracious Living,”
finally released in 2010), the State’s network TV effort was part of
what should have been a three-front mega-media splash into wider
public consciousness, not helped by internal tensions between its
members and the aforementioned misguided management. But around 1995
and 1996, these were the only options available to grow and expand.
There was barely even Comedy Central, much less streaming outlets,
podcasting or e-books – and not as many outlets for independent or
lower-budget feature films.
Stulce’s book helps the reader understand and lament what happened
with The State, but also tracks the influence of its comedy in
subsequent years, with smaller portions about each post-State
project from various members, and also some instances of how its
members eventually blended and collaborated with the improv-fueled
comedy built by the Upright Citizens Brigade’s performers, venues
and projects. The needle that injected the State’s comedy DNA into
wider influence was “Stella,” a live show featuring three former
State members later in the 1990s.
“The Union of The State” closes out with a chapter about the 2014
reunion performance. After a succession of chapters about all the
group’s side projects, this is as close to a triumphant finale as
Stulce could get, which he was wise to place as its conclusion. The
State may not have become as well known as the institutions of SNL
or MTV, but the storytelling method Stulce emulates from those
histories, and the sequencing of the quotes and chapters works very
well for portraying the dramatic aspects of The State’s story.
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Feedback? Email shashouamedia@gmail.com or michael.shashoua@jesterjournal.com
© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua