Happy Happy Good Show

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Happy Happy Good Show was an improvisational comedy revue held at the Victory Gardens Studio Theater in Chicago during the summer of 1988. The cast and writers were largely made up of writers on strike from Saturday Night Live after the 1987-1988 season. The show is most notable for showcasing the performance talents of Bob Odenkirk and Conan O'Brien, as both had previously only showcased their writing talents.

The show was directed by Mark Nutter.

1 Cast
2 Reviews
3 Notable sketches
4 Miscellanea
5 References

[edit] Cast

Conan O'Brien
Bob Odenkirk
Robert Smigel
Rose Abdoo
Hugh Callaly
Debby Jennings
Dave Reynolds

[edit] Reviews

A review of the show in the Chicago Tribune was fairly negative, stating that "most of the skits in this show fall flat, underdeveloped and incomplete, little more, really, than blueprint works-in-progress."^[1]

[edit] Notable sketches

Several of the sketches are clear progenitors of sketches in other media worked on by the writers.

A sketch set at a nude beach where genitalia is strategically blocked by furniture is very similar to the famous "Nude Beach" sketch that aired on on Saturday Night Live during the 1988-1989 season. [2]
A sketch in which the cast would make outlandish predictions for the future is thematically similar to Late Night with Conan O'Brien's recurring In the Year 2000 sketch.
A sketch called "Chicago Superfans" about Chicago residents whose conversations would invariably turn back into a discussion of the Chicago Bulls or Chicago Bears. This sketch would eventually become Bill Swerski's Superfans on Saturday Night Live.^[3]