Cheap Seats

Jason and Randy Sklar. Or is it the other way around?

Cheap Seats is a show on ESPN Classic that is hosted by twin stand-up comedians Randy and Jason Sklar. The two watch old campy sports and make funny comments about them. The story goes that a long time ago (on February 4, 2004) a man named Ron Parker (Michael Showalter), "an anchor with attitude", was filming the first episode of Cheap Seats with Ron Parker. The show was slated to go big. However, moments into filming, he was buried under a stack of tapes and his loyal but poorly treated assistants, Randy and Jason Sklar, had to fill in for him (like Gehrig for Pipp or Brady for Bledsoe) as they were the next people in line before Ryan Leaf. Thus the show became Cheap Seats Without Ron Parker.

The show itself ran for 77 episodes and the finale aired on November 19, 2006. The first ten episodes were an hour long, with the remaining running 30 minutes. The hour-long episodes were edited down, with some scenes reshot, to allow reruns in the shorter time slot. Occasionally, this leads to orphaned jokes or other discontinuity [1].

The show featured several recurring segments:

  • "Do You Care?", used in every single episode, in which the brothers provide obscure facts about the show's subject or participants--in extreme facial close-up.
  • "The Cheapies", in which awards are granted for outrageous categories, like "Least Valuable Celebrity" and "Weakest Drop".
  • "What to Look For" and "What Got Cut", which show clips that the Sklar brothers find ironic or funny. "Look For" acted as a preview for the show, and "Cut" highlighted things that got clipped for time.

Guest segments were also common, either with recurring characters like The Answer Dog or The Score Settler, or with characters tangent to the action (as portrayed by comedians). Other segments took more of a documentary approach, but were still ficitious and played for laughs, like the history of a labor strike in the world of professional miniature golf, or a profile of Bruce Jenner's less-talented nephew.

Tropes used in Cheap Seats include:
  • Call Back: Frequently made back to other episodes, and occasionally to their stand-up routine.
  • The Cavalry: In "Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing", the Sklars run out of money and are reduced to broadcasting by flashlight in an empty studio. Michael Floorwax rides in to save the day. Seems like a Deus Ex Machina, but is actually foreshadowed in the hour-long version of Floorwax's first episode, "Steve Garvey Fishing/Bobby Bonilla Bowling". The earlier episode ends with the Sklars talking about Floorwax, noting that he's now a radio DJ in Denver and earns more money than they'll ever see.
  • Did Not Do the Research: In the first episode, Ron gets pretty much everything wrong about the wrestling show they're about to broadcast (It's from the "Mid-South Region", not the "Southeastern Conference." The Iron Shiek is from Iran, not Iraq)
  • Early Installment Weirdness: The first ten episodes were an hour long. The rest of the series were thirty minute episodes. Also, the "Do You Care?" theme didn't appear until Episode 4.
  • Expository Theme Tune: The fourth season has one; it's sung by David Cross.
  • Identical Twin ID Tag: Jason's the one with the glasses.
  • Jerk Jock: Competitive juggler Jason Garfield from the "Sport or Hobby" episode comes off as this, but his friends have come forward to explain that it's meant as a parody of other competitive jugglers who treat their hobby as Serious Business.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: ESPN indicated no plans for a DVD set, so the only official outlet as of late 2010 is a ten-episode set on iTunes and whatever random time late at night ESPN Classic decides to put reruns on.
  • Opening Narration: The first season's Title Sequence explained the show's premise. This was dropped starting with Season 2.
  • Running Gag: In season 4, the Sklars "gained" a long-lost older brother named David, whom Randy has never met.
  • Spiritual Successor: This show owes much to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Made explicit when Mike and The Bots did an extended cameo in the Season 2 premiere.[2]
    • If that weren't enough, MST3K creator Joel Hodgson was a fan of rising comedian Michael Floorwax, who appears in two episodes of Cheap Seats; references to his "All over the world!" bit can be heard in several early episodes of MST3K.
  • Serious Business: Ultimate Frisbee player Ken Dobbins.

Ken: This isn't a game out here! This is your life!

  1. ↑ See season 1, episode 2, "Cal vs. Stanford", where the Cheapies show two shots of Elway tripping immediately after the snap, while only one appeared in the half-hour show, or season 1, episode 8, "Superdogs! Superjocks!", where "What 2 Look 4" warns of an obscene number of dog puns, but most were cut from the shorter episode
  2. ↑ Technically the second episode, but the first proper one. The actual S2 premiere was a Clip Show parody of ESPN's Sportscentury series.
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