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Netflix’s Comedy Sketch Show ‘Astronomy Club’ Soothes the Soul
Humor is a salve and Black women provide the answer
There is a sketch comedy renaissance taking place and I, for one, am definitely here for it. I grew up watching Saturday Night Live, MAD TV, and In Living Color, and I remember how those shows brought laughter into my home while regularly pushing the envelope with their social and political commentary. Even though I was entirely too young to stay up late to catch some of these shows, I looked forward to watching and, later, laughing with my friends about it at school.
In the 2000s, a shift occurred and there were far fewer options for lovers of sketch comedy. Though SNL remained a staple, reality television took over and viewers showed a preference for the comedy of “real” people’s lives instead. Then, low-budget DIY memes seemed to trump high-production comedy segments, and we began to see people taking comedy into their own hands. Today, with shows like Sherman’s Showcase on IFC, A Black Lady Sketch Show on HBO, and Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show on Netflix, it’s clear that sketch comedy is making a strong comeback and Black people are leading the charge.
Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show, a six-episode series, features an all-Black cast in an array of comedic bits centered around housemates living together while developing a comedy show. The cast has actually been working and performing together for several years as the first all-Black in-house team with Upright Citizens Brigade, a sketch comedy group that counts SNL’s Kate McKinnon, Donald Glover, and Aziz Ansari among its alumni. With segments that address racial profiling, sexist discrimination, heteronormativity, and Black sexuality, Astronomy Club creatively tackles serious social issues while poking fun at the often hyperbolic cultural discourse around these topics. It’s frankly one of the most hilarious shows I’ve seen in quite some time.
Of the eight cast members, three are Black women: Keisha Zollar, Monique Moses, and Caroline Martin. I talked with them to learn more about their work and how they build this show. One of the first things I noticed was how different they each are from one another. The women all have unique upbringings — Keisha jokes that she was raised “Huxtable Black,” born to…
