Every 'I Think You Should Leave' Sketch, Ranked (2024)

June 20, 2023

• Season 2, Episode 6 “I need a wet paper towel.”

  

  One of the hallmarks of ITYSL is its absurdism, and as this horrendous sketch proves, there can indeed be too much of a good thing. “Tammy Craps” is, ostensibly, an ad for a doll that sh*ts itself, but it also throws a million additional details at that premise — the doll’s head is full of farts? It’s toxic for kids under 60 pounds? Something about Macanudo cigars? — that it ultimately leaves the viewer totally cold. Cute kid actors, though.

• Season 2, Episode 5, “Friend’s Weekend”

  

  A couples’ weekend getaway goes awry.

  Yes, it’s somewhat amusing to see Tim Robinson do a Blues Brothers dance as a means of defusing marital tension. Other than that, however, “Friend’s Weekend” is the very definition of a throwaway sketch.

• Season 2, Episode 2, “Diner wink”

  

  A trip to a diner goes awry.

  Poor Saul Goodman deserved better than this weak-ass sketch in which a dad (Robinson) tells a white lie to his daughter about an ice cream store being closed, and a lonely man (Odenkirk) jumps on it by weaving an elaborate fantasy about having a beautiful wife and triples of classic cars. Some ITYSL sketches are too tragic to be funny, and this one falls into that category.

• Season 3, Episode 6, “Tasty Time Vids”

  

  Following a colleague on Insta goes awry.

  One of the lengthier sketches of Season Three, “Tasty Time Vids” tries to capture the eternal agony of being forced to follow a coworker’s (Connor O’Malley) dumb meme account on Instagram. But despite being centered around a mildly amusingly lame bit about hooking up with Frankenstein’s Chick, it ends up a bloated mess.

• Season 1, Episode 2, “Wilson’s Toupees”

  

  A toupee ad goes awry.

  Despite the promising opening bit of a middle-aged man hooting incomprehensibly at a water cooler while his envious colleague marvels at his social acumen, this sketch about a toupee company that hires a fake gorilla to rip off your hair to make it look like you’re going bald naturally has serious All That energy, and there’s not much more to say than that.

• Season 3, Episode 6, “Metal Motto Search”

  

  Yet another game show goes awry.

  Yet another variation on the game show parody template, “Metal Motto Search” features an elaborate, 1980s-inspired opening animation that the producers clearly spent a third of the Netflix budget on. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to save it from being a weaker “Chunky.”

• Season 2, Episode 5, “Mars Restaurant”

  

  A date at a galactic restaurant goes awry.

  Though Tim Heidecker as a V-necked douchebag at an alien-themed restaurant is predictably funny, am I the only person who’s genuinely bummed out by his date’s traumatic past, particularly her mom going on a radio morning show to chug puke for school supplies? It doesn’t sound fun. Though, as the insult comic Heidecker heckles concede, it’s definitely not boring.

• Season 2, Episode 6, “Big Wave”

  

  A meeting break goes awry.

  A meeting is held. A social convention is breached. Robinson takes it too far. We’ve seen this before. It’s… fine.

• Season 3, Episode 4, “Children’s Choir”

  

  A children’s choral recital goes awry.

  Following Biff Wiff’s starmaking turn as Santa in Season Two, ITYSL brings him back for Season Three as Shane, a grandparent at a school chorus recital who bonds with Robinson when he sees they’re wearing the same shirt, then asks him to help out when a 2000s-era-inspired pop-punk song inspires him to go apesh*t on a classroom. (He kicks a Wright brothers diorama. It’s not pretty.) In the grand tradition of ITYSL original music being weirdly good, the song, “Listening” by Turnstile slaps, but the ending is weirdly anticlimactic and Robinson as straight man just isn’t as fun to watch.

• Season 2, Episode 1, “Little Buff Boys”

  

  A corporate event goes awry.

  A third-rate Baby of the Year, this competition of little boys wearing “goose suits” to appear muscular is only passable because of Richardson’s manic energy, as well as the palpable discomfort of the audience member asked to judge 8-year-olds’ bodies.

• Season 1, Episode 2, “Biker Guy”

  

  An alien’s trip to earth to see if there are motorcycles goes awry.

  The sheer joy with which Robinson’s alien biker character surveys various vehicles is fun to watch, but otherwise, this Season One interlude is forgettable.

• Season 3, Episode 2, “Supermarket Swap”

  

  A VR shopping spree game show goes awry.

