All The Shows You Absolutely Must Watch After Bingeing ‘I Think You Should Leave’
Welcome to the absurd world of Tim Robinson.
You know a comedy series slays when you must pause each episode to laugh so you don’t miss the next sketch. The Netflix series, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, requires at least one pause per sketch.
Each episode is 17 minutes — a miracle in an age of TV runtime blowouts — and focuses on insanely awkward situations. Often, a person (played by Robinson) has a breakdown after refusing to admit they are at fault or bizarre social taboos play out.
There are also hilarious informercials, game shows and an insane baby of the year pageant, amongst other sketches.
The series dropped without notice in late April and is already being named as one of the funniest new shows of the year so far. Fran Hoepfner from Vulture called it: “comedy perfection.”
'I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE' IS THE BEST SHOW I HAVE EVER SEEN, ALL OTHER SHOWS GO TO HELL
— Sinead Stubbins (@SineadStubbins) April 28, 2019
The hype is real about this extremely funny series.
Who Is Tim Robinson?
Robinson got his start at the American improv-comedy institution, Second City, whose alumni includes *deep breath*: Bill Murray, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Amy Sedaris, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Aidy Bryant and Stephen Colbert, amongst many others.
In 2012, Robinson joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, a huge break, but only lasted a year before moving to the writers’ room: one of the rare occasions where a performer is removed from the show but stays on behind-the-scenes.
The launchpad of SNL didn’t work out for Robinson but he stayed in contact with the show’s staff, including The Lonely Island (Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg, and Jorma Taccone) who produce I Think You Should Leave.
In the five years since leaving the biggest comedy show in America, Robinson has been working steadily on a bunch of great shows.
If you’re itching for more after I Think You Should Leave, here’s a guide to the series you need to track down immediately.
The Characters
In 2016, Netflix gave eight up-and-coming comedians 30 minutes each to write and star in their own episode of sketch series called The Characters.
Episode seven features Robinson playing Sammy Paradise, a Frank Sinatra type who is terrible at gambling.
Check out the other episodes, too, featuring Lauren Lapkus (Comedy Bang, Bang), John Early (Search Party), and Paul W. Downs (Broad City).
Detroiters
Okay: if you cackled along with I Think You Should Leave, great news, this show is even better.
Robinson stars alongside Sam Richardson (Veep) as two guys who run an advertising agency in Detroit that specialises in local television commercials.
Detroiters is like Mad Men meets Broad City, a goofy comedy about best friends with the backdrop of advertising. Sadly, Detroiters only ran for two seasons before it was cancelled (#SaveDetroiters) but it’s destined to become a cult comedy hit.
Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special
In one of the most absurd comedy specials Netflix has ever made, Santa Claus makes too many toys for Christmas and asks Bolton if he can make a TV show to encourage couples to make love to create 75,000 babies.
Robinson appears as a character named Chef Roy, and there are lots of great cameos from the folks behind The Lonely Island and Comedy Bang Bang!.
Documentary Now!
No documentary is safe in this series that expertly and absurdly parodies the format.
Each week you’re introduced to a different ‘classic documentary’ and they often star the show’s co-creators, Bill Hader and Fred Armisen, along with an impressive list of cameo appearances too good to spoil.
The episodes are riffs on films like Grey Gardens, Stop Making Sense and Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present. They also poke fun at VICE-style docos, true crime and prestige food documentaries. Robinson appears in an episode in the third season, ‘Any Given Saturday Afternoon’, where he plays a bowling champion who is part of a revitalisation of the sport.
Pen15
Consider Pen15 as a sibling to I Think You Should Leave, because it’s another show produced by The Lonely Island (who clearly have the golden touch this year).
Co-creators, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, play 13-year-old versions of themselves at a high school in the year 2000. If you were at school during the time period depicted in the show you’re going to yell “TOO REAL” at your TV a lot, but it’s totally worth for this hilarious show about adolescence with a pure depiction of friendship.
Cameron Williams is a writer and film critic based in Melbourne who occasionally blabs about movies on ABC radio. He has a slight Twitter addiction: @MrCamW.