The Whitest Kids U Know is an uncensored sketch comedy show that began airing on Fuse TV (the former American feed of MuchMusic) in 2007, then switched to IFC in 2008. The cast members are Sam Brown, Zach Cregger, Timmy Williams, Darren Trumeter, and the late Trevor Moore. They're currently most famous for the "Slow Jerk" sketch, the "Abe Lincoln" sketch (in which Abe Lincoln is a loutish boor who annoys John Wilkes Booth to the point of assassinating him), and the "New Thing" sketch, which was (without the WKUK's permission) ripped off shamelessly by Budweiser. Most of their sketches fall under the following categories: Presidential Assassinations (with Zach as Abe Lincoln/Ronald Reagan/JFK, Trevor as John Wilkes Booth/John Hinckley/Lee Harvey Oswald, Sam as George H.W. Bush/Lyndon B. Johnson, and Darren as a Secret Service officer), Drag sketches (most often with Darren or Timmy as the girl), or just plain weird ones (Saturday, Opus, etc).
They've occasionally come into conflict with the higher-ups of Fuse (the censoring of swearing and sexual content led them to move the show to Fuse's then-sibling IFC) and even IFC (making them do 15-minute-long shows rather than half-hour long). But for the most part, they have full creative control of their sketches.
General tropes provided by the series:
- Black Comedy:
- Some of their sketches are extremely dark. One quote: "Children, I have some terrible news. One of your mothers was just killed in a car accident. Who wants to guess whose mother it was for a sucker? Huh?"
- "Kid Mechanic" is one example played straight, to horrifying effect. A father notices his child has fallen over and takes him to a mechanic under the mistaken belief that this is how to fix "broken" kids, resulting in the boy being hacked up and having his guts pulled out. After learning his mistake, he tries to tell his wife about it, who herself feels foolish for accidentally burning her parents to death by mistaking a pizza oven for their hotel room.
- "Baby Factory" takes it up to 11... then up to 12.
- "We have to go save 9/11!"
- "Kitty History" would be pretty dark if not for the upbeat-sounding song and the fact that every historical character is being played by a Cute Kitten.
- Black Comedy Rape: The Grapist supposedly isn't a rapist but the way he acts in the commercials make it worryingly possible.Ad Pitcher: He sneaks into little kids' rooms in the middle of the night, and he grapes them in the mouth!
- And later...Executive: These kids were obviously horrified!
Ad Pitcher: Not that girl! Look - she's totally asking for it. Look at her! She's begging to get Graped!
- And later...
- Bowdlerise: A rather unusual example... it seems Youtube decided that "The Jizzle" was too raunchy for a video title and renamed it to "the aueter". Even though they let stuff like Jizz In My Pants by without censorship...
- Dude Looks Like a Lady:
- Darren, even though when not in drag he's pretty obviously a guy. Except then there's that "Weird the Stripper" sketch... the, er, makeup job was so pinpoint perfect that it looks uncanny. And the "Dog Poop" sketch which at first you really think it's a real girl.
- It's pretty disturbing how convincing a lot of the guys are as women... especially Timmy, who could easily pass as someone's mom.
- Lampshaded in the Yellow Mustard sketch, where a news report has Timmy's character in drag, and the caption is "cross-dresser"
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: While the series doesn't shy away from swearing at all, Trevor specifically swore far less than the rest of the cast.
- Word of God says this is due to Trevor's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
- That said this is subverted hard in Trevor's post WKUK career. His musical stand-up in particular has no reservations at all about swearing. See the Pope Rap (Modern Day Profit), where he drops repeated f-bombs, which is a notable change from earlier WKUK material but is generally unremarkable compared to his other songs.
- Large Ham: Zach's characters tend to be this when he doesn't play the straight man.
- Nothing Is Funnier: Most of the sketches on the troupe's Self-Titled Album rely on this, with "Russian Roulette" in particular leaving the events of the game to the listener's imagination.
- Overly Long Gag: A lot of their sketches rely on this. "People like you think that the devil..."
- Precision F-Strike: A common technique to end a sketch. If the entire sketch has been carefully devoid of profanity, expect to see this in action.
- Refuge in Audacity: And how.
- The Reveal: Many sketches end this way. A common gag is to have a sketch go in a seemingly normal direction until a wacky twist shows up at the end (Such as in "Jaws," or the one with the Clap On, Clap Off Rasta Drummer)
- Sassy Black Woman: One reoccurring character is a fat black woman who usually says "oh HELLLL no!" when outraged.