  To quote Robinson’s character in “Pink Balloon,”… what’s the joke? Is it that VR is disorienting? Is it that we’re all essentially meat sacks with eyes and it’s a miracle that we figure out how to navigate the world in these bodies? Or is it that Ayo Edebiri deserved better?

• Season 1, Episode 4, “Lifetime Achievement”

  

  A ceremony to honor Herbie Hanco*ck goes awry.

  Fragile masculinity is one of Robinson’s favorite themes, and in this sketch where an event emcee simply refuses to acknowledge that he tripped, fell down, and a dog publicly humped his head, we see it on full display. Points for the sketch’s button — “That’s why I love Herbie Hanco*ck. He loves to lie!” — but honestly, the funniest thing to me about this sketch is that Hanco*ck is played by someone who only vaguely resembles him.

• Season 3, Episode 6, “Don Bondarley”

  

  A bachelor party guest goes awry.

  Listen, sometimes you don’t want to prepare for your job. Sometimes you just want to watch TV instead. No one knows this better than Don Bon Darley, the dirty limerick singer who’s asked to come out of retirement to perform at a bachelor party, but can’t remember the words to any of his filthy songs (except that “the dog’s dinner is his cum”). Definitely one of the lesser sketches of the third season, but the equal parts joy and incompetence with which Bon Darley approaches his work is inspiring to me. As is his respect for his clients when it’s time for him to turn around so they can jack off.

• Season 1, Episode 3, “Game Night”

  

  A game of Celebrity with a new boyfriend goes awry.

  There’s something objectively hilarious about jazz musicians, who have their own private vernacular and get unreasonably annoyed when other people don’t understand it. Still, this sketch featuring Tim Heidecker as an obnoxious jazz aficionado who just can’t stop dropping obscure references during a game of Celebrity is basically a one-joke premise, though “where be your nutcracker?” is a pretty good line.

• Season 2, Episode 4, “Wife Joke”

  

  An offhand joke about a wife at a card game goes awry.

  One of the sweetest bits in ITYSL history, in this sketch Paul Walter Hauser plays a dude at a card game whose offhand joke about his wife leads to him being plagued with guilt, culminating in a hilarious flashback showing how his wife supported him when his community theater costar tries to steal his lines as a mobster by saying them faster (side note: Robinson and co. clearly find 1940s gangster aesthetics very funny, and they are right). Hauser as Wife Guy is endearing, and also, I genuinely want to see a production of that play.

• Season 1, Episode 6, “Fenton’s Stables and Horse Farm”

  

  A dude ranch commercial goes awry.

  This sketch featuring a dude ranch that exclusively uses small-dicked horses so men don’t feel bad is a one-joke premise, but it’s incredibly funny to think about the boomer actors reading jokes about horse co*cks for the very first time.

• Season 2, Episode 2, “Baby Cries”

  

  A meeting with a baby goes awry.

  Yes, this is the classic “sloppy steaks” sketch ranked at #62. Yes, Robinson acting like a douchebag obsessed with pouring water on steaks at fancy restaurants is mildly amusing. But this beloved sketch is still essentially a retread of the oft-used “guy takes offhand comment made during polite conversation too seriously” theme, except it goes on for far too long.

• Season 2, Episode 1, “Ghost Tour”

  

  An adult haunted mansion tour goes awry.

  I know ITYSL fans are enamored with the ultra-X-rated dialogue in this sketch, where Robinson plays an adult haunted house tour guest who — once again — takes the “adult” theme a bit too far (“Do any of these little f*ckers ever pop out of the f*cking wall and say, ‘f*ck, there’s a horse co*ck in my room or a donkey dick?’” he wonders in front of a horrified crowd). But honestly, the button of this sketch, in which he goes home to admit to his mom that he once again had a hard time making friends, makes me too sad to find this all that funny.

• Season 3, Episode 1, “Mortal Enemies”

  

  A team building workshop goes awry.

  If a coworker walked in on you in a dream while you were about to have an orgy, yes, you’d probably be mad at him. But in this sketch at a team-building workshop, Robinson’s feigned enmity toward a coworker — predictably — goes too far.

• Season 3, Episode 6, “Banana Breath”

  

  An HR training goes awry.

  There’s nothing particularly new or groundbreaking about this sketch, in which a middle-aged employee makes a mild joke during an HR training (for reference: “Back away banana breath, what the hell did you just eat, a banana?”) and becomes so enamored with it that she plans to make T-shirts for the group featuring the quote. But the unhinged performance by Alison Martin as the batty employee is a Ruben Rabasa-level star turn.

