Emmy nominees Kerri Kenney-Silver and Thomas Lennon know each other extremely well: They’ve spoken every day for the past 33 years, and, before creating Reno 911!, were two of the founding members of MTV’s The State, a sketch-comedy show whose other members included Reno co-creator Ben Garant, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, David Wain, Joe Lo Truglio, and Ken Marino, just to name a few. So this episode of Two Friends: A Nice Time Hanging Out With People Who Know Each Other Well quickly lived up to its name, turning into the kind of conversation you would only be privy to on a night out with your friends Kerri and Tom over a nice glass of pinot. In a chat filled with Michael Showalter impressions and ’90s nostalgia, to focus on even just one story from this hour-long convo feels almost disrespectful.
There’s the reveal that Mo Willems could be credited with forming The State comedy troupe after he kicked Todd Holoubek out of his very cool NYU sketch group (the Sterile Yak.) There’s the 7 a.m. breakfast they had with The Rock next door to his gym, and the story of how Kerri became best friends with P!nk, in case you weren’t jealous enough already.
And then there’s the juicy tidbit about how only one member of The State was not at the taping of MTV’s Unplugged featuring Nirvana. It was Kevin Allison, who, apparently, decided to miss the recording of what would later be considered one of the greatest albums of all time, to go to a sex party instead. “Well, maybe they made a great album out of it,†Kenney-Silver offered graciously upon this reveal. Also, some fun trivia: The very loud whistle you can hear in the crowd on Unplugged, which was recorded just months before lead singer Kurt Cobain’s death, is Thomas Lennon’s.
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