The State is an American sketch comedy television series originally broadcast on MTV from 1994 to 1995. The show combined bizarre characters and scenarios to present sketches that won the favor of its target teenaged audience. The cast consisted of comedy troupe The State, who were 11 comedians who created, acted, wrote, directed and edited the show. In various combinations, the former members of The State have continued to collaborate over the years, with alumni playing major creative, directing and acting roles in a number of notable projects including Reno 911! and Wet Hot American Summer.
Wet Hot American Summer is a 2001 American satirical comedy film directed by David Wain from a screenplay written by Wain and Michael Showalter. The film features an ensemble cast, with Janeane Garofalo and David Hyde Pierce starring alongside Molly Shannon, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Showalter, Marguerite Moreau, Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, Zak Orth, A. D. Miles, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Marisa Ryan, Kevin Sussman, Joe Lo Truglio, and Elizabeth Banks. It takes place during the last full day at a fictional summer camp in 1981, and spoofs the sex comedies aimed at teen audiences of that era.
Paul Stephen Rudd is an American actor. He studied theater at the University of Kansas and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making his acting debut in 1991. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in July 2015, and was included on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2019. In 2021, he was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive".
Michael Ian Black is an American actor, writer, and comedian. He has starred in several TV comedy series, including The State, Viva Variety, Stella, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Michael & Michael Have Issues, and Another Period. In the late 1990s to early 2000s, he was the puppeteer and voice actor for the Pets.com sock puppet dog, and played a supporting character on the TV series Ed. Since 2008 he has written a number of books, including several for children.
Kenneth Joseph Marino is an American actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. He was a cast member on MTV's The State and has starred in shows such as Party Down, Marry Me, Burning Love, and Childrens Hospital. He played the Lehman brothers on the Showtime series Black Monday. He also stars as Victor in the cult-classic comedy film Wet Hot American Summer, as well as its spin-offs.
David Benjamin Wain is an American comedian, writer, actor, and director. He has co-written and directed six feature films, including Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Role Models (2008), Wanderlust (2012), and They Came Together (2014). He has also served as a creator, producer, writer and director on a number of television series, including Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Childrens Hospital, and Medical Police. He has had small roles in most of the films and TV series he has produced or directed. Wain had a starring voice role as The Warden on the 2008–2014 Adult Swim animated series Superjail!, and has provided the voices for Courtney Wheeler and Grover Fischoeder on Bob's Burgers since 2012.
Stella is an American sketch comedy television series that originally ran from June 28 to August 30, 2005 on Comedy Central. It was created by and stars Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain, former cast members of MTV's The State (1993). As a comedy troupe, Stella started in 1997 and played to sold out shows across the United States with a cult following. In September, after 10 episodes, Stella's timeslot was succeeded by Mind of Mencia. The DVD was released on September 12, 2006.
Michael Showalter is an American comedian, actor, director, writer, and producer. He first achieved recognition as a cast member on MTV's The State, which aired from 1993 to 1995. He and David Wain created the Wet Hot American Summer franchise, with Showalter co-writing and starring in Wet Hot American Summer (2001), and the Netflix series. Showalter wrote and directed The Baxter (2005), in which he starred with Michelle Williams, Justin Theroux, and Elizabeth Banks. Both films featured many of his co-stars from The State, and so do several of his other projects. Showalter is also a co-creator, co-producer, actor, and writer for the TV series Search Party. He directed the 2017 film The Big Sick and the 2021 film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, both of which were critically acclaimed.
Camp Modin is a Jewish summer camp in New England. It was established in 1922 in what is now Lake George Regional Park in Canaan, Maine. In 1992 the camp moved to Salmon Lake in Maine's Belgrade Lakes region. An early example of a summer camp intended to provide Jewish children with Hebrew, religious, and cultural education as well as recreation, Camp Modin has been described as "the prototype for camps sponsored by every branch of the community, from socialist Zionists to Orthodox Jews."
