Mr. Show with Bob and David
Created by	Bob Odenkirk David Cross
Starring	Bob Odenkirk David Cross John Ennis Tom Kenny Jill Talley Jay Johnston
Theme music composer	Mark Rivers
Composers	Mark Rivers Eban Schletter
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	30
Production
Executive producers	David Cross Troy Miller Bob Odenkirk John Moffitt Dino Stamatopoulos Brad Grey Bernie Brillstein
Producers	Bill Odenkirk Jay Johnston
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	Brillstein-Grey Communications Dakota North Entertainment TriStar Television (1995) (season 1) HBO (1995) (season 1) HBO Original Programming (1996–1998) (seasons 2–4)
Original release
Network	HBO
Release	November 3, 1995 (1995-11-03) – December 28, 1998 (1998-12-28)

Mr. Show with Bob and David, also known asMr. Show, is an Americansketch comedy television series starring and hosted byBob Odenkirk andDavid Cross. It aired onHBO from November 3, 1995, to December 28, 1998.

Cross and Odenkirk introduce most episodes as semi-fictionalized versions of themselves, before transitioning to a mixture of on-stage sketches performed in front of a live audience and pre-taped segments. The show features an ensemble of actors and ofalternative comedians as both cast members and writers, includingSarah Silverman,Paul F. Tompkins,Jack Black,Karen Kilgariff,Tom Kenny,Mary Lynn Rajskub,Brian Posehn,Scott Adsit,Jill Talley,Scott Aukerman,Jerry Minor,Jay Johnston, andDino Stamatopoulos.

It was nominated for fourPrimetime Emmy Awards and oneGolden Satellite Award. The show is currently available onHBO Max.

Each episode ofMr. Show consists of a series of sketches, at times surreal,^[1] each one transitioning to the next by a link in a manner reminiscent ofMonty Python's Flying Circus orThe State.^[2][3][4] For example, a minor character in one sketch might return as the major character in the next. Often, common themes or storylines are returned to at different times throughout an episode. As a premium cable show, its audience was limited. DVD editions, however, opened the show to a broad new audience.^[5][6]

Every episode begins with an individual introducing the hosts. This role was filled byMary Lynn Rajskub in the first two seasons. After her departure for personal reasons,^[7] the introduction was made by a random character from that week's episode.

Episode titles were mostly quotes from the episode. For example, "Bush Is a Pussy" is written on a T-shirt worn by one of the characters. One of the exceptions is "Eat Rotten Fruit from a Shitty Tree", which is a line in a song within the episode that was eventually performed as an instrumental.

Certain lines of dialogue are often repeated by different characters during the course of a single show. For example there was "I was on the eighteenth hole!" in "The Biggest Failure in Broadway History" and "Who Let You In?" in the episode of the same name.

At the end of each episode's credits, a random celebrity is listed in the "Special Thanks" section. Examples includeRick Dees in the first episode andGreg Maddux in the third.

Odenkirk and Cross had both been involved in the sketch showThe Ben Stiller Show, with Odenkirk as one of the actors and Cross a writer. The two found a common sense of humor and tried their hand at taking some of the ideas that did not work well on the show to a local comedy club. Their routines were very successful, leading Odenkirk's managerBernie Brillstein to try to find a means to make them into a television show.HBO had already been scouting the pair, given the two's past roles in other influential comedies, includingThe Larry Sanders Show, and quickly greenlit the show, providing enough funds for a two-episode order. They managed to stretch the budget of the two-episode order to cover four episodes for the first season.^[8]

The show continued for three additional seasons. However, ahead of the fourth season, HBO rescheduled the show into a Monday midnight slot, which made it difficult to find, and resulted in poor ratings, leading HBO to cancel the show after the fourth season.^[9]

Mr. Show's main cast for the entire run consisted ofDavid Cross,John Ennis,Tom Kenny,Bob Odenkirk, andJill Talley. Cross, Ennis, and Odenkirk appeared in each season. Kenny left the show after the third season, returning for one episode of season four. Talley appeared in all episodes except for four towards the end of the third season.Jay Johnston, a featured performer throughout the series, was credited as a member of the main cast for the final episode of the show.

• David Cross
• Bob Odenkirk
• John Ennis
• Tom Kenny (seasons 1–3, and episode #402)
• Jill Talley
• Jay Johnston (main season 4, previously featured)

• Tom Kenny (episode #308)
• Brent Forrester (episode #308, #404)
• Brian Posehn (episode #410)

Mr. Show with Bob and David was nominated for aPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program at the50th Primetime Emmy Awards, losing toDennis Miller Live, and also received a nomination for the song "How High The Mountain" in the category ofOutstanding Music and Lyrics. Thefollowing year it was renominated for Outstanding Writing, losing this time toThe Chris Rock Show, and also received aCreative Arts Emmy Award nomination for lighting director Simon Miles.^[10]

At the9th Golden Satellite Awards in 2004, the show's third season DVD set was nominated for "Best DVD Release of TV Shows."^[10]

In 2010, prompted by the announcement ofIFC's plans to re-airMr. Show, it was included in a short list of "TV's greatest cult comedy series" byThe A.V. Club.^[11]

Mr. Show also spawned aspin-off movie,Run Ronnie Run, which was shown at the 2002Sundance Film Festival,^[13] but wentstraight-to-DVD. In an April 2004 article inChunklet magazine, Odenkirk noted numerous problems they had had with the film, blaming the film's director,Troy Miller, who "chose to freeze us out, hold us at arm's length and not let us influence the movie nearly on the scale that we should have."^[14]

