Trivia / The State

• Executive Meddling:
  • The line-crosser Louie was written at the request of executives, who wanted a character with a catch phrase. He was made as ridiculous as possible in the hope that the matter would be dropped. Instead, the group themselves ended up liking the character and placed him in future sketches.
  • The team explained on the DVD commentary that the show was originally launched because MTV wanted their first foray into the "sketch show" genre, so the first season was very much about what the network wanted. They felt since MTV was, well, a music network (Hey, imagine that!), that the sketches should occasionally have to do with a music theme. This explains the sketch where Slash from Guns N' Roses is in the woman's kitchen. This got less prevalent as the show progressed; by the 3rd and 4th season, the gang was pretty much allowed to do whatever.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Good luck finding the whole show with all of the original music intact; most of it had to be replaced on the long-awaited DVD release due to it being unavailable for licensing.