Get ready to get dizzy with comedy.
Taking from the grand tradition of shows like “SCTV” and, to a lesser extent, “Mr. Show,” the crew at “Late Night with Seth Meyers” dipped their toes into the meta show-within-a-show world on Wednesday night, devoting over five minutes to “The Greatest Sketch Ever.”
See video: Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally Pop Their Late Night Cherry with Seth Meyers
This works in multiple ways.
First, the show-within-the-show was working to mount an incredibly ambitious sketch — the Greatest Ever, in fact — that included a rich old industrialist-type, a chicken, a hick in a box, an astronaut and an elephant, among other seemingly random elements. Of course, in reality, there was never actually a sketch constructed with those characters… except for the sketch about the failure of a sketch built around the hodgepodge of costumed writers.
Five minutes of well-planned interruptions, non-sequitors and nonsense later, Meyers and his staff delivered what they promised: The Greatest Sketch Ever. Or, at least a pretty fun one, anyway.