Anthony David Miles is an American actor, writer and comedian. He was head writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from 2014 to 2017, which he helped to develop. As an actor, he is best known as step-dad Gary on the Fallon skit Ew! and as Marty Shonson on Comedy Central's Dog Bites Man. He has also appeared in multiple other Fallon sketches, such as a member of the Ragtime Gals and Mr. Fletcher in the sketches in which Fallon and Justin Timberlake sing songs at their childhood camp. He also appeared in recurring roles on both Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
John M. Slattery Jr. is an American actor and director. He is known for his role as Roger Sterling in the AMC drama series Mad Men (2007–15), for which he was nominated 4 times for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. For his role he won two Critics' Choice Television Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Stella is a comedy trio or comedy troupe consisting of Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, and David Wain. The group formed in 1997 as a weekly nightclub comedy attraction, performing at New York City nightclub Fez from 1997 until the club's closing in February 2005. Stella soon gained a wider cult following after a series of self-produced shorts known as the Stella shorts were released in limited quantities on DVD beginning in 2002. The trio later created and starred in a Stella television series in 2005. Now known for their unique blend of potentially mainstream comedy and surrealist humor, Stella has garnered a small but dedicated fanbase.
Marisa Ryan is an American actress, best known for her role as Nina Grabowski in the HBO series Sex and the City, as Elizabeth Cooper-MacGillis in the CBS sitcom Major Dad (1989–1993), and as Abby Bernstein in the 2001 comedy film Wet Hot American Summer, its Netflix prequel series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015) and its Netflix sequel series Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017).
Joe Lo Truglio is an American actor and comedian. Best known for his role as Charles Boyle on the Fox/NBC sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, he also was a cast member on the television series The State and Reno 911!. His notable film roles include Wet Hot American Summer, I Love You, Man, Superbad, Paul, Role Models, and Wanderlust.
Childrens Hospital is an American dark comedy television and web series that parodies the medical drama genre, created by and starring actor/comedian Rob Corddry. The series began on the web on TheWB.com with ten episodes, roughly five minutes in length, all of which premiered on December 8, 2008. Adult Swim picked up the rights to the show in 2009 and began airing episodes in 2010.
Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later is an American satirical comedy television miniseries set in 1991 in a summer camp and New York City.
Paul Rudd is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. His career began in 1992 when he played a recurring role in the television series Sisters until 1995. In 1995, he made his film debut opposite Alicia Silverstone in the cult film Clueless, and starred as Tommy Doyle in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. The following year, he played Dave Paris in Baz Luhrmann's romantic drama Romeo + Juliet. He co-starred in the ensemble comedy film Wet Hot American Summer (2001), and had further comedic roles in Role Models (2008) with Seann William Scott and I Love You, Man (2009) with Jason Segel.
Wet Hot American Summer is an American satirical comedy media franchise created by David Wain and Michael Showalter with stories centered on Camp Firewood, a summer camp located near Waterville, Maine. Since the release of the 2001 film, the franchise has expanded to include a documentary film, two television series, two books, a tabletop role-playing game and a soundtrack.
Medical Police is an American comedy television series, created by Rob Corddry, Krister Johnson, Jonathan Stern and David Wain, that premiered on Netflix on January 10, 2020. It is a spin-off of the short-form alt-comedy series Childrens Hospital, that parodied medical dramas, whereas Medical Police is a parody of international spy thrillers. The series stars Erinn Hayes and Rob Huebel as Childrens Hospital doctors Lola Spratt and Owen Maestro. When they discover a world-threatening virus, they are recruited as government agents in a globe-spanning race to find a cure. In the process, they unmask a deep conspiracy amidst the outbreak. Released during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the series' depiction of a global disease outbreak has been described as "inadvertently timely."
The State is an American comedy troupe. The troupe was founded by a group of New York University students in 1988, as an offshoot of the NYU improv comedy group The Sterile Yak; it was briefly named The New Group before landing on the name The State. The troupe's members are Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black, Robert Ben Garant, Todd Holoubek, Michael Patrick Jann, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter and David Wain. As a group, the troupe is best known for creating and starring in the 1993-1995 MTV sketch comedy series The State. However, since the show aired, members of the troupe have frequently collaborated on other television and film projects, including Viva Variety, Reno 911!, and the Wet Hot American Summer media franchise. The comedy group Stella is composed of three of The State's members, Showalter, Black and Wain, and starred in the 2005 sketch comedy series Stella, among other works. Additionally, some members of The State have achieved independent success as comic actors, writers and directors.
