The Sketch Show

The Sketch Show is a British television sketch comedy program, featuring many famous and leading British comedians. It was aired on ITV between 2001 and 2004. The show was first commissioned in 2001 and was co-produced by a company owned by Steve Coogan.

Overview
The first series won a BAFTA for Best Comedy. However, the second series was cancelled due to poor viewing figures. According to Lee Mack, he states in his autobiography Mack The Life said that the final two episodes have never been broadcast elsewhere.

Cast
The original (first series) line-up of the cast was Lee Mack, Jim Tavare, Tim Vine, Karen Taylor and Ronni Ancona.

For the second series, Kitty Flanagan replaced Ronni Ancona because Ancona had to concentrate on BBC One's Alistair McGowan's Big Impression (which was shortened to simply Big Impression for reflecting Ancona playing as many parts as McGowan himself). Again, sketches featured performers using their own names just like the previous season.

With the exception of some child actors in certain sketches, there were no guest stars during the series.

Sketches
Several sketches from The Sketch Show including (few famous sketches example on below),


 * Card Salesman Sketch - Mack tries to sell stupidly specific cards to a shopkeeper, but she refuses. Mack ends up sending one of his cards to her.
 * California Dreamin' Sketch - Ancona is attempting to record a cover of the Mamas & the Papas' song of the same name, featuring the rest of the cast on backing vocals. The backing vocalists consistently sing the wrong lyrics (or with the wrong emphasis on the words), which eventually results in Ancona storming from the room.
 * As a result of this sketch, many fans of the show deliberately sing along with the original song incorrectly. This sketch was appeared and repeated on the American versions of the show with Kelsey Grammer.
 * The Urinal Sketch - this sketch featuring the three male cast members, is the most notable sketch on online video websites.
 * However, it was uploaded by online users instead of ITV.

International versions

 * United States (USA)

An American version of the show, produced by Kelsey Grammer, aired in early 2005 on Fox. The main cast consisted of Malcolm Barrett, Kaitlin Olson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Paul F. Tompkins, as well as Lee Mack from the British version of the show. Grammer only appeared in short opening and closing segments in all episodes. The majority of the sketches from the British version were recreated, A notable sketch from this version had Grammer waking up from a nightmare, which he describes as: "I dreamt that Frasier was over, and I was on this Sketch Show!" The sketch is a spoof of the Newhart series finale. The American Sketch Show series was filmed in London, England at Teddington Studios, with a British audience. Only six episodes of the show were made, and it was cancelled after only four of them had been shown, but all six were aired.


 * Indonesia

An Indonesian version called Sketsa aired from 2008 to 2015 on Trans TV. Most sketches in this version are translations or adaptations of British sketches while the others were replaced with more localized version. The humor style remains faithful to the original. Unlike the British version, Sketsa have common punchline that appears on most sketches and Sketsa usually also parodied some famous TV Program such as Masterchef, Spongebob Squarepants, and Superman. Like the British Version, most cast on this series were using their real nickname except in Housemaid Sketch (Where the housemaids has different nickname).

Trivia

 * Some sketches on The Sketch Show are based on real life although parodied