The Ben Stiller Show - The MTV Series

The MTV Series

The original MTV version of The Ben Stiller Show aired in 1990-1991 and ran for 13 episodes. It is not available on DVD, although excerpts from the program are featured as a bonus on that release. Produced by Jim Jones, who would go on to produce the Fox series and starring Ben Stiller and co-writer Jeff Kahn, it was a self-effacing show-within-a-show format. Part of MTV's experimental Vid-Com season, it was interspersed with music videos that Ben and company would introduce in their short comedy sketches. Regulars included Harry O'Reilly and Ben's sister Amy Stiller. Guest stars included Ben's parents Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller, as well as John F. O'Donohue, Run DMC, Melina Kanakaredes, Al Lewis and MTV regular Martha Quinn.

Stiller and Kahn used this show as a means to introduce and hone many of Ben's characterizations, some of which would later be seen on the Fox network production. They also took huge leaps in assuming the audience would "get it" by layering characters in a complex sandwich of sub-referencing. Ben did satirical portrayals of William Shatner as Star Trek's Captain Kirk, Al Pacino, Arsenio Hall, U2's Bono and Yakoff Smirnoff. His portrayal of Tom Cruise was a major signature, spoofing several of Cruise's late 1980s film characters. He would then insert these characters into each other's famous performances, sub-referencing on many levels.

Skits included "The Eddie Munster Comeback Special," where Ben plays an all-grown-up and angry Eddie Munster, complete with widows peak, who gets into a shouting match with Al Lewis playing the role of Grandpa from The Munsters while trying to stage a serious moment from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. In an odd wink to his future, one episode was dedicated to showing the FOX network that Ben and Jeff could play all the characters in the 1990 Fox primetime lineup, spoofing COPS, Alien Nation, Booker, and Married with Children. "The Star Trek Show" spoofed William Shatner and Bono and the inevitable demise of the red-shirted security officers beamed down to an alien planet, portrayed by Ben and Jeff's characters "Howie and Jordo," two college-age underachievers that were constantly in trouble. Through multiple layers of sub-referencing, Howie and Jordo jump through a time portal and end up at Woodstock and sing the "Time Portal Blues", while still wearing their Star Trek uniforms. Another multi-layered Star Trek reference is made in an episode where Stiller runs through multiple episodes of satire, playing Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, but having hijacked The Enterprise, speaking through Uhura with Leon (played by Jeff Kahn) who is his boyfriend who needs an alien change operation. He does the same kind of stunt playing Captain Kirk in the character of Tom Cruise in Rain Man with Kahn playing Dustin Hoffman's savant character in the makeup and dialogue of Mr. Spock. Stiller and Kahn were constantly sub-referencing into thicker layers of characterizations, making for very funny experimental gags that were mostly misunderstood by the teenage audience of MTV. In one episode Ben plays a radio host who is cruel to people who call in which is exactly the same thing his father did in the episode "The Devil's Advocate" from 'Tales from the Darkside.

The series' major underlying gag was of the battle of talent between Ben and Jeff, and their antagonistic treatment of each other during their "show's" production. Jeff is convinced that he is a greater talent then Ben, and spends most of his time either trying to prove this to the "MTV Head" Doogie Herzog, a pre-teen boy, or by publicly embarrassing Ben on-screen. In the series finale, Jeff and Harry O'Reilly finally convince the MTV Head that they are the real talent of the show, and they get their own series. Ben is forced to leave the set crying.