Specific sketches from The Whitest Kids U Know give examples of:
- Accidental Innuendo: Discussed In-Universe. During the Grapist sketch, one of the executives previewing the commercial practically states that the commercial is implying rape as a good thing.
- Acting Unnatural: The sketch "Mrs. President."
- Affectionate Parody: "Sam in a Bag" was a parody of Afterschool Specials. Don't take pots, kids.
- Aggressive Negotiations: A company merger just wouldn't be complete without a sniper, assault rifles, flash bombs, and a mortar round.
- Alien Autopsy: One sketch sees a team of doctors at Area 51 beginning to perform one such autopsy on an alien corpse recovered from Roswell.
- Anachronism Stew: The opening narration of one sketch describes American forces closing in on Nazi President Adolf Hitler at Christmastime in 1944. As they are about to break into the bunker, one soldier shouts out "We're comin' to getcha, ya Jew bastard!" They then find Charlie Chaplin inside. He distracts them with his shenanigans, then takes one of their bolt-action rifles and fires it like a machine gun. Hitler then thanks his "Best Friend" for saving his life once again.note
- Artistic License – History: Played for Laughs; The Abe Lincoln sketch depicts Lincoln getting beaten in the ass with a claw hammer by John Wilkes Booth for acting like an obnoxious douchebag during a production of "Hamlet", where Hamlet and Othello (played here by Timmy) fight vampires.
- As You Know: Lampshaded in End of Space.
- Author Filibuster:
- The "Backseat" sketch points out how socialism is really the most beneficial form of government as it treats all people equally, while capitalism teaches the exact opposite of the principles of every religion in the world while playing on man's flaws. The joke is that this is what sets off the driver.
- "Kitty History" quickly turns into a song about the conspiracy theory that Lyndon Johnson and the CIA had JFK assassinated so the former could profit off of the Vietnam War, which started a chain of events that led to the current state of American politics.
- Bears Are Bad News: "Is that what you want? Invincible bears runnin' around, rapin' your churches, burnin' your women?"
- Berserk Button: "PIZZA'S NOT FOR BREAKFAST!"
- Big "NO!" / Big "SHUT UP!": Utilized (thrice in the latter's case) in "Give Me the Guns".Firing Squad Leader: Mr. Frank Rosenthorp, you have been found guilty of treason. And it has been decided that you shall be put to death by firing squad.Rosenthorp: NOOOOOOOO!Firing Squad Leader: Shut up! (Rosenthorp does so)...Firing Squad Leader: (to firing squad) Now, on my mark, you will aim at the criminal and fire.Rosenthorp: If you dare!Firing Squad Leader: Shut UP!...Rosenthorp: (to firing squad, while the leader is constantly reshuffling the guns due to the squad's incompetence) You men, free me and tie him to the post, and I shall make thee king!Firing Squad Leader: SHUT! UP!!
- Bilingual Bonus: The Vietnamese in "Asian Hooker" hides a couple of funny lines.
- Black Comedy Rape:
- "I'M GONNA TIE YOU TO THE RADIATOR AND GRAPE YOU IN THE MOUTH! AND WHEN I'M FINISHED GRAPING YOU, I'M GONNA GO UPSTAIRS AND I'M GONNA GRAPE YOUR MOTHER, AND THEN YOUR FATHER, AND THEN I'M GOING TO TAKE YOUR WHOLE FAMILY DOWN TO THE BASEMENT AND GRAPE YOU ALL FOR DECADES AND DECADES AND DECADES AND DECAAAAADES!"
- "We gon' make love until you wake up..."
- Blaming the Victim: Parodied in the sketch "The Grapist". It involves a consultant pitching an ad for a creepy fruit soda mascot who's a blatant rape metaphor: he bursts into people's bedrooms (including children's) in the dead of night and "grapes" them in the mouth. At one point, the consultant claims that the little girl in the ad deserves to get graped.Consultant: Look at her! She's begging to get graped!Executive: Will you listen to what you're saying!?Consultant: Look at what she's wearing!Executive: Look at what she's wearing?!Consultant: It's purple!Executive: Oh. Wait, no, no no NO!
- Blatant Lies: The lies told by Trevor’s character in “Job Interview” start smallnote but rapidly balloonnote . It ends up working and he gets the job.