• Season 1, Episode 6, “Baby Shower”

  

  A baby shower goes awry.

  Tim Robinson’s obsession with 1940s gangster culture is endlessly charming, and I adore the central premise of this sketch, where a guy is desperately trying to unload an impulse purchase of stinky fedoras and fake plastic meatballs onto a baby shower planning committee. They’re Stanzos. They’re nice!

• Season 3, Episode 3, “Robert’s Christmas Birthday”

  

  A workplace birthday party goes awry.

  While it’s not the best Patti Harrison sketch of the series — although frankly, that is a tall order — this Season Three skit about a deranged coworker taking revenge on her affable boss at his birthday party because he wouldn’t let her bring her rats to work features one of the best original songs of the series, “Wild On,” as well as the classic line, “It’s not for me to decide which animals are worse than others.” (For the record, yes it is. Rats are worse than dogs to bring to work — even if they can sit in your drawer and you can surreptitiously feed them throughout the day.)

• Season 1, Episode 3, “Laser Spine Specialists

  

  A scam to make grown men pop stars goes awry.

  The extended commercial parody template feels a little bit tired, as does the theme of grown men harboring infantile ambitions to become pop stars. Nonetheless, this gets points for the fact that I find myself constantly singing “Moon River Rock” wherever I go.

• Season 1, Episode 5, “Choking”

  

  A celebrity encounter goes awry.

  Another twist on the theme of grown men being absolutely incapable of admitting weakness or mistake in any context, this sketch in which a celebrity-obsessed Robinson would rather choke to death on a jalapeño popper rather than embarrass himself in front of his favorite designer is a solid Season One entry, mostly for Robinson’s declaration that a glass of water “stinks like sh*t” and the sheer specificity of the detail that “Caleb Went” is the designer behind the very plausible sounding “Angels and Archways” line.

• Season 1, Episode 1, “Both Ways”

  

  A job interview goes awry.

  The very first sketch in the entire series is a minor one, but it’s pretty effective: in an effort to save face during a job interview, Robinson pretends that a door goes “both ways” — i.e., push and pull — rather than admit that he’s messed up. It goes on for exactly as long as it needs to, and the blank stare on Robinson’s interviewer’s face as he watches him strain to pull a door off its hinges is actually one of the better performances of the entire season.

• Season 1, Episode 4, “A Christmas Carol”

  

  A Christmas special goes awry.

  For some reason, Robinson and co. really love Christmas humor, particularly when it involves infusing the holiday spirit with off-brand machismo and aggression. There’s no better example of this than this sketch, where Sam Richardson plays a gravel-voiced soldier from the future who travels back in time to warn Scrooge of an impending Boney apocalypse (pro tip: if you slurp up Boney goop, you’ll get the Boneys’ sense of humor, though it’s not clarified whether or not that’s a good thing).

• Season 1, Episode 3, “New Joe”

  

  A new funeral organist goes awry.

  Ranking this any lower on the list would ultimately be disrespectful to the memory of Fred Willard, who is perfectly cast here as an old-timey circus organist filling in for a funeral. But this is ultimately a one-joke premise that doesn’t really transcend what’s written on the page.

• Season 3, Episode 4, “Jenna’s Bad Day”

  

  A tiered friend group goes awry.

  Robinson is clearly delighted by the weird intricacies of male friendships and reducing them to their most infantile form. Such is the case in “Jenna’s Bad Day,” in which Beck Bennett plays a middle-aged man who is paying top-dollar for access to a tiered friend group led with an iron fist by a gassy Robinson.

• Season 3, Episode 4, “Gelutol”

  

  A commercial for hair loss medication goes awry.

  It is, admittedly, always funny to see Tim Robinson assuming a mob boss-type role, and this hair loss medication commercial parody in which he gatekeeps the drug from a pesky partygoer and bullies a middle-aged man into growing curls is a great example of how well he plays his own unique version of menacing.

• Season 2, Episode 4, “Calico Cut Pants”

  

  A classic bathroom faux pas goes awry.

  While this extensive sketch is beloved among ITYSL fan circles, mostly for the insane premise of a PBS-style donation-based website to help men get away with having piss on their pants, it is my personal belief that it drags on for far too long to pack the punch of an “Eggman Game” or even a “Huge Dumps.”

• Season 1, Episode 6, “Party House”

  

  An intervention goes awry.

