Laughter is long said to be the best medicine, and Iliza Shlesinger is very good at making people laugh. In fact, she’s a professional at it. She’s also had some incredible stand-up specials and the uneven short-lived Forever 31, but The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show shows this funny woman has deeply hit her stride.
The fast-paced, six-episode Netflix series is like a candy-coated, shining light treat as many of us bide time with content while quarantining at home. The sketches showcase Shlesinger’s unique, razor-sharp wit that often pushes its audience to question gender norms, political leanings, and even what society finds sexy, gross and appealing.
While Shlesinger’s sketch show plays on reliable sketch tropes, it still feels wholly unique. Sketches are broken up with movie trailer and commercial spoofs (long a reliable sketch show device) but it’s clear that Shlesinger and her writers feel more of the YouTube generation. There is not a single sketch that runs too long, or runs past its joke expiration date. In fact, Shlesinger cleverly calls back characters and sketches from episode to episode, cleverly giving audiences a reason to keep coming back.
Much credit is due not only to Shlesinger, but also to her writers as well as director Laura Murphy, who brought her Girl Code chops to her work with Shlesinger. Murphy stressed that to keep the pace of the show, working hard in the edit was tantamount. It’s clear the collaboration of Murphy and Shlesinger helped make this show special. Shlesinger said of working with a director: “You have to respect a director’s ideas and what you bring to it.” Murphy said of her collab with Shlesinger: “Iliza is super open to making it as funny as possible, so that was so fun for me since so much of what I have done career-wise has involved working with improv actors and making stuff as funny as possible while shooting it.”
The strength of the collaboration shows. The play within “Female Jackass” (which excellently skewers female friendships), “Husband Wife” (which hysterically questions marital relationships) and “Nectarine” (which is way out there in the best way) is both memorable and joyous.
“The whole cast was down to play,” Murphy said.
“As a director, my two priorities are always making comedy that looks amazing, and I am a big proponent for making the process as fun as the end product because I think you can tell when watching something that people had fun making it.”
Shlesinger and Murphy also do an excellent job putting their stamp on the show, right down to the extras casting for actors to give a sideways glance to the camera in ad parody sketches such as “Mom Alert.”
Murphy said of the casting process: “It was all hands on deck in finding the right people with the right range since the core cast would be playing several roles each. Between Kim Gamble (the showrunner), Iliza and I, we pulled in tons of great comedy actors we knew in New York. We also had the rare luxury of having pretty much finished scripts to cast to, so we knew what roles we needed people to play, and how versatile we needed the cast to be. They were all so funny and talented. And I’d be remiss not to mention Gayle Keller, who is a fantastic casting director.”
In a recent chat with USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Schlesinger mused her road to success has been a bumpy one.
“Because people weren’t initially interested in me, I didn’t play by any rules, and now when I hear rules, I just wonder why?! There are no rules!”
“There are no rules” could be an excellent tagline for her sketch show. While living in a time when strange is everyone’s new normal, it is truly gleeful to indulge in a show that plays by its own rules to make you laugh. That said, the rule breaker that is Iliza Shlesinger is also guiding her audience with a very deft and talented comedic hand, and it shows in every single sketch.