- Body Horror: The "Blue Whale Dick" sketch features two boys who've taken to surgically grafting animal genitalia to their faces, with the first having a whale penis on his head and the second having his mouth replaced with a giraffe vagina. May count as Squick as well.
- Cluster F-Bomb:
- Abraham Lincoln.
- Jacob in "Halloweiner"
Teacher: Why, hello Jacob! Happy Halloween. I see we're dressed as a little pirate this morning.Jacob: That's right! Now all you fucking buttfuckers better clean my deck!Teacher: Jacob! Go to the principal's office!Jacob: What the fuck for, you fucking bitch?!Teacher: You do not talk like that in school!Jacob: I'm a fucking pirate!Teacher: Go to the principal!Jacob: Shit! - Comically Missing the Point: This Sketch mixed with Too Dumb to Live and Artistic License – Biology.
- Could Say It, But...: Employed during It's illegal to say... .
- Cute Kitten: "Kitty History" has these in droves, though the subject matter is anything but cute.
- Deconstructed Trope: Many sketches run on Refuge in Audacity, but in the sketch "Throw Up Employee", a cashier named Brian throws up on a customer's food and refuses to own up to it. Instead, he tries giving away the food while saying "no refunds", lies that he's the manager when the customer complains, and even tries to gaslight the customer that he's acting crazy. When the real manager arrives, Brian lies that the customer threw up own his own food (only to get quickly refuted by another guy in line), refuses to go home when his boss tells him so, instead arguing that he's the one who's sick, tries to gaslight him into thinking he's acting crazy, and then makes a gay joke at his boss' expense, which gets him fired. Brian makes a further ass of himself by saying that his dad owns the restaurant (he doesn't; he's the town drunk) and while leaving, swears to God that he did not throw up, only to do it again.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Abraham Lincoln was actually hammered in the ass so much... that he died from being hammered in the ass."
- Disproportionate Retribution: Sex Robot is annoying and creepy, but other than that, he's harmless, never trying to fight back against his arrest or force anyone to have sex. Despite this, he ends up getting executed.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Nerf Nuke" rapidly becomes a metaphor for mutually assured destruction, detente, and nuclear proliferation, ending with the main kids agreeing not to increase their respective stockpiles of Nerf Nukes, then ganging up on a poor kid simply because he claims to have a Nerf Nuke (after having just said he was getting a Nerf Nuke), and they feel him even being interested in acquiring one is dangerous.
- Drop the Cow: A sketch where the boys continue to list off strip clubs (with increasingly disturbing names) is interrupted by the producer, who says that the sketch has no point. And then he starts listing more puns.
- Drugs Are Bad: Apparently, one smoke from marijuana can cause a moral, upstanding kid to become a evil, psychotic maniac. That kid's name? Adolf Hitler.
- Easily Forgiven: Despite Trevor’s interviewee in “Job Interview” lying about his college degree and making an ill-advised joke, all is forgiven thanks to his “good” (read: unblinking and bulging) eye contact.
- Erotic Asphyxiation: Trevor engages in the act in one sketch, only to end up killing himself. He then undergoes a massive Humiliation Conga trying to hide how he died as a ghost.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even the other prisoners find Sex Robot to be disturbing, asking if he can be moved to another cell and expressing disgust when he starts humping the cell bars.
- "Far Side" Island: "Island Cannibal" sketch
- Fridge Logic: Invoked, in regards to the ending of The Lord of the Rings.
- Friendly Enemy: Mr Welburn and Calvin in "Sniper Business" are business rivals willing to resort to hiring snipers and using mortars on each other to prevent/force a merger, but they also golf together and are cordial towards each others families.
- Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter: Said word for word in The Grapist."Sir! Get your MIND out of the gutter! He's a GRAPE! How is a grape gonna rape a... No!"
- Godwin's Law of Time Travel: Parodied. Apparently, just resetting your internet history is enough for Nazi zeppelins and Nazi dinosaurs with laser eyes to appear.
- G-Rated Drug: "Hot Dogs" both pokes fun at Timmy's weight and alcoholics-in-denial by having him give a run-through of how many hot dogs he eats on an average day. While he attempts to low-ball at only seven, Trevor eventually gets him to admit that he hits that quota by mere lunchtime.
- The Grim Reaper: Stumbles around making guttural animal noises, before devouring dead bodies and then depositing them in coffins... the hard way.
- Groin Attack: "Yeah dude, that's another new thing! If you use an incomplete sentence, you get kicked in the balls!"
