sketch

A That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which a customer tries to buy a gift for his aunt in a shop that keeps pushing him toward extras.

A classic 1967 comedy sketch from At Last the 1948 Show, with Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman as four prosperous Yorkshiremen trying to outdo each other with exaggerated tales of childhood poverty. It is the precursor to the version later performed by Monty Python.

A classic sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie in which a man at a police station has a surname that is very hard to pronounce. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie play it out as a comic exchange.

A comedy sketch of a business meeting in which an engineer, the expert, is asked to do impossible things like draw red lines with blue ink.

Lily Tomlin's classic 1976 Saturday Night Live sketch as telephone operator Ernestine, mocking the monopolistic Bell phone company with the line 'We don't care. We don't have to.' It is a one-minute parody of arrogant corporate indifference.

A TV show about Ivan Sutherland's 1963 MIT thesis software Sketchpad, which ran on the TX-2 computer. It shows a light pen drawing, constraints, snapping, scaling and object-style graphics, foundations of GUIs and CAD.

Earliest known footage of Ivan Sutherland's MIT PhD work, Sketchpad, the first computer graphics system, with commentary by Alan Kay. It shows light-pen drawing with constraints in a short clip.

Brian Peiris demonstrates RiftSketch, a web app where you write JavaScript with Three.js while wearing an Oculus Rift and watch the world around you change live. It runs on Firefox builds with WebVR.

A one-minute Key & Peele sketch about planning a heist with a foolproof plan that has one small flaw.

A short Whitest Kids U' Know sketch, with Spanish subtitles, in which a man repeatedly announces he wants to kill the president. It satirizes how speech and threats are policed.

A Fry and Laurie sketch about language, full of absurd phrases and wordplay, which also plays on the distinction between langue and parole.

The Monty Python sketch in which four wealthy Yorkshiremen try to outdo each other with exaggerated tales of childhood poverty.

The classic Monty Python 'Argument Clinic' sketch, lightly trimmed, in which a man pays for an argument and gets contradiction instead.

A Little Britain sketch featuring the 'Computer says no' catchphrase, in which a clerk refuses requests by deferring to her computer.

The classic Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch from Live at the Hollywood Bowl, in which four men try to outdo each other with exaggerated tales of childhood hardship.

A one-minute clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian in which revolutionaries grudgingly list everything the Romans have done for them, from roads to clean water. It is a satirical sketch about refusing to credit a disliked group.

A Studio C sketch in which Captain Literally, a superhero who takes the word literally in its strict sense, causes absurd and painful outcomes. It is a short comedy bit about the misuse of the word.

A Key & Peele sketch in which an inner-city substitute teacher, Mr. Garvey, keeps mangling the names of his middle-class students during attendance.

The Monty Python sketch in which a man uses a mistranslated Hungarian phrasebook with absurd results, followed by the courtroom scene.

A Mr. Show sketch, 'Blow Up the Moon', in which characters cheerfully argue for blowing up the moon.

An SNL sketch in which George Washington, played by Nate Bargatze, tells his soldiers his dream for the country.

A Monty Python sketch about the Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things.

A classic Bob Newhart comedy sketch in which a therapist's only advice to a patient is to 'stop it'.

A Whitest Kids U Know sketch built around the idea that saying certain things about the President is illegal.

A clip from Mr. Show season 3 in which characters insist that 24 is the highest number. It is a short absurdist sketch about counting.

A short That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon trade jibes over whose job is harder. It is a BBC comedy clip from 2009.

The 'Machine that goes PING!' sketch from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, in which hospital staff fuss over a machine while ignoring the patient.

A sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, season 1 episode 4, featuring a 'Doctor Tobacco' routine.

The classic Monty Python sketch 'The Ministry of Silly Walks', in which a civil servant applies for a grant to develop his silly walk. It is a short, absurdist British comedy clip.

The Monty Python sketch "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook", in which a faulty phrasebook yields lines like "My hovercraft is full of eels".

Celery Man is a short Tim and Eric sketch in which Paul Rudd uses an absurd computer interface. It is a surreal comedy bit from their show.

A roughly three-minute Onion News Network satire in which a host consoles a severely depressed zoologist who spent his whole life studying anteaters. It is a short comedy sketch about wasted effort and misplaced obsession.

A short sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look in which the characters cheerfully propose a drastically callous solution to poverty. It is dark satirical comedy about cold policy logic.

A one-minute Monty Python sketch, 'How to Do It', which tells viewers how to rid the world of all known diseases in a deliberately glib way.

The classic Monty Python sketch in which a man visits an Argument Clinic to buy an argument. It is a wordplay-heavy bit about contradiction versus real argument.

The classic Monty Python sketch in which four Yorkshiremen compete to claim the hardest upbringing, each story more absurd than the last.

A Monty Python sketch in which Oscar Wilde, James Whistler and George Bernard Shaw trade witticisms in a stuffy literary salon with Bertie.

The classic Monty Python sketch in which a customer tries to return a dead parrot to a pet shop owner who insists it is only resting.

The Little Britain sketch in which call-center worker Carol types into her computer and replies 'computer says no' to every request.

A Ryan George comedy sketch about the absurdities of shopping on Amazon, including nonsense brand names, fake reviews and scammy sellers.