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troperville

They usually have a stable of comic stereotypes, used in a series of sketches, with no continuity. Each show will include a few sketches about each of the iconic characters interspersed with one-off sketches.

Particularly successful sketches may be spun-off into a Sitcom or a movie (such is the case of Saturday Night Live, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV).

The show may include musical numbers or a stand-up act, but only as a minor element. Sometimes, when the various iconic characters are shown interacting, the show may border on being a plotless Sitcom. Conversely, a Negative Continuity Sitcom may be accused of being a Sketch Show.

Compare with Variety Show. See also Anthology Film, which might be this applied to the big screen.

Examples

Aaagh Its The Mr Hell Show
Absolutely
The Adam And Joe Show
All That! was a teenage sketch comedy show on Nickelodeon, and had a movie based on the "Good Burger" sketch (featuring Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson). One of the cast members (Kenan Thompson) would later be a cast member for Saturday Night Live (becoming the first Nickelodeon veteran to be an SNL cast member, and the first one to be born after SNL's premiere year, 1975).
Almost Live
The Amanda Show, All That!'s spinoff. Featured Taran Killam, who, like Kenan Thompson, was a Nickelodeon child star who is now a cast member on Saturday Night Live and was born after SNL premiered in 1975. Unlike Thompson, however, Killam was born in 1982 and appeared on SNL's rival sketch show, MA Dtv ^note before moving on to SNL.
The Andy Milonakis Show
The Armando Iannucci Shows
The Benny Hill Show
The Ben Stiller Show
The Big Gay Sketch Show: A sketch show on Logo that can best be described as Saturday Night Live + MA Dtv + a lot of jokes about the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning sexuality lifestyle (some of which are, according to critics, a little more well-written than what other sketch shows have done). Erica Ash and Kate McKinnon stand out as the only two cast members from this show who have moved on to others; Erica Ash was on the final season ^note of "MA Dtv" while Kate McKinnon is now a cast member on SNL.
Big Train
A Bit Of Fry And Laurie
Blue Collar TV: Made by the same producers who created MA Dtv
Bruiser
The Burkiss Way
Camera Caf�
The Catherine Tate Show
Chappelles Show: One of Comedy Central's most popular sketch shows
The Chaser's War On Everything
Cheech And Chong's Still Smokin and Get Out Of My Room are non-television versions of this trope.
Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza
The Electric Company (the 1970s version featuring a young Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, and Skip Hinnant^note)
Exit 57
Fast And Loose
Fast Forward
The Fast Show
Fist Of Fun
The Frantics

Fridays, an early 1980s sketch show that aired on ABC on Friday nights at 11:30pm. Played out like Saturday Night Live if the sketches were crazier, had better production value, and focused on the Stoners Are Funny trope ^note. The show had Michael Richards (yes, the same Michael Richards who played Kramer on Seinfeld...and later got in trouble for using the n-word during his stand-up act at the Laugh Factory), Larry David (the creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm), and Melanie Chartoff (the voice of Didi Pickles and her mom, Minka, on Rugrats and its Spin-Off, All Grown Up; on Fridays, she was the hot chick of the cast and the anchor for Friday Night News) as cast members. Lasted until 1982 after ABC failed at making Fridays a primetime sketch show instead of a late-night one (as it suffered a time change in 1981 when ABC wanted Nightline to air five days a week instead of four) due to the popularity of primetime soap opera Dallas.

