Worst to Best: Every I Think You Should Leave Sketch Part One

Welcome friends to the first of many articles that I am planning to write where I dissect and critique some of my favourite pieces of media AS IF I KNOW ANY BETTER.

Season Three of I Think You Should Leave came out over six months ago, however it feels necessary to let sketches like the ones dreamed up Tim Robinson simmer in my mind for a while before making any judgements on them. Today, the simmering is done and it’s time to taste test these sketches and compare them with the moulds ones in the fridge. Have they aged like a fine wine or cheese, or gone off like most other things?

Television sketch shows are a mixed bag, and arguably most of their success comes from the meme-ification of all their best moments, as opposed to the actual quality of each individual episode. I recall a formative moment in my life as a ‘critic’ when I first sat down at age 14 to watch the entirety of Monty Python’s Flying Circus from start to finish. As a big fan of The Holy Grail, I was excited to watch what I assumed would just be the same level of quality, but twelve times as long. What I discovered however, was the painful truth of sketch shows: the majority of the sketches suck.

Partly to blame is that many sketch shows aim for cultural relevancy in the period that they are released, meaning that many references become quickly dated, or even lose all context entirely. I truly wish I could understand why Michael Palin wearing overalls and a hanky on his head is funny or even remotely connected to some obscure bit of British culture, but alas the history books are blank.

All of this is to say that I have found several outliers to this. Big Train, by virtue of being so short and sweet has a surprisingly high hit rate. Mr Show, manages to stay relevant due to how its counter-cultural aesthetic still appeals today. Comedy Bang Bang benefits from not even feeling like a sketch show, due to an endlessly returnable central premise. Many programs not mentioned here are also great, but I wager that most viewer’s personal experience with them is through watching ‘best of’ compilations on YouTube as opposed to actually sitting down and watching through the seasons chronologically.

Admittedly, this is a poor way to judge a program. Sketch shows aren’t explicitly designed to be watched in this way. However, I Think You Should Leave is the single greatest sketch show. With each episode clocking in at under 20 minutes, you never feel like the show is out-staying its welcome, and that alone pushes it far and above other shows of its ilk.

After such a long and unnecessary essay on comedy (get used to it on this site), without much further ado, let us get deep into the weird and wonderful world of Tim Robinson.

83. Poop Impersonator

Prior to Season Three, I classified only five sketches in this show as being ‘bad’. Despite Season Three being an incredible season of TV, this number has now doubled. I still believe that those sketches are not so much ‘bad’ as underdeveloped. Except for these next three sketches, which are almost embarrassing.

The worst of the worst of these is ‘Poop Impersonator’. The premise of the sketch is that Tim Robinson’s character has hired a doppelgänger of a co-worker to do enormous dumps at work… for some reason. The main comedy of the sketch is intended to come from the fact that Tim has gone to a Herculean effort for seemingly no reason other than sheer pettiness - which is not a rare trait for Robinson’s characters. This means we are treading far too familiar waters, with none of the usual laughs. Halfway through, the sketch seems fed up with this premise and tries jumping in a few different directions but not even these asides are particularly funny.

Best line: “His voice is wildly high” - The one funny moment of the sketch works well as a punchline, and perhaps had the entire sketch been more in regards to how little Tim’s character truly knew about the vocal oddities of the doppelgänger he had hired, it may have made it a better sketch.

82. Don Bondarley, King of the Dirty Songs

In the fine tradition of ITYSL, this sketch centers around the casting of an older, out-of-touch man, poised to deliver his lines in ways that have never before been uttered by any actor. However, this time it just… doesn’t work? I don’t think the writing is to blame, as the concept is wonderfully absurd and Bondarley’s repeated failures to remember his dirty ditties are funny in concept (as are Robinson’s characters repeated insistence that Bondarley is THE KING). However, the performance is of Bondarley is almost too subtle, less crazed and unexpected than some of the ITYSL greats. The end result is that you may end up feeling just like one of the guys in that room, just waiting for the sketch to end so that you can jack off.

