Sketch comedy

While sketch comedy is now associated mostly with adult entertainment, certain children's television series such as Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and Between The Lions have used it, too.

Examples of recurring characters include Mr. Gumby from Monty Python's Flying Circus; Ted and Ralph from The Fast Show; The Family from The Carol Burnett Show; the Head Crusher from The Kids in the Hall; Martin Short's Ed Grimley, a recurring character from both SCTV and Saturday Night Live; The Nerd from Robot Chicken; and Kevin and Perry from Harry Enfield and Chums.

Recurring characters from Saturday Night Live have notably been featured in a number of spinoff films, including The Blues Brothers (1980), Wayne's World (1992) and Superstar (1999).

Notable contemporary American stage sketch comedy groups include The Second City, the Upright Citizens Brigade, and The Groundlings.

In South Bend, Indiana, area high school students produced a sketch comedy series called Beyond Our Control that aired on the local NBC affiliate WNDU-TV from 1967 to 1986.

A white man holds the neck of another grimacing white man while two white women talk.
Sketch comedy actors of Nightmare on Overwhelmed Street in 2018