  An intervention is a tried-and-true sketch format, but this bit in which Kate Berlant plays a woman obsessed with the fact that she (seemingly) owns Garfield creator Jim Davis’s house is a fun twist on the template. Extra points for Berlant’s flawless lip stain here, and also for the fact that she’s right — why don’t her coworkers care more that she bought a fully-furnished Garfield-themed house, complete with an Opie chair?

• Season 3, Episode 1, “Dad Video”

  

  A dad tries to teach his sons a lesson and it goes awry.

  Fred Armisen’s desperate emasculated dad is funny, as is a video he makes for his kids in which he tries to scare them by beating up what is clearly an old man dressed as an 11-year-old street tough. But ultimately this is just Armisen doing a shouty Tim Robinson impersonation, rather than lending his own very specific brand of effete weirdness to the role.

• Season 2, Episode 5, “Parking Lot”

  

  A parking lot encounter goes awry.

  For pure laughs alone, it really doesn’t get much better than watching Tim Robinson express genuine despair over not knowing how to drive during a parking lot altercation. “I don’t know what any of this sh*t is, and I’m f*cking scared,” he weeps over his steering wheel. Who can’t say they’ve felt the same?

• Season 3, Episode 2, “Sitcom Taping”

  

  A taping for a sitcom goes awry.

  One of the most tried-and-true templates for an ITYSL sketch is when someone, usually Robinson, says or does something insane, and through sheer force of will manages to convince normies to get on his side. That’s what happens in “Sitcom Taping,” in which a studio audience member decides to use a sitcom taping as an opportunity to expose the vendors who scammed him before a big first date — and the producers, moved by his plight, decide to let him. We still don’t know why a guy with a Super Bowl ring was hidden in the back of the limo, though.

• Season 2, Episode 1, “Corncob TV”

  

  A show about dead naked bodies falling out of coffins goes awry.

  Though I’m probably going to get sh*t for ranking Coffin Flop so low, you have to admit that even though watching dead naked people fall out of coffins in rapid succession is funny, the sketch doesn’t really evolve much beyond that one image. Still, I would rather watch Corncob TV than Vice’s channel any day.

• Season 2, Episode 2, “The Capital Room”

  

  A Shark Tank parody goes awry

  In my opinion, “The Capital Room,” in which Harrison plays a Shark Tank-esque entrepreneur who made all of her money from suing the city after being sewn into a Thanksgiving parade balloon of a beloved Peanuts character, is one of Harrison’s weakest sketches. But that’s sort of like saying Magical Mystery Tour is the Beatles’ weakest album: it’s still better than 99.9% of other stuff out there.

• Season 1, Episode 6, “Chunky”

  

  A new game show goes awry.

  While the game show format feels a bit trite for a show as wildly imaginative as I Think You Should Leave, this sketch featuring a woefully unprepared mascot at least gets credit for coining one of the most memable phrases of the first season (“you had alllllll summer to think of it!”)

• Season 3, Episode 5, “Bloody Eyeball”

  

  An offhand observation at a meeting goes awry.

  This Season Three sketch in which a guy at a meeting gets a little too excited over his coworkers’ reactions to an offhand comment feels a bit like a retread of stronger sketches like “Secret Hot Dog.” But by the end it goes so delightfully off the hinges — a highlighter turns into a little pimp — that you can’t help but be charmed.

• Season 2, Episode 2, “Dan Flashes”

  

  A luxury shirt store purchase goes awry.

  The visual gag of a dude starving to death during a business meeting because he’s spent his per diem on the unnecessarily complicated silk shirt he’s wearing right now is amusing, as is a follow-up ad for the store featuring middle-aged men going berserk over the shirt’s intricate designs. But all things considered, “Dan Flashes” feels like somewhat well-worn territory.

• Season 3, Episode 4, “Pacific Proposal Park”

  

  The construction of a proposal park goes awry.

  Who knew that a theme park with a special spongy surface perfect for proposals could double as an amateur wrestling practice ring? Not the befuddled romantic park owner played by Sam Richardson, who expresses his genuine loathing for the rowdy guests to his park. Is it a “Baby of the Year”-level instant classic? Nope. But the wrestlers have names like Toilet Truck and Baby Duff, which certainly helps.

• Season 3, Episode 3, “First Date”

  

  A pre-date haircut goes awry.

