Comedy Central Presents: Stella

Three grown men in matching three-piece suits screaming at each other over who gets to eat a single cold turkey leg is a pretty accurate distillation of what Stella brought to the stage. Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain did not do traditional stand-up. Instead, they treated their stage time as a highly formal, intensely stupid theatrical recital where high-society manners collapsed instantly into toddler-level pettiness.

Filmed at the Hudson Theater in New York City and broadcast on Comedy Central in 2004, this half-hour showcase arrived at a crucial moment for the trio. Having built a dedicated cult following since 1997 with their weekly live shows at the Fez nightclub, the group was finally transitioning to a broader television audience. The special served as a proof of concept for the network, eventually paving the way for their short-lived 2005 sitcom of the same name.

The set list is a collection of their most polished live material. They guide the crowd through their official, highly synchronized cheer, recite increasingly bizarre limericks, and demonstrate terrible regional accents. When they sit down to describe their idea of a perfect summer day, the idyllic description inevitably devolves into an afternoon spent lounging in a pool, farting.