Cheap Seats

Cheap Seats without Ron Parker, or Cheap Seats: Without Ron Parker commonly shortened to Cheap Seats, is a television program broadcast on ESPN Classic and hosted by brothers Randy and Jason Sklar. The brothers appear as fictional ESPN tape librarians who amuse themselves by watching old, campy sports broadcasts and lampooning them. Produced by Mark Shapiro, Showrunner, Todd Pellegrino, James Cohen and Joseph Maar, Cheap Seats was originally an hour-long program. There were eight one hour-long episodes in the first season, all of which were edited to fit a 30-minute time slot. A number of actors and comedians were featured in various in-studio comedy skits on the show, including Jim Gaffigan, H. Jon Benjamin, Paul Rudd, David Cross, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Eugene Mirman, Michael Ian Black, Nick Kroll, Kristen Schaal, Judah Friedlander, Nick Swardson, Mike Birbiglia, Doug Benson, Kathy Griffin, Carlos Alazraqui and Patton Oswalt. Regular segments Cheap Seats debuted on February 4, 2004, with the opening of the episode showing "Ron Parker" (played by Michael Showalter), the show's browbeating original host, injured by a shelf full of tapes after it collapses on him, thus forcing the Sklars to fill in as hosts as they were #2 and #3 on the depth chart after him (ahead of #4 Ryan Leaf). This skit was part of the show's opening theme until the second season, which featured a new introduction while all references to Parker were removed (although in the theme song which opened episodes of Season 4, the lyrics include "going farther than Ron Parker"). In addition to the Sklars' regular commentary, Cheap Seats contained regular segments such as "Do You Care?" (in which the Sklars informed viewers of obscure facts related to the shows they were watching), and "The Cheapies", where awards in nonsensical categories were given out to in-episode personalities at the show's closing. Other regular segments included "Breakdown", where then-ESPN analyst Sean Salisbury would comedically break down an athlete's performance; and "What Got Cut", in which other humorous elements of an episode that were edited due to time constraints were glossed over by the Sklars. "Cheap Shot of the Week" showcased an athlete featured earlier in the show or in a prior episode at their worst. Original sketches parodying a topic relevant to a particular program were filmed by various comedians.