- Haute Cuisine Is Weird: Subverted; in the skit, "Tar Toast", Darren plays a screenwriter at a fancy party who eats something called "tar toast" from a server (played by Trevor), assuming that it's something like ants on a log. The guy gets sick because he ate what turned out to be literally toast covered in street tar. And it turns out that the server is really an eccentric movie executive who dresses like a server carrying a plate of inedible food for reasons he refuses to explain.
- Honor Before Reason: Sam and Trevor dying during "Russian Roulette" doesn't stop Timmy from trying to uphold the rules.Timmy: I guess it's my turn.
Zach: Timmy, you don't have to do this!
Timmy: No, no! No! It wouldn't be right to back out now. The other guys took their turn in good faith that we would take ours! I'm not gonna dishonor their memory, or the game, by not following through. (Timmy shoots himself) - If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Juror has this when a juror tries to get out of jury duty by claiming to be racist, leading to 'if you're so racist, call me the n-word.'
- IKEA Weaponry: A sniper has a company supervisor pinned down. Said supervisor assembles a sniper rifle from a briefcase, uses an intern as bait, and kills the opposing sniper.
- I Reject Your Reality: A sketch had a man and his family screaming at the viewers about how they live in garbage because his daughter forgot to bow to "His Holiness". Turns out to be some crazy guy who hangs around a bakery. The employees and the police are familiar with him, but that time he had a little kid with him.
- It Belongs in a Museum: One opening skit has an auctioneer giving away Peter Frampton's guitar, only for Indiana Jones to pop up and say:Dr. Jones: That guitar belongs to Peter Frampton!Auctioneer: Peter Frampton is dead, and so are all of his grandchildren!Dr. Jones: Then it belongs in a museum!Auctioneer: Dr. Jones, sit down!Dr. Jones pouts then sits down
- Kill and Replace: The "Fake Bill" sketch has a Vietnam veteran killed overseas, and a Viet Cong agent has taken his place. Said agent proceeds to impersonate the dead Bill with very blatant signals that something's not right. His friends realize the truth when Fake Bill talks about liking Mickey Mouse (Bill was a crazy Daffy Duck fan).
- Kneel, Push, Trip: In one sketch, this prank is parodied by one coworker getting down on his hands and knees behind his boss while the boss is talking to another coworker, and silently mouthing to the coworker to push the boss. The coworker just doesn't get it, though. This goes on for several minutes.
- Lack of Empathy: Sam's death in "Russian Roulette" is met with uncanny calmness from Trevor.Trevor: Alright, settle down... Your turn.
Zach: Are you serious?! Sam is dead!
Trevor: I know. He lost. Now, it's your turn. - Laser-Guided Karma: Trevor ends up getting his karma in "Russian Roulette" for pressuring the guys into playing by being the second one after Sam to die.
- Naughty Birdwatching: From the "Peeping Toms" sketch. Which ends up going pear-shaped when the perverts scare the woman they're peeping on, causing her to choke on her martini garnish, leading to her husband to shoot himself upon finding her body, then their son finds the gun and gets shot by two cops, one of which has a heart attack and the other shoots himself afterwards in shock of what had just happened.
- Noodle Implements: The boys read off a Long List of items that viewers should donate to make funnier sketches, each getting progressively more disturbing."...a horny elephant...a hot zebra...zebra beer...elephant condoms...a huge bed..."
- Nutritional Nightmare: One sketch sees some of the guys debuting their new fast food product — the Butterbar, which is just a stick of butter. A small child eats one and starts to eat another only to have a simultaneous heart attack and stroke.
- One-Hour Work Week/The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The group of office executives in the "Businessman" sketch hold a meeting in an attempt to decipher what exactly it is that they do at work. After several attempts at pitching genuine stapler-selling interests, they find that they've contracted out so many jobs to other businesses that they don't actually do anything other than get paid to browse the Internet or play hooky. They eventually decide that the office will just become the place they go to hang out during the day.
- Only Sane Man: One of the executives from The Grapist is the only one who notices the obvious problems of having an advertising mascot whose name rhymes with "rapist" and threatens children by saying he will "grape [them] in the mouth". In spite of his protests, the presenter and the other ad execs don't listen to him.
- Playing Pictionary: One sketch is about a kid named Kevin, who shows his parents a picture he drew that looks like a penis and then explains to them that it's an elephant.
- Punny Name:
- "Dr. Peppers", "Dr. Pibbs", and "General Mills" from the Alien Autopsy sketch, and Capt. Maximilian Crunch from Manatee Finger Bang.
