The State of Saturday Night Live

[I couldn't find "The State" sketch online, so I had to watch the video myself and type out the transcript. Michael Ian Black plays Jerry, the coma patient; Kerri Kenney is his wife; Ken Marino is the doctor; Ben Garant is his nurse; Michael Patrick Jann is Dan.]

NURSE: "He's waking up, doctor."

DOCTOR: "Relax, Jerry. Don't try to get up just yet. You've been in an accident. Do you remember?"

JERRY: (bewildered) "Well, I remember I was changing to papers on the Xerox machine and I stood up and I hit my head on the file cabinet and…"

DOCTOR: "Yes, Jerry, and you've been in a bit of a coma ever since--"

JERRY: (seriously) "How long?"

DOCTOR: "Well, prepare yourself, Jerry. You've been asleep for almost one hundred and nineteen...well, almost two hours."

JERRY: (relieved) "Oh. Is my wife here?"

DOCTOR: "Yes, but--"

JERRY'S WIFE: (walking into the hospital room) "Jerry, we heard you were waking up. We came straight over from the apartment."

JERRY: "What apartment?"

JERRY'S WIFE: "Ours."

JERRY: "We don't have an apartment."

JERRY'S WIFE: "Well, I had to sell the house, Jerry, it just held too many memories. I live in an apartment now with my new husband, Dan."

DAN: "Hey."

JERRY: "Husband? You remarried?"

JERRY'S WIFE: "Well how long was I supposed to wait for you, Don?"

JERRY: "Jerry."

JERRY'S WIFE: "Whatever. I've moved on with my life. Oh, which reminds me, your parents are dead. Here." (Jerry's wife hands Jerry an urn)

DOCTOR: "After tedious and painful therapy, you should regain partial use of your limbs."

JERRY: "How soon can I return to work?"

DOCTOR: "Oh, Jerry, you don't have a job anymore! (laughing) Computer programming has sort of been 'phased out'."

JERRY: "Phased out?"

DOCTOR: "Yes, we don't use 'computers' anymore, Jerry, now that we can all read minds."

JERRY'S WIFE: (angrily) "Some of us had to keep evolving while you got to sleep, Jerry!"

DOCTOR: "And without telepathy, we wouldn't be able to communicate with the Martians that now rule our planet. Jerry, your coma stretched across one of the most eventful early afternoons in history. (upbeat) But with hard work, therapy, and drugs, I bet you can readjust yourself, huh?"

NURSE: (bringing Jerry his plate of food) "Dinner, Mr. Johnson!"
(orderly hits Jerry on head with dish cover, Jerry is knocked unconscious, the heart monitor flatlines)

DOCTOR: "Jerry!" (the doctor shakes his limp body) Jerry! ...Ah, hell. Unplug him."

(END)

Now read this SNL sketch from two weeks ago, which is similar in many ways, except that it's not very funny. At all.