French And Saunders
Gabba Gabba: Formerly ''Yo Gabba Gabba!"
Harry Enfield And Chums
- Harry And Paul
Hee Haw: A long-running sketch show filled with American Southern/country humor.
Hello Cheeky
Horrible Histories
Human Giant
Hype, a WB sketch comedy show featuring sketches that made fun of celebrities and pop culture. Lasted one season. Included then-future MA Dtv cast members Frank Caliendo and Daniele Gaither — and featured writing by former SNL writer and cast member Terry Sweeney *
(no relation to Julia Sweeney; Terry was a writer for Jean Doumanian's abysmal 1980-1981 season, was cast member during SNL's 11th season in 1985 [which almost got the show canceled due to falling ratings and audiences getting sick of the show], and is the first — and, so far, only — male SNL cast member who was openly gay [and had a gay lover who also worked with him as his comedy writing partner, Lanier Laney])
Important Things With Demetri Martin
Incredible Crew
In Living Color — FOX's urban (read: black) answer to Saturday Night Live. Featured Jim Carrey ^note, Jamie Foxx ^note, Jennifer Lopez ^note, and Damon Wayans ^note.
Jam
Key And Peele: Comedy Central's latest sketch show featuring MA Dtv's Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. This show, along with the Cartoon Network show MAD, can be considered a Spiritual Successor of MA Dtv (which, despite its cancellation on FOX, was slated to be revived and put on cable television).
The Kids In The Hall — a Canadian sketch show produced by Lorne Michaels. Mark McKinney was a cast member for both this show and SNL.
Ka Blam!
The League of Gentlemen is somewhere between this and a Sitcom
Los Rayos Gama (The Gamma Rays) Puerto Rican comedy TV show dedicated to social satire.
Little Britain
MA Dtv — Saturday Night Live's rival sketch show from 1995-2009. Is considered the longest-running sketch show on FOX and the longest-running dueling show to SNL. Has a Spiritual Successor in the form of the Cartoon Network sketch show MAD and Comedy Central's Key & Peele and two cast members who have jumped ship from MA Dtv to be on SNL (Jeff Richards — who lasted on SNL from 2001 to mid-2004 — and Taran Killam — who joined the SNL cast in 2010 and is still on the show). It should be noted that the premise of a sketch comedy show based on MAD Magazine (be it animated like the Cartoon Network version or live-action like the FOX version) is not exactly a new idea: in the early 1970s, a pilot was made for an animated sketch show based on MAD Magazine, using all the artwork for their movie and TV show parodies (the pilot had parodies of The Godfather and Columbo), along with their satirical pieces, like "The Parent Awards." The pilot has never aired on TV (as executives thought it wouldn't appeal to anyone) and now exists as a rare treasure that's somewhere out on the Internet.
Man Stroke Woman
The Mary Whitehouse Experience
The Micallef Program
Mind Of Mencia: The successor to Chappelle's Show. Achieved some controversy after Mencia was accused by several comics of stealing jokes in his stand-up act.
Monty Python's Flying Circus - spawned two sketch movies: And Now For Something Completely Different (a collection of favorite sketches from the series) and Monty Python's Meaning Of Life. Is considered one of the most popular sketch shows listed here.
- Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a cross between a sketch movie and a concert film.
Mosquito: Of the more surreal variety.
Mr Show: based on the independent comedy scene of The Nineties, headed by David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.
Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy
Not Only But Also
Not Necessarily the News
Not the 9 O'Clock News
Olde English Comedy
The Onion Movie
The Peter Serafinowicz Show
Portlandia: Features Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live
The Red Green Show
Robot Chicken, a stop-motion animated sketch show.
Royal Canadian Air Farce
Roundhouse: Before All That, Nickelodeon had this sketch show on their SNICK line-up.
Rowan And Martins Laugh In � a chaotic late-1960s sketch show that, very much like SNL, aired on NBC and was considered edgy and shocking in its day (unlike SNL, however, Laugh-In didn't last as long as SNL). Lorne Michaels wrote for Laugh-In before he created Saturday Night Live. It had a one-episode Spin-Off on ABC called Turn-On that was so bad, it got cancelled as quickly as it premiered on some affilates (other affiliates either didn't air the show at all or aired the entire thing before deciding to can it). A second episode of Turn-On was produced but never broadcast (though some museums dedicated to TV history have shown it, often as part of exhibits dedicated to TV shows that were either really bad, very short-lived, or practically unknown to modern audiences). Here's a clip of the sketches that would have aired had the show continued.
Rutland Weekend Television
Saturday Night Live � longest-running sketch show on NBC and American television in general (is now in its 38th season); has survived everything from national crises to fluctuating pop culture trends to rival sketch shows seeking to take its place (with varying levels of success) to Seasonal Rot in the form of cast and crew turnover, threats of cancellation, and fickle audiences who embrace the show one minute, then trash it the next. Is considered the place for young sketch and improv comedians and comedy writers to gain fame.
Seth Mac Farlanes Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy: A one-episode special that aired on FOX.
Short Ribbs, a 1989 sketch show broadcast only in Los Angeles, featured Billy Barty, Patty Maloney and three other male dwarfs. Notable also because two of the show's writers filed separate lawsuits against Barty in small claims court for unpaid wages. Barty lost both lawsuits.
SMBC Theater, a sketch comedy series on YouTube by the makers of SMBC.
So Random!: A retool of Sonny With A Chance after Demi Levato left the show for rehab.
Sorry I've Got No Head
The Sifl and Olly Show: A bizarre sketch show on MTV consisting of sock puppets and very low production values.
The Sketch Show, both the British original and the American remake that aired on FOX (and got canceled).
Smack The Pony
The Smell Of Reeves And Mortimer
Spitting Image
The Stan Freberg Show on radio in 1957 was an earlier example.
The State: An MTV sketch show/hidden camera prank show
The Steam Video Company
Studio 3 is a children's example that airs between shows on the ABC 3 channel in Australia.
Switch! — German show spoofing various other TV programs.
Thank God Youre Here
That Mitchell And Webb Look
Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job - Sketch comedy's worst nightmare.
- Check It Out With Dr Steve Brule - Sketch comedy's worst nightmare's nightmare.
The Two Ronnies
Wacko — a short-lived Saturday daytime (noon EST) show on CBS in 1977, with hosts Bo Kaprall and Julie McWhirter.
Was Guckst Du?! — could roughly described as the German Chappelle's Show.
Wayne and Shuster
The Wedge
The Whitest Kids U Know
Whose Line Is It Anyway?, an Improv sketch show.
Die Wochenshow, a News Parody, was in Germany of the nineties and early 2000s the prime example for Sketch Comedy.
Yeralash
You Can't Do That on Television, a Canadian kids' skitcom which Nickelodeon imported. It was heavily inspired by Laugh-In.
Youre Skitting Me
Your Show of Shows: The televised sketch show that paved the way for such shows as Laugh-In, Monty Python and SNL, among others.