- Their SNL parody opening is full of these... in fact, the ones that are NOT fake blend in so well with the rest...
- Rapid-Fire Comedy: The "Movie Idea Guy" skit. In a meta sense, it's a WKUK favorite to open up with at live performances because it gets the audience really energetic and primes them for the next sketch.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: The photograph in Me and My Buddy.
- Sadist Teacher: One sketch had a teacher making her students guess which one of their mothers had just died in a car crash. It follows with asking how long it took for her to die, how long it took to get her body out of the car, and that the kid, Joey, will most likely die in the streets. The teacher then chides Joey for not participating, and when asked to act out his mom's last moments, tells him "the demons in hell are probably laughing at your mom for what a piss poor actor her son is." Turns out it was another kid whose mom died. The teacher just really hates Joey.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The reporter in "Kid Beer", after announcing there's now beer for babies tosses her microphone behind her and walks off camera in disgust.
- Seen-It-All Suicide: A variation in "Kid Beer".
- Sex Bot: SEX ROBOT, SEX ROBOT. is supposed to be one, but really does nothing other than annoy and terrify people with its dancing.
- Shout-Out: "Smoking Banana Peels" features a hallucination involving a red-curtained room with a black-and-white floor and a backwards-speaking dwarf.
- Stealth Pun: In "Alien Autopsy", the alien turns out to be a piñata. In other words, a Mexican alien.
- Stupid Crooks: One skit is about a group of would-be bank robbers who repeatedly fail the same criminal plot over and over for many different reasons, ranging from not being able to read the bank's blueprints, bringing friends from out of town along to the robbery, and posting plans to rob the bank on a blog (along with a hyperlink to the bank's website wherever the word "bank" is used).
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A sketch had Trevor play a guy who wanted to have his face cut off (save for his eyes and jaw muscles) by a plastic surgeon so that he could become a mascot for a car dealership. The surgeon, against all common sense, agrees to the man's request, then a Smash Cut to a tombstone reveals that the guy had died during or after the procedure, most likely due to the complications of not having a fucking face.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: "It's Not Kittens, It's Chicken" features a restaurant by that name.
- Take Off Your Clothes: The Stripper Court sketch.
- Tin-Can Robot: SEX ROBOT, SEX ROBOT.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: "She shaved her vagina hair! That is so attractive to me!"
- Totem Pole Trench: Taken to the ridiculous extreme, considering Trevor and Sam are both over six feet tall.
- Toxic Friend Influence: In "Russian Roulette", everyone is on board with Trevor's idea of playing Russian Roulette, except for Zach, with the others peer pressuring him into playing. Eventually, Darren ends up wanting to back out, too, until Trevor says that he's not allowed to stay at his house unless he plays.
- Typecasting: In-universe. The guys are flexible with playing various types of roles in sketches, but mostly stick to very specific roles in most of the skits:
- Trevor: Usually plays an authority figure or a Cloudcuckoolander and is notable for never saying any harsh swear words (with some exceptions).
- Zach: The same as Trevor.
- Sam: Plays loud, boorish assholes.
- Darren: Plays a lot of crossdressing roles and looks the most like an actual woman to most viewers.
- Timmy: Either plays a Fat Idiot, a Butt-Monkey, or both.
- Undignified Death: The sketch "What Really Happened To Abe Lincoln" had Abe Lincoln getting bludgeoned in the rear end to death with a claw hammer by John Wilkes Booth. Why? Because Lincoln was being incredibly loud and annoying and whenever Booth is just asking him to calm down, Lincoln will just continue doing it, eventually blaming Booth for missing a small part of the play. After that, it is explained that American historians thought it was too embarrassing to document in U.S. lore.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: One sketch has a father calmly explaining to his son about the cycle of life and death after his hamster dies... while the horrified son is watching the Grim Reaper devour the hamster's body with his bare hands.
- Ursine Aliens: In episode 8 of season 2, Trevor plays the role of a White House press secretary giving a conference to address rumors about bear problems on a secret American moon base. While he reassures everyone that the bears currently giving the moon base problems are just Earth bears, he slips up and accidentally implies the existence of "Saturn bears"... and of three additional planets in our solar system! Turns out they probably don't exist, as the entire thing was cooked up to distract the press from the fact that they are invading Iran on that day.
- Writer on Board: One episode had several sketches that dealt with overpopulation.