CollegeHumor Originals (2006–2023)
8/10
Older sketches are hilarious, newer ones not so much
3 August 2019
CollegeHumor is hard to review. Because if you'd asked me 5 years ago, I'd call them an entertaining and overall very funny channel. Nowadays however, it's obvious it's run its course.

The early years of CollegeHumor are great. You had really stupid, yet at the same time genius parodies of popular culture, like Sopranos Censored, Mementos, CSI: Scooby-Doo and Osama Teen Hunger Force. There were also the sketches that were just generally absurd and went for Adult Swim-esque over-the-top humor. 'Course, with their frequent production schedule, not all of the sketches hit home, but most of them were guaranteed to give you at least a chuckle.

Their greatest achievement however was probably Jake & Amir. The offbeat banter between these colleges and mismatched best friends was an absolute blast to watch. The childlike and naive mind of Amir paired against the straightfaced and frustrated Jake made for comic gold. This was always the series I went back to the most.

Then in 2015 something sad happened: The folks behind Jake & Amir decided it was time for it to end. To be fair they'd had a very good run, but it was still a sad day for all of us. For a while though, the channel was still doing well. Although not as sharp as before, most of the videos were still fairly funny. It didn't take long however before the rot started to set in. There was more and more of a focus on doing sketches about things that were relevant, like iPhones, Game Of Thrones and apps instead of surreal, absurdist stuff. This would be no problem if they poked fun at these things cleverly, but instead it reeked of desperation to stay afloat. The acting got worse as well. Most of the old cast disappeared and some of the people who kept showing up in every other sketch I didn't care for at all. Eventually I unsubscribed. The glory days were over.

Last time I checked in, the new sketches were so bad I didn't even crack a smile.

Still, for the good ol' days alone, I have to give them a generous 8/10. Even though by now they've gone downhill, the classic stuff is still as funny as it was back then.
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