20 Best ‘Portlandia’ Sketches

Steve Buscemi guests as a vegetable salesman who’s getting desperate: How can he make celery hip? Why don’t people like it? How did kale and brussel sprouts get so chic – and how can he create “a whole viral celery phenomenon”? As he learns, it’s all a vast conspiracy – and it means he has to make a deal with the Bacon Guy. RS

The show’s resident Goth couple Vince and Jacqueline hit up Bed, Bath & Beyond – because sometimes, you need a pan that’s good for cooking blood and a vacuum cleaner that’s in the shape of an upside-down cross. The idea of “The Weirdos,” as the recurring characters were called, shopping in a big-box store would be odd enough even without the requests for “a prodigious machine to handle all the detritus”; personally, we could listen to Fred Armisen pronounce “pir-an-HYA meat” all day. The only thing that would make this better would be another Danzig cameo. DF

Automatic points to any and all sketches that involve both cats named “Kevin” and comediennes named “Kristen Wiig.” A twist on the old “but I liked them before they were popular!” complaint that accompanies any indie band’s ascension to popular recognition, Wiig’s unhinged fan Gathy (with a G!) takes it upon herself to stop her favorite feline-frontedpower trio Catnap from touring, even if means threatening them with a gun that is most definitely loaded. We’re still looking for that “Whisker Patrol” seven-inch single. KE

Women & Women First – everyone’s favorite XX-chromsome über alles bookstore – is one of the series’ best recurring bits, a satirical airstrike on humorless American “herstory” run amok. Although plenty of outstanding skits have taken place within its hallowed halls, this skit about air conditioning units (“Strike the word unit from this conversation!”) is the best introduction to the unique worldview of Candace and Toni – and their preoccupation with words, feelings and educating their community. Refreshingly cool. KE

Portland might be the show’s primary object of derision, but even the most insider-jokey of bits have a universal appeal that any viewer can appreciate – in short, you don’t have to live there to fear something like these so-called “art projects” made up of everyday events. With an escalating series of continually awkward scenes and a Truman Show-esque ending, Portlandia pokes fun at omnipresent creative freedom while crafting its very own work of art (literally). KE

In the world of Portlandia, even the canines have their exhausting quirks and a day romping at the dog park means running a social gauntlet – especially when Kath and Dave show up. In this gem from the second season, they introduce the other dogs to their precious little Quicksilver, who was rescued from a tsunami. (So please don’t trigger his PTSD by saying the word “water.”) Armisen is at his most painfully uptight, yelling at his new four-legged friends: “Hey, the barking? I don’t need it!” RS

Both a lively send-up of modern masculinity and a genuinely sweet little parable about marriage, this Season Two sketch is another self-contained story that has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. Armisen brings out one of his best dismissive manchild performances as the charming Ellen Bloodworth attempts to keep him in line while his wife goes out for a work dinner. (“If he starts just staring at the ‘On Demand’ screen, it’s time to turn it off…what that leads to is him getting on IMDb, and he does a lot of user comments for movies that have not come out yet.”) Bonus: tattoos, video games, drumming and a lot of beer. (The behind-the-scenes video above explains it all.)

Ponder the loneliness of Portland’s most dedicated dumpster divers. Now imagine the smell of their apartment. Turns out, you don’t have to do that – and sorry about putting that particular odor into your brain – because this Season One sketch does it for you. Both affectionately twee (it contains more interjections of “aww!” per capita than any other sketch ever) and appropriately disturbing, “Dumpster Divers” will leave you with a tear in your eye and a lump in your throat. Oh, wait, sorry! That’s just curry stew. KE

This second season entry delightfully packages together Portlandia mainstays like frightfully stupid trends (“Did you read that piece about the artisan knots?”), social anxiety, and Jeff Goldblum in a Pepto pink suit to deliver a thoughtfully chosen small screen gift. In just three minutes, we get a complete story that only gets funnier with repeated watches. Do knot miss this sketch. (Get it?!?) KE