  The central joke of this sketch — that a guy gets a co*cker spaniel-inspired haircut due to a magazine ad mixup with his barber — doesn’t really pay off for me, but the preamble leading up to it, in which a normie Tim Robinson expresses wholesome pre-date jitters to his gang of bros (“I’m well within my rights to kill you right now!” he jokingly tells his bud after he swipes right) is genuinely delightful. As is the reveal that he’s cheating on his girlfriend because having two girlfriends is “just better” than one (is he wrong?).

• Season 1, Episode 2, “River Mountain High”

  

  An ad for a tugging T-shirt goes awry.

  I’m a fan of this Riverdale parody in which a bunch of good-looking teens are forced to feign interest in their principal’s new novelty TC Tuggers T-shirt, mostly because the kids are so genuinely goldarned polite as they’re being treated to an extensive summary of its benefits. But I really love the Apple-esque follow-up commercial, in which a bunch of portly middle-aged men dance around and show off the tugging knobs on their T-shirts.

• Season 3, Episode 2, “Ponytail”

  

  A parking incident goes awry.

  Don’t park on the sidewalk, or else men with ponytails will crawl underneath your car rather than around them and potentially get stuck there. This is the takeaway of this standout Season Three sketch featuring the return of Will Forte as a hirsute cigar-obsessed maniac who beefs with another ponytailed dude for no apparent reason and unsuccessfully tries to Google Image search “disgusting diarrhea in toilet” to get out of a restaurant reservation.

• Season 3, Episode 3, “Drive Thru”

  

  A fast food pay-it-forward chain goes awry.

  “55 BURGERS, 55 FRIES, 55 TACOS, 55 PIES, 55 co*kES, 100 TATER TOTS, 100 PIZZAS, 100 TENDERS, 100 MEATBALLS, 100 COFFEES, 55 WINGS, 55 SHAKES, 55 PANCAKES, 55 PASTAS, 55 PEPPERS AND 155 TATERS.” Very good.

• Season 2, Episode 5, “Joanie’s Birthday”

  

  A birthday gift goes awry.

  You may not think that deceased celebrity impersonators would be allowed to hit. But at Stable of Stars, they can — albeit at a certain price point. Such is the premise for this very solid Season Two sketch, in which a birthday gift of a Johnny Carson impersonator (and a George Kennedy impersonator, and a Bush impersonator, who cannot hit), leads to violence.

• Season 2, Episode 6, “Dave Suit”

  

  An HR meeting goes awry.

  Is a guy hiring a coworker’s doppelganger to come take huge dumps in a work bathroom so everyone else will think he’s taking huge dumps kind of a one-joke premise? Sure, I guess. But with lines about Jerry from Tom and Jerry sniffing Tom’s wife’s panties after a little piece of food gets stuck in the underwear drawer, who cares?

• Season 2, Episode 5, “Del Frisco’s Double Eagle”

  

  A game of credit card roulette at dinner goes awry.

  Other ITYSL rankings have rated this sketch, in which John Early gets hit with a 10-person credit card bill thanks to a game proposed by a vivacious guest, quite low (The Ringer ranked it second to last), and I truly don’t understand why. For one thing, it features two “hilarious waiter brothers” play-fighting for the benefit of diners, a thing I didn’t know I needed at actual restaurants until I saw it here; for another, it has freaking John Early in it, who gives Robinson’s shrieking protagonists his trademark snarky twist. “Credit Card Roulette” also contains a very useful lesson: when faced with a giant credit card bill you don’t want to pay, lie.

• Season 3, Episode 1, “Barley Tonight”

  

  A Fox News-esque debate show goes awry.

  Typically, I don’t love it when ITYSL gets overtly topical in satirizing the media and entertainment industry; save that sh*t for The Other Two. Yet this Season Three sketch featuring Robinson as a Tucker Carlson-esque right-wing pundit who resorts to playing around on his phone and mumbling incoherently (“f*ck, my mom’s out of hot water”) when he starts losing arguments is gold regardless. I only hope that Tucker can adopt the same tactic on his new streaming Twitter show.

• Season 1, Episode 2, “The Man”

  

  A transcontinental trip goes awry.

  This Season One sketch in which Will Forte plays a grizzled old man exacting his revenge on a baby (now grown-up) who cried during a transcontinental flight to London decades ago also follows a more conventional format than most ITYSL sketches, in that it has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and a protagonist with a clear motivation (to the degree that he’s willing to get bit by a rat while rummaging through the garbage — though, as he insists, “it’s not that gross”). Still, Forte’s unhinged performance is pretty close to impeccable