Null & Void
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Null and Void was a sketch comedy series which appeared on University Union Television UUTV (now known as Citrus TV), the student-run television station at Syracuse University from 1987 until 2006, one of the longest-running comedy series in college television history.
The series began after two pilots for a TV news parody titled "What Did You Expect, News?" were rejected by the UUTV executive board. The writers and performers for these pilots met in early 1987 and developed another comedy series set at a lackluster television station whose owner, a distant cousin of Thurston Howell, III from Gilligan's Island, ran off and left the station in the hands of two inept janitors named Null and Void. The underlying premise of the show was reminiscent of SCTV.
Most of the comedic material satirized contemporary television, from parodies of Moonlighting and Perfect Strangers to anti-drug public service announcements. One entire 1989 episode satirized MTV. Early regular characters included TV commercial pitchman Wild Wayne, aggressive Bob Adirondack and a spoof of Syracuse basketball star Rony Seikaly. The original theme song was "Cold Duck" by Moog virtuoso Gershon Kingsley.
A spinoff comic strip, whose main characters strongly resembled the show's growing cast and staff, appeared in the Daily Orange student newspaper in the late 1980s. The strip's title eventually changed from "Null and Void" to "Comic Strip." Throughout the show's history, "Null and Void" writers and performers also regularly performed standup comedy on campus, appeared on student radio stations WJPZ and WERW and wrote for student publications.
Comedians Emo Philips, Judy Tenuta and Dennis Miller taped promos for "Null and Void" during campus appearances, and a videotape of the first three episodes of the series was presented to Graham Chapman following a 1987 campus lecture.
Suggested titles for the series included "Jokes'n'Stuff," "Abe Vigoda Presents" and, years before Kurt Cobain's grunge band changed the face of popular music, "Nirvana."