In September 2002, original cast members Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, John Ennis, Brian Posehn andStephanie Courtney toured in a show calledMr. Show: Hooray for America!!!. The two-month stint included "distillations" of some of Mr. Show's sketches, such as "The Burgundy Loaf", and new material.^[15] In the stage show, the large fictitiousmega-corporation Globo-Chem ("We own everything, so you don't have to!") sponsors David's stage persona to run for the presidency of the United States.^[16]The tour included 16 large cities andcollege towns in North America:San Diego,Washington, D.C.,Philadelphia,New York City,Boston,Ann Arbor,Chicago,Madison,Minneapolis,Los Angeles,San Francisco,Sacramento,Eugene,Portland,Seattle, andVancouver.^[17]

In September 2013, Grand Central Publishing releasedHollywood Said No!: Orphaned Film Scripts, Bastard Scenes, and Abandoned Darlings from the Creators of Mr. Show, a book of rejected scripts and unusedMr. Show sketches. The audiobook version included full cast readings by formerMr. Show performers and writers. One of the rejected scripts is the original version ofHooray for America!, which had earlier been adapted as part of the Mr. Show Live tour.^[18]

During theCOVID-19 pandemic in May 2020, Cross, Odenkirk and most of the show's supporting cast including Kenny, Talley, Johnston, Ennis, Aukerman, Posehn, Paesel, Rajskub, and Tompkins, created aZoom-based streamingMr. Show reunion event, theMr. Show Zoomtacular Annual Business Call for Charity, with proceeds benefiting theLIFT charity. The event featured new sketches in the style ofMr. Show, as well as updates from the various cast members on their own current projects, and concluded with the cast and additional friends singing a cover of "Eat It" by"Weird Al" Yankovic, who also participated, that mocked a prior attempt to cover "Imagine" byGal Gadot and other celebrities performed earlier.^[19]

Although it was a premium cable broadcast, it remains a highly influential piece of American sketch comedy. Many involved with the show have gone on to become staples of the American comedy landscape.

The Sarah Silverman Program was written by and starsSarah Silverman, and featuresJay Johnston andBrian Posehn.Arrested Development features David Cross as regular characterTobias Fünke; the series also had guest spots filled byMr. Show alumni, such as Bob Odenkirk as a marriage counselor,Jerry Minor and Jay Johnston as gay cops, andJohn Ennis as a mall security guard.Jack Black had supporting roles inMr. Show. Cross and Odenkirk would go on to work with Black on producing ashow for HBO for the comedy bandTenacious D which would also featureMr. Show alumnusPaul F. Tompkins.

In January 2011,IFC began airing 90-minute blocks ofMr. Show,The Ben Stiller Show,Action andThe Larry Sanders Show three times per week.^[11] The programming block was often hosted byMr. Show writer and actor Scott Aukerman, who also conducted new interviews with the shows' contributors and younger comedians who have been influenced by the shows.^[11] The song "Adam's Song" by American pop punk bandBlink-182 got its name as a tribute/reference to a sketch from the show about a band that writes a song by the same name with similar lyrical content. This was confirmed by Cross in an interview, who said "They were fans of the show and that was a knowing tribute that I thought was pretty cool."^[20]

Odenkirk and Cross reunited in 2008 to create the HBO pilotDavid's Situation, which was shot but never aired.^[21][22] The network gave the pair $400,000 to shoot a pilot (which was shot on theEverybody Loves Raymondsoundstage), which appeared to go well during the taping; however, while Cross and Odenkirk were editing the episode, they felt it failed to "capture that same energy on screen."^[23] In an interview withVanity Fair, Cross said, "We told them that we didn't want to do this show, we'd rather doMr. Show 2.0. And they were like, 'Yeah, O.K., that's great, but the thing is, we don't have any more money for this year. But we'll figure out something next year.' And we never heard from them again."^[23]

Comedy duoTim & Eric have said their programTim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! was highly inspired byMr. Show.^[24] Odenkirk served as the producer onAwesome Show as well asTom Goes to the Mayor andThe Birthday Boys.

Other sketch comedy shows whose creators have citedMr. Show as an influence includePortlandia,Key & Peele,Kroll Show,The Whitest Kids U' Know,People's Emergency Guide andHuman Giant.^[25] After winning aGolden Globe forAbbott Elementary, creator/starQuinta Brunson namedMr. Show as an inspiration and personally thanked fellow nomineeBob Odenkirk.^[26]

TheBlink 182 singleAdam’s Song title at least was inspired by a sketch about a dying metalhead fan called Adam.

In April 2015,Netflix acquiredMr. Show and put in an order for four half-hour episodes and one hour-long "making-of" special.^[27] The announcement was a followup to a Twitter post fromPaul F. Tompkins teasing about "something new coming from the Mr. Show gang in the new year."^[28]W/ Bob & David premiered on November 13, 2015.^[29]

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Odenkirk and Cross mostly avoided using recurring characters a laSaturday Night Live,^[30] but some characters made repeat appearances:

Wikiquote has quotations related toMr. Show with Bob and David.

• Mr. Show atIMDb

• 1995 American television series debuts
• 1998 American television series endings
• 1990s American satirical television series
• 1990s American sketch comedy television series
• 1990s American surreal comedy television series
• American English-language television shows
• HBO original programming
• 1995 establishments in California
• Television series by Brad Grey Television
• Television series by Sony Pictures Television

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