Best line: “Shut up about the fucking restaurant”.

81. Gelutol

This is a long sketch. Not Calico Pants long but long enough to very quickly get tired of the repeated jokes surrounding hair loss and sex talks. This sketches feels muddled and shallow. Robinson’s characters don’t usually need much more than pettiness as a motivator but in this sketch, it feels undeveloped with no purpose. Even so, the fact that the sketch is set at a St Patrick’s Day party is brilliant.

Best line: “I don’t like him. I don’t want him to have hair”

80. Whoopee Cushion

Maybe I’m being too harsh on this sketch. We’ve got mudpies, we’ve got some memorable lines that I even find myself quoting sometimes, and we have a patented Tim Robinson breakdown. Yet, if someone were to claim that most of the sketches are just a sad man shouting his way through an awkward social encounter, then this is the sketch that most perfectly follows that formula without enough deviation or inventiveness to justify itself.

Best line: “So what’s the joke? That I had a milder fart than I normally do?”

79. Friend Tier

Sometimes, an ITYSL sketch is able to deftly move between the beats of a sketch effortlessly. Other times, like in “Friend Tier” the beats are trotted out clumsily. A pay-to-win friend group is a great comedy premise. and then suddenly we are moved swiftly to a different sketch about a guy controlling his friends diet, and then swiftly again to a fart joke. I don’t mind a sketch barreling through concepts like many of Robinson’s do, but not a single one of the ones on display here really work.

Best line: “I think the main problem of my friend group is I have to pay to be in it”

78. Little Buff Boys Part 2

This is more of a short callback than it is a sketch in itself and even then, it doesn’t really feel worthwhile considering the original sketch is not a whole lot better. It’s an odd sketch that somehow manages to outstay its welcome despite only being a minute.

Best line: “People say it’s healthy but with that much cherry and that much ground chuck, it can’t be healthy”.

77. Lifetime Achievement Award

Another sketch that feels like it follows all of the rules of an ITYSL sketch, but fails to deliver. Robinson makes an innocuous lie, someone calls that lie out. Cue shouting. Also one of the few sketches where Robinson is in any way hiding his normal appearance. It doesn’t affect the placement of this sketch, but I don’t see why he needed glasses and a moustache considering how rarely he wears a ‘costume’ in this show. It was even hard to find a line that I liked in this one. Arguably the most forgettable sketch in the entire show.

Best line: “That’s why I love Herbie Hancock, he loves to lie”

76. Babysitter Lie

This sketch starts off great. In fact, if the entire sketch was just the conversation that Robinson has with the other party guests about how his babysitter ended up in a hit-and-run, this would easily be at least a B-grade sketch. The second part of the sketch where Robinson is trying to ‘embarrass’ another guest at the party doesn’t work as well, with the attempts coming off as cringeworthy, but not funny.

Best line: “The cops came, they said ‘its fine’, they’re not, like, real people, kinda”.

75. Credit Card Roulette

When this sketch first started, I was so excited to finally see John Early appear in an ITYSL sketch. He should make a perfect addition to the world of the show, and yet he is unfortunately stiffed with one of the worst sketches of the second season. The initial turn, of the seemingly fun and happy Early abruptly refusing to pay for anyone’s meal, is the sketch’s highpoint, but it takes almost two minutes just to get there. And then the sketch just… keeps going? Even the addition of the hilarious waiter brothers can’t save this sketch.

Best line: “I’m not paying it”.

74. Farewell Ronnie

LET ME EXPLAIN! LET ME EXPLAIN!

This is not the original “Summer Loving” sketch from Season 3, which is undoubtedly one of the season’s highlights. This, is the very short callback to that sketch, which is just a montage of Tim Robinson diving into a pool from a zip-line. As much as I love seeing this, it’s a callback that feels like we’re just hitting the beats we hit two episodes ago.

