The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time

This has been getting heavy coverage in the blog-o-mo-sphere, but on the off chance that you might have missed it (or passed up a chance to look):

The highbrow cinemaphiles at IFC and the brainy sex kittens at Nerve have combined resources to write their Top 50 list for television sketch comedy:

There's no more sure-fire way to kill something's intrinsic comedic value than to try to examine what makes it funny. The minute you start thinking, you stop laughing. So why, then, have Nerve and IFC.com devoted an enormous amount of time, manpower, monetary resources, server space and posh catered lunches to the pursuit of ranking the boob tube's finest sketch comedy offerings?

In part, we're here because magical new technology (*coughYouTubecough*) allows us to do more than just pontificate for paragraphs on end — now we can pontificate for paragraphs on end and provide audio-visual evidence to back up those pontifications. We provide the context, share our thoughts and feelings and let you commence with the guffawing and, naturally, the disagreeing. After all, the comedy sketch — short, sweet, completely silly or shot through with social commentary — worms its way into the public mind like nothing else, and has easily made the leap to the web when other forms have faltered.

This list is a lot of fun.

IFC: 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches
Nerve: 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches