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Key & Peele (abbreviated to K&P) is an American sketch comedy television series created by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele for Comedy Central. Both Key and Peele previously worked on Mad TV. Each episode of the show consists mainly of several pre-taped skits starring the two actors. The sketches cover a variety of societal topics, often with a focus on American popular culture, ethnic stereotypes, social awkwardness and race relations. Key & Peele premiered on January 31, 2012 and ended on September 9, 2015, with a total of 53 episodes, over the course of five seasons. A special titled "Key & Peele's Super Bowl Special" aired on January 30, 2015. Key & Peele won a Peabody Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards and has been nominated for various other awards, including Writers Guild Award, NAACP Image Award and 16 additional Primetime Emmy Awards in various categories. Comedy Central also maintains an official YouTube channel for the series, which currently has over 5.6 million subscribers and 2.4 billion views, as of May 5, 2024. Format In the first three seasons, an episode would consist of a cold open, with a short sketch. After the intro plays, the two hosts introduce themselves to a studio audience and explain a possible situation, with the following sketch having a similar situation. The show then follows this pattern, with a number of sketches, each varying in length. However, not all the segments are introduced by a studio segment nor are they necessarily on a similar or connected theme. Many of the show's sketches follow a similar comedic form, specifically taking a comedic premise, situation, or turn of phrase, and repeat it in a more extreme fashion, thereby 'upping the ante' of comedic absurdity as the sketch unfolds. As an example, in popular sketch "Consequences", a guest speaker is brought to a school assembly to warn students about the consequences of their youthful misadventures. The speaker starts by telling a story of pattern of youthful misbehaviors and minor substance-use, such as smoking cigarettes and "hanging out on the street late at night" leading to misdemeanors and petty crime, through to "real crimes" which resulted in "being shot out of a catapult into the mouth of a dragon", and later being "sucked into a wormhole, consequences!". Additionally, Key and Peele's sketches often poke fun at aspects of race relations in the modern-day United States, as well as Black American culture writ large. In the last two seasons, the show eschewed a studio audience in favor of a pre-shot narrative, featuring the duo discussing a concept during a car ride, as the introduction to their sketches. In the last episode, it is revealed that the car ride is an extension of one of the first sketches from the first episode, as they finally stop the car in the middle of the road, look around, and utter "Bitch!" to one another. Production The series was first announced in June 2011 by Comedy Central. In anticipation of the show, Key and Peele launched a web series in support of the program. The series premiered in January 2012 on Comedy Central in the U.S. and on The Comedy Network in Canada. The first episode drew 2.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Comedy Central launch since 2009. The series was renewed for four more seasons, beginning in September 2012, September 2013, September 2014, and July 2015. The last episode aired in September 2015. Episodes Recurring characters and sketches Barack Obama and Luther – The 44th President of the United States, impersonated by Peele, often has difficulty expressing his true feelings, and President Obama's "anger translator" Luther, played by Key, works to interpret the President's low-key statements into raging tirades. One sketch reveals that Obama's wife and daughters each have their own anger translators as well, whom they request help from to speak with each other. Key appeared briefly in-character as Luther at the Annual White House Correspondents Dinner as an anger translator for the real Barack Obama in early 2015. On January 5, 2017, Key debuted an "Obama-Luther" sketch on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Wendell Sanders – Played by Peele, Wendell is a nerdy, extremely overweight, friendless man who loves sci-fi and fantasy. He often comes up with elaborate stories to convince others (especially over the phone) that he is not a stereotypical nerd, and that he is calling on the behalf of people other than himself. This includes a very attractive woman named "Claire", with whom he claims to have a relationship, and the 15-year-old son named "Stimpy" they have. (He was put on the spot when questioned about his nonexistent son, and he was close to a plush doll of the character from The Ren & Stimpy Show.) Though his stories are obvious lies, they are elaborate enough that he usually manages to convince the person on the other end of the phone line (usually a gullible man played by Key) that the people in his stories exist. When asked to speak with his fabricated friends and family, Wendell makes up an abrupt event on the spot (usually involving the fabricated person in question being killed) to prevent the person he is talking to from piecing together that his stories are lies, and to end the conversation. Mr. Garvey – Played by Key, Mr. Garvey is an angry and intimidating substitute teacher who is a 20-year veteran of urban education. He distrusts his new students (he refuses to allow them to leave for club photos, as he believes that it is a made-up excuse to leave class, even after a schoolwide announcement over the intercom, which he also believes to be fake) and has trouble pronouncing the common names of his mild-mannered and generally white suburban class, though he vehemently believes his pronunciations are correct, such as pronouncing the name Jacqueline as "Jay-kwellin", Blake as "Balakay", Denise as "Dee-Nice" and Aaron as "A. A. Ron", the implication being that he can only pronounce black-sounding names similar to how a white person would have trouble pronouncing African American names. Any corrections from the students are seen as highly disrespectful lies meant to make him look foolish. Mr. Garvey forces his students to acknowledge themselves by his incorrect pronunciations, often at the very real threat of being sent to Principal O'Shaughnessy (pronounced "O-Shag-Hennessy" by Garvey) for disrespect. The only student Mr. Garvey seems to trust is an African American boy at the back of the class named Timothy (accent on the "o") (played by Peele), who is implied to be from the inner city and claims to have a daughter, due to him never standing up to Mr. Garvey. In November 2022, Key reprised the role in an advertisement for Paramount+, in which he teaches a mountaineering class consisting of various children's show characters, including "Blah-Zay" (Blaze from Blaze and the Monster Machines), "B. Louie" (Blue from Blue's Clues), Peppa Pig, "Naughty" (Nate from Bi.... Discover the Stephen Key popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Stephen Key books.