Best line: “Move! Losers! Move!”

73. Surprise Party

Even still in the bottom twenty, from here on out, every sketch is at the very least ‘good’, and quite unsurprisingly this accounts for over 80% of the show’s sketches but…

Oh what a waste of Patti Harrison this is.

Yes, she is a rat mum. The whole rat mum conversation is hilarious and almost saves this sketch, placing it higher, if not for the fact that there are just so many good sketches in this show. I think the problem for me with this one, is that it feels like Patti is underutilized and that the concept of her revenge is just not pushed far enough. Also, the revenge is maybe just a little… too random? Why is she trying to poison the cardboard cut-out? It feels like we missed a beat somewhere here.

Best line: “Dogs are to Steven what rats are to me”.

72. Detective Crashmore Trailer

Despite the fact that I really love the second Detective Crashmore sketch, the first appearance of the hyper-violent vigilante played by Santa Claus, still makes it into the bottom twenty. Despite a really fun premise making fun of the latest trend of bloody kinetic action movies starring old men, this sketch just doesn’t feel like an ITYSL sketch. Advertisement parodies - absolutely fit in the universe. A violent movie trailer? Just not the house style. Maybe it’s because there are no long meandering monologues. Thankfully, the next Crashmore sketch fixes this.

Best line: “Are you dumb?”

71. Surf’s Up

This is a head scratcher. I like it, it’s funny. But the office antics don’t ring true in the way they do in a sketch like ‘Bozo Dubbed Over’. Robinson’s attempts to weasel out in this sketch are as funny as always, but there isn’t enough resistance against him. Almost like he gets away with it too easily this time. But not in a way that subverts things like in ‘Gift Receipt’.

Best moment: That table flip is pretty funny, I gotta admit.

70. Ponytail

There is definitely a sliding scale on how amusing Will Forte’s screaming can be. If you’re a fan, then this sketch could easily be in the top fifteen. if you’re not, like myself, then it ends up ranking quite low. The many many escalations on this sketch are brilliant, from Forte’s naked ponytail shot, to his attempts to get his reservation moved, to his cajoling the fellow ponytailed-man across the street. All great. But thee’s just something about Forte’s OTT style here that scratches my brain in the wrong way. Put this down to personal preference, which is the case for much of this list, so strap in and let the controversial opinions continue!

Best line: “Ray says the maitre d’s seen this picture before”

69. Dog Hair

A perfect visual gag, does not quite a good sketch make. The last minute switch to Robinson’s character revealing that he actually wants two girlfriends is a fun reversal but doesn’t quite elevate this one to classic status.

Best Line: “But… Cranston!”

68. Carber Vac

This advertisement for a hotdog sucking vacuum, constructed simply to solve the problem that Robinson’s character experiences in the first sketch of season 2: “Lunch Meeting” is a great demonstration of how to do a callback sketch. It doesn’t repeat the jokes of the first, but enhances them. Otherwise though, it doesn’t do much else, hence why still sitting on the lower end of the spectrum.

Best line: “You sure it wasn’t ‘cause after the thing that happened to me, no one could look at me without dying laughing?”

67. Job Interview

The one that started it all. A simple sketch with a simple premise that somehow manages to perform the lofty task of setting up the comedic tone of the series. The sketch encapsulates the central flaw to all of Tim Robinson’s characters: that they will all fight impossibly hard to save face after even the most sleight of social infractions.

Best moment: This sketch is relatively sparse of dialogue, so for me I give this to the moment that a single line of drool begins to cascade from Robinson’s bottom lip.

66. Lunch Meeting

We have back to back premiere sketches here with the first sketch of Season 2 next on the ranking. Just the image of Robinson gnawing at a sleeved hotdog is funny enough, but his patented choking and struggling drags us perfectly into the new season. Despite that, it’s not the best sketch featuring hotdogs, and it’s not the best sketch featuring Robinson choking either. 

Best line: “He’s like a wild animal!”