This Season 8 highlight hit right as a wave of sexual-harassment outings and righteous reckonings was capping off a year of taking toxic masculinity to task – and you won’t find a funnier skewering of the self-centered male paranoia that was left quivering in its wake. When Brownstein’s lawyer becomes the first female to become a full-fledged partner in her firm, she’s greeted with rounds of applause from her all-dude peers; when she begins her speech with “Sometimes it has been hard for me here, as a woman,” however, Armisen’s boss asks, “But … just … I’m not bad, right?” Soon, every guy in the room begins begging for reassurance that they’re not part of problem, because hey, #NotAllMen, right? “I’ve had 17 years of rampant sexism in this office, but I’m so sorry that you had two seconds of discomfort,” she tells a whiny executive over speaker phone who takes offense to her gripe. “Thank you … I feel supported,” he whimpers back.DF

Portlandia is as much about our consumption of media as it is an actual piece of media for us to consume. And this this Season Three entry – a perfect companion piece to the Battlestar Galactica binge-watching sketch – skewers the seemingly impossible task of staying spoiler-free, all while simultaneously spoiling a wide series of increasingly strange television and movie picks. It also has a surprise twist which, no, we won’t spoil here. KE

“Sir, it’s always beets!” One of the most gloriously nonsensical sketches in Portlandia‘s history, this sublimely funny bit finds Brownstein and Armisen effectively using beets — the key ingredient in borscht, FYI — to poke fun at something that you’d think would be decidedly unfunny: 911 emergency calls. It layers in several of the show’s key elements, from the show creators’ charming chemistry to a bizarre spin on workplace drama – all with a bonus Jeff Goldblum appearance (perfectly coated in beets, naturally). KE

Portlandia’s relationship with technology has usually been equal parts fear-inducing and funny bone-tickling. Employing a basic plot point – locating the city’s maybe-dead mayor by using cell phone technology – the sketch builds on the idea of ridiculously extravagant cell phone plans in a way that’s both hilarious and relatable to anyone who’s spent an afternoon stuck in a Verizon store. It’s another example of how invaluable Kumail Nanjiani’s contributions to the show have been; no one else excels at looking both bored and efficient in the face of a pair of wild-eyed, wacky-planned Portlanders. KE

Did you see this sketch? Did you see it?!? Hellbent on one-upping each other when it comes to something as benign as casual magazine-reading, Brownstein and Armisen exhaust themselves while naming every possible permutation of publication and potentially incendiary article, a clever enough idea made positively dizzying by quick editing. It’s almost enough to keep that WTF ending from popping off the screen. Almost. KE

Although both Armisen and Brownstein have enviable musical backgrounds, Portlandia isn’t a show that’s likely to trot out over-the-top, song-heavy sketches. “Dream of the Nineties” is the hysterical exception to the rule, a music video/exposition-heavy story that handily explains the charm of Portland – a place where people never stopped “getting piercings, getting tribal tattoos, forming bands” and “where young people go to retire.” It’s less a city than an early Lollapalooza show, trapped in amber in the Pacific Northwest. Exactly one skit in to this series, we already knew we were going to love it.KE

Understandably overwhelmed by the influx of social media demands into her everyday life and the head-splitting ping of a constantly buzzing phone, Carrie goes for the “nuclear option”: declaring social bankruptcy and jettisoning the entire thing into the great recycling bin in the sky. It’s so freeing! It’s so wonderful! It’s so … lonely. A clean slate might sound like a good idea at first, but without a digital footprint and a set of emoticons to contextualize it, even the most liberated Facebook hater turns into a ghost. KE

It first aired in 2016 as a stand-alone clip before the start of Portlandia‘s penultimate season, but this canon-worthy sketch would be a blistering takedown regardless of when or where it showed up. Two bros on bikes complain that all of the current movements – from transgender rights to Black Lives Matter – don’t have a place for the most trod upon demographic of them all, the white heterosexual male. When do they get a seat at the table of power, besides all the time, every day, literally for centuries? (Thank god for their one safe space: social media.) What follows is a musical number is that reveals M.R.A.’s as the ridiculous crybaby trolls they are. “The Statue of Liberty!” cries Brownstein’s stubbly dude. “What about our statue – the Statue of Libert-HE!” DF

Brownstein and Armisen got hip to the binge-watching phenomenon early, just in time to churn out this Season Two gem, which takes one couple’s newfound love for the Syfy Channel’s popular series to its terrifying, oddly logical end. Rounded out by star-studded surprise appearances, including Edward James Olmos passed out on a couch (the guy is tuckered out, okay?), the sketch is both hilarious and uncomfortably familiar. Say it with us: One more episode! KE