The insane amount of work that goes into pulling off the most over-the-top sketches is what’s missing in comedy
By Robert Scucci | Published
I think you should go with Tim Robinson is one of those sketch comedy shows that you either love or hate depending on your sense of humor. If you fall into the latter camp, you should at least respect the amount of biblical work that goes into each item, because it’s actually astonishing.
After watching the “Coffin Flop” sketch for the hundredth time, I had to know what kind of production supported such an absurd premise: body after body crawling out of shitty wood and hitting the sidewalk. Lasting just 127 seconds, “Coffin Flop” depicts 13 corpses (about one in five being naked) emerging from coffins in the middle of the funeral, each body tumbling throughout the ceremony like a rag doll.
I DON’T WORRY ABOUT ANY OF THIS!
Lead prop master Joe Holliday remembers shooting 28 caskets in a single day at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California. Real coffins are sturdy structures designed to remain sealed underground for decades. Holliday and his team therefore had to design detachable backgrounds that could be easily replaced and broken again within the tight schedule of the show.
Even more impressive, each coffin was carried by only four pallbearers instead of six, so the flops could be clearly captured on camera. Fortunately, the casting resulted in lightweight performers who could be easily lifted before convincingly crashing through the false bottoms as if they were real corpses.
As Coffin flop intensifies, the falls become more elaborate. Stunt actor LJ LaVecchia took the most abuse, hired specifically for his ability to take big hits and walk down stairs without injury. Holliday, who also worked on The Eric André showa production famous for its constant destruction of sets, claimed that he broke more coffins in a single day while working on “Coffin Flop” than he broke desks in an entire season while working with Andre.
Total commitment to the bit
Given that “Coffin Flop” is billed as a reality TV show in which legitimate camera crews simply show up at funerals and wait for the chaos to unfold, it makes sense that viewers would see so many high-quality flops packed into such a short running time. The sketch would not take place if there were only a few incidents where the recently deceased was humiliated one last time before burial.
The premise alone is hilarious, but what really sells it is realizing how much effort was put into producing two minutes of rapid-fire coffins. The hard work has paid off, as I can’t scroll through social media without seeing clips featuring Tim Robinson, Corncob TV, or “Coffin Flop.” You just don’t get that kind of commitment from a SNL production, and not a day goes by that I’m not grateful to Tim Robinson for finding the right studio to bring his brand of absurdist genius to life after parting ways with the longtime institution.
I think you should go with Tim Robinson is streaming on Netflix.
