Television series
Inside Amy Schumer
A sketch show that swings between stand-up, scripted parody, and man-on-the-street ambush interviews, all circling the same territory: dating, sex, and the double standards women are handed without ever asking for them. Wildly inconsistent by design — plenty of sketches misfire, but the peaks (Twelve Angry Men, Last Fuckable Day, Football Town Nights) are genuinely brilliant. Dip in season by season rather than binge start to finish.
If you liked this
Broad City2014
Same era, same appetite for making female friendship gross, silly, and completely unfiltered. Abbi and Ilana's chaos scratches a very similar itch of refusing to be polite about anything.
But It's warmer and less pointed — more hangout comedy than satire, with fewer sharp edges aimed at anything specific.
Key & Peele2012
The same sketch-plus-stand-up-adjacent structure, executed with even tighter craft. If you love the format of Inside Amy Schumer, this is the format perfected.
But The targets are race and masculinity rather than sex and gender, so the specific satirical bite is quite different.
Girls2012
Frank, unglamorous, occasionally excruciating sex and relationships from a millennial woman's perspective, with the same refusal to make anyone likeable for comfort's sake.
But It's a straight narrative dramedy, not sketches — slower, sadder, and with none of the stand-up interludes.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Carol Burnett Show1967
Same format — a host running sketches with a rotating troupe — and the same instinct to turn female experience into slapstick, just filtered through 1960s network censors instead of Comedy Central's standards.
Proof that fearless, physical, female-fronted sketch comedy existed decades before cable would let anyone say the word 'vagina' on air — and it's still preposterously funny.
But No swearing, no sex jokes, and a family-hour pace that will feel almost quaint next to what you're used to.
More like this (8)
Chappelle's Show2003
The blueprint for stand-up-plus-sketch hybrid television — fearless, filthy, and hugely influential on everything that came after, including this show's own DNA.
But It's twenty years old and shows it in places; the racial commentary is its focus, not gender or sex.
PEN152019
Cringe comedy about early sexuality and shame, played with total commitment — the queasy honesty is exactly the register Schumer's best sketches were reaching for.
But It's a scripted narrative sitcom about middle school, not adult sketches, so the tone is nostalgic rather than confrontational.
Difficult People2015no page yet
Two horrible, hilarious best friends say the unsayable about everyone around them — biting, quotable, and unafraid of being genuinely mean for a laugh.
But Smaller and more niche than Schumer's show ever was; it never found the same mainstream audience.
Portlandia2011
Absurdist sketch comedy from the same cable-era boom, with a similar willingness to commit fully to one dumb premise until it becomes brilliant.
But The satire is aimed at hipster culture, not sex and gender, so thematically it's a much softer landing.
Saturday Night Live1975
The mothership of sketch comedy, and worth revisiting for the eras where its women — Fey, Poehler, Wiig — did exactly what Schumer was doing, on a bigger stage.
But Wildly inconsistent across five decades and dozens of casts; you have to know which years to seek out.
Tuca & Bertie2019
Animated, surreal, and startlingly candid about bodies, anxiety, and female friendship — funnier and stranger than you'd expect from the format.
But It's animation, not live sketch, and the tone is gentler and more sincere than Schumer's confrontational style.
Big Mouth2017
Both treat sex and bodily shame as their richest comic material; Big Mouth just swaps human actors for puppets and hormone monsters to say the unsayable out loud.
Animation lets it go further than live sketch ever could — puberty, shame, masturbation, literal monsters of desire — with the same gleeful refusal to be embarrassed about bodies.
But It's a serialized cartoon sitcom about teenagers, not standalone sketches about adult dating, and the raunch is cartoonish rather than confrontational.
I May Destroy You2020
Same raw subject matter Schumer mined for laughs — bad sex, bodily autonomy, dating's small humiliations — but Michaela Coel plays it entirely straight, and it lands like a punch instead of a punchline.
Takes the exact same territory — consent, desire, the absurd scripts we're handed about sex — and refuses to let you laugh your way out of it. Devastating, brilliant television.
But This is not comfort viewing. It's frequently upsetting, demands total attention, and offers none of a sketch show's easy in-and-out.
People
Cast
Writing
- Amy SchumerCreator