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Corey Stulce: The State, the TV show, started when I was a freshman in college [at Southern Illinois University], and I immediately loved it. There was just something about it that was so surreal, bizarre, and slice-of-life that really spoke to me. I really liked that they didn't go the semi-traditional route of sketch with a lot of pop culture references. A lot of the stuff they were doing was very evergreen, which I thought was really cool and innovative.Once I started writing for the college newspaper a couple of years later, Viva Variety had started, so I did a big spread on that and was able to interview Tom [Lennon], Michael Ian Black, and Kerri [Kenney-Silver]. So that was my first time interacting with any of them, and they were cool and really nice. As I went on as a newspaper and magazine writer and editor, I just kept up with all of their careers because I really liked writing about comedy, and just thought that it was interesting that this group of people kept finding each other, kept working together on different projects over the years.What was the interview process for the book like?
I wanted to do some group interviews to see what kind of dynamic that created, but it just never lined up that we could all get together at the same time, other than when they put together a 45 minute set from scratch in three days before Festival Supreme in 2014. I was more like a fly on the wall then—they were rehearsing as much as they possibly could. The State is rarely in the same place at the same time.
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I didn't envision this thing being 600 pages when I started, but the idea for the oral history was there before I even approached The State because I love that style of journalism. I love hearing the different voices and seeing the different perspectives, so I thought that was important because I didn't want the book to be about me at all. I don't think it would be nearly as interesting if I tried to meld my voice with their voices, especially with 11 main people in the group.
I think so. There are certainly other examples of comedy troupes that continue to come together for new projects, like Christopher Guest's troupe and the Judd Apatow folks, but I really think this is definitely one of the most unique stories in the history of comedy. Where else can you find examples of 18-year-old kids meeting, forming a comedy club, having that kind of dedication to stay with it throughout the entire university process, thinking, Yeah, this could be good, we could do this, and then getting their own TV show, essentially right after graduation?
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I think that's going to happen if you get a group of people together who are super creative and have big personalities. Of course there's going to be tension, and I think it only helps to make them stronger. They were all pushing themselves to be funnier than the person they were standing next to, and that's so important to them that I don't think they would've made it if they didn't have that. But of course, that's going to lead to tensions and fights and a breakup. I think it's sort of inevitable. If everyone just got along and made concessions then it wasn't going to be as strong of a group.Back to the legacy of The State, the TV show. What do you think it had that other sketch shows at the time didn't?
With 11 people in the group, even if it was just a character piece with a couple of speaking roles and a handful of people in the background, they were fantastic at making those minor roles fully-formed characters. It wasn't just someone sitting there pretending to talk at a coffee shop. They took it very, very, very seriously. This was not playtime for them at all, they were hardcore and did tons of rehearsal.
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I think there's definitely a larger audience for that kind of wide-ranging comedy that they do, and more opportunities to be turned onto that. If you didn't happen to be watching MTV in 93, 94, you weren't gonna see it. Now, all it takes is somebody telling you about it, getting out your phone, and seeing it in thirty seconds.I think if they were the same group of 21, 22-year-old college kids who had that kind of dedication and had the opportunity to do a show, yeah, I think it would be huge. They were making YouTube videos 20 years before there was a YouTube. "Porcupine Racetrack" and stuff like that would have gone viral so quickly. But who knows, if they were 22 today, maybe they'd be doing something completely different. They wouldn't be thinking about YouTube, they'd be thinking about whatever the hell the next thing is gonna be.'The Union of The State' is out now. Order it here.Patrick Lyons is on Twitter.