Conducting a Zoom interview with seven comedians is especially chaotic when they’re all trying to make each other guffaw.
That’s the point of their careers, the members of The State said. Ever since coming together as NYU film students in 1988, the comedy supergroup has maintained a family dynamic of loyalty to each other first, and audiences second.
“It makes me realize that any choice I make really goes back to: ‘Is it something that would make this crew laugh?’ ” said Ken Marino, a director and producer who has co-starred in cult hits such as “Party Down,” “Wet Hot American Summer” and “The Other Two.”
“That’s never left me.”
After their four-season MTV sketch show, also called “The State,” went off the air in 1995, the members moved into other projects. That includes “Reno 911!,” the reality-TV spoof that ran from 2003 to 2009 on Comedy Central, and writing and directing films like “Night at the Museum,” “Wanderlust” and “Role Models.”
But despite the odd festival reunion, the group has never toured. That will change Aug. 30 when The State plays the Paramount Theatre to begin its four-date “Breakin’ Hearts and Dippin’ Balls” jaunt (at present, it only includes three more shows in New York in October).
The tour, celebrating the 30th anniversary of its MTV series debut, will feature eight members of the original 11-person group: Marino, Kerri Kenney-Silver, David Wain, Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Jann, Thomas Lennon, Kevin Allison and Michael Ian Black.
Founder Todd Holoubeck, along with members Michael Showalter (director of the Oscar-winning “The Big Sick”) and Robert Ben Garant (co-creator of “Reno 911!” and co-writer with Lennon of the “Night at the Museum” movies), will not be on stage. But their presence will be felt.
The stage shows, mixing now-classic sketches like the squishy “$240 Worth of Pudding” and the indescribably weird “Cutlery Barn” with new material, are a direct product of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The Hollywood work stoppage has allowed the members a rare break between projects, they said.
“We’ve been talking about it since we were doing the TV show in the ’90s,” said Wain, a prolific director and one-third of the Stella trio (with Showalter and Black). “In the ’90s it was harder to get together. We were waiting for Zoom to be popular.”
“It’s never been less than five minutes since 1988 that at least two of us are together in some capacity,” Kenney-Silver said. “And we’ve been wanting to do this since the ’90s”
The Aug. 30 Paramount show will be preceded by Wain and Marino’s Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, playing Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom on Aug. 29. It’s a musical complement to the next night, with all touring members planning to be on stage.
“We love being stupid together,” Marino said.
“There’s a closeness between us that would be nearly impossible to duplicate,” said Lennon, who played the short-shorts-wearing Lt. Jim Dangle on “Reno 911!” and, like most members of the group, has appeared in dozens of TV shows and movies ranging from “Friends” and “Bob’s Burgers” to “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Veep” and the “Lethal Weapon” reboot.
“In my life, I’ve been to the emergency room three times, and twice I was taken or carried by Ken Marino,” Lennon said.
“Wait, who was that other person who took you to the hospital?” Marino asked.
“It was my wife, Ken,” Lennon said. “My wife.”
As straightforward as their love for one another is, the legacy of their formative sketch show belies decades of behind-the-scenes wrangling. As Rolling Stone reported in its “50 Worst Decisions in TV History” list, the State members left MTV for CBS in 1995, a network that quickly canceled the uprooted series after a single Halloween special. The members have said MTV had been ready to renew them for dozens more episodes at the time.
“I’m endlessly baffled by how crazy confident we were, because why?” Lennon said. “Maybe it was safety in numbers.”
Honed by former theater kids in black-box venues in college, the State’s sense of humor first reared its head in 1992’s “You Wrote It, You Watch It,” a short-lived MTV series hosted by future “The Daily Show” host and Emmy winner Jon Stewart.
But even after MTV decided to give the group its own series, the members were still working busboy jobs, acting as crew and extras on their own productions and even filing for unemployment.
“I remember when we did that sketch about prom, and the joke was I didn’t get to go because I stayed home,” Wain said. “But the real reason was because I was doing the camera the whole time.”
“The difference between our ‘huge’ MTV paychecks and just living off unemployment was $15,” Lennon said. “We had nothing to lose. We were 100% committed.”
It only made them more energetic and fearless, they said, finding refreshing absurdism in sketches such as “Cutlery Barn,” “Hormones” and “Porcupine Racetrack.”
“Early on in MTV I was editing for a little bit, David and Michael Patrick Jann were directors,” said Joe Lo Truglio, a cast member of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and prolific character actor in movies such as “Superbad” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” “We learned discipline that way.”
“But I watch it now and think, ‘Take it down 20 notches!’ ” Marino said.
“The State’ helped lead a fertile period for sketch comedy that saw genre-best series such as “Mr. Show,” “In Living Color, “The Kids in the Hall” and “Upright Citizens Brigade” find their ’90s grooves. (Some of that included the post-“State” show “Viva Variety,” which starred a few of its members).
Subversive, surreal and driven by an alt-rock soundtrack, “The State” was arguably the most accessible to younger viewers at the time. Being on MTV allowed the group to use the network’s extensive pop-music library at the time. But it wasn’t until 2009 that The State secured the rights to release its long-awaited DVD set. Even then, it was forced to strip the original music due to licensing costs.
Now streaming on Paramount+, “The State’s” influence is clear in recent sketch shows such as “Key & Peele,” but also silly-serious movies and TV shows that its members have directed and written.
“That (legacy) is exactly what we thought was going to happen in the ’90s,” Jann said with a laugh. “It’s baffling to us now, having lead real lives like real people. But some of it still holds up. It’s not topical. It’s not political. It’s just funny.”
“The fact that it’s lasted beyond anyone’s expectation is really lovely,” Wain said.
The state chose Denver to launch its tour because the attendance would speak to their actual draw, Wain said, not just their profile in New York and Los Angeles.
“It wouldn’t be a totally fair representation otherwise,” he said. “And if there are no more shows, it’s nice and central.”
