Sarah Sherman: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Sarah Sherman turned Chicago's DIY variety underground into prime-time network sketch, dragging boils, blood and beeping gore gags onto Studio 8H. This mix traces the body-horror cinema, underground comics and alt-comedy circuits that built "Sarah Squirm," plus the SNL collaborators and peers who share her grotesque register.

The Kynda mix for Sarah Sherman

• Key Influence · Videodrome by David Cronenberg (1983). Sherman's comedy is routinely described as body horror played for laughs, and Cronenberg is the name she returns to most in interviews about why pustules and orifices are funny. Videodrome's logic — media literally entering and reshaping flesh, the famous stomach-slot VCR — is the exact grammar of her Helltrap Nightmare set pieces and her SNL bits where screens, cysts and bodily goo merge into one punchline about broadcast itself.
• Influencia Obscura · Frank by Jim Woodring (1994). Woodring's wordless Unifactor comics — a cheerful cartoon mammal wandering a landscape of pulsing organs, benign monsters and dream-logic violence — are the under-read ancestor of Sherman's aesthetic: cute line work carrying genuine dread. Her drawings, animated interstitials and merch share that Fleischer-gone-wrong vocabulary, where a smiling creature is also plainly a tumor. It is the comics tradition most people miss behind the horror-film references.
• Local Roots · I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson by Tim Robinson (2019). Robinson came up through Chicago's Second City and iO before landing at SNL, the same pipeline city Sherman operated in while running Helltrap Nightmare in DIY venues on the North Side. ITYSL's escalating social humiliation shares her comedy's willingness to make the audience physically uncomfortable, and both proved a Chicago-honed, non-mainstream sensibility could survive intact inside the Lorne Michaels machine.
• Beyond the Medium · The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch (1515). Bosch's hell panel is the original body-horror comedy: people fused with instruments, swallowed by birds, punished in absurdly inventive ways, all rendered with an almost playful attention to detail. Sherman's sketches operate on that same principle of cheerful anatomical catastrophe, and her visual art background means the reference is formal, not rhetorical — she builds gags as crowded tableaux of suffering bodies you are invited to laugh at.
• Peer · Los Espookys by Julio Torres (2019). Torres and Sherman belong to the same generation of SNL-adjacent surrealists who kept their downtown weirdness intact. Los Espookys — a crew staging elaborate practical-effects horror for paying clients — shares Sherman's delight in goopy handmade monsters and absurd deadpan. Torres wrote at SNL in the years just before her hiring, and both treat the network as a place to smuggle in genuinely strange, art-object comedy.
• From the Canon · Helltrap Nightmare by Sarah Sherman (2015). The Chicago variety show Sherman created and hosted as Sarah Squirm is the Rosetta Stone of her career: gross-out performance art, horror-movie projections, noise music and standup crammed into one bill, with the audience treated as a test subject. Everything that later read as startling on network television — the medical imagery, the practical gore, the gleeful hostility — was engineered and road-tested in those rooms first.
• Key Collaborator · Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain by Please Don't Destroy (2023). Sherman joined SNL in the same era as the Please Don't Destroy trio, and the show's pre-taped digital output became the shared home turf for that younger cohort — quick-turnaround, visually inventive shorts made semi-independently of the live stage. Their feature shows what the unit's sensibility looks like at length, and situates the collaborative writers-room ecosystem in which Sherman's filmed pieces get built each week.
• Legacy · Ziwe by Ziwe Fumudoh (2021). Sherman is still early in her career, so her influence reads mostly as cohort-building: she helped prove that confrontational, internet-born comedy with a strong authored visual identity could be scaled onto television intact. Ziwe's Showtime series is the nearest sibling success — a hostile-by-design interview format, lurid candy-colored art direction, discomfort as the whole premise — and it opened the same door for performers who refuse to soften.

What influenced Sarah Sherman

• David Cronenberg (1943). Sherman explicitly affirms that Cronenberg influences her. (also via Videodrome) “When asked whether filmmaker David Cronenberg is an influence, she answered, "Yeah, one billion percent."” (Wikipedia)
• David Lynch (1946). Asked about Lynch, Sherman credits him with shaping how she thinks. (also via Blue Velvet) “Sherman answered, "I feel like he taught me, like, how to think, basically. And I'm in dream analysis and stuff because of him...” (Wikipedia)
• The Ren & Stimpy Show by John Kricfalusi (1991). Sherman names Ren & Stimpy among the shows she loved growing up. “I grew up liking, you know, crazy cartoons, and I love Joan Rivers and The Nanny and Garbage Pail Kids and Ren & Stimpy and stuff like that.” (Wikipedia)
• Kristen Schaal. The article names Schaal as an influence on Sherman's early stand-up. “When she started performing stand-up comedy, she took influences from comedians such as Todd Barry , Maria Bamford , and Kristen Schaal .” (Wikipedia)
• Gilda Radner. A scholar compares Sherman’s comedic style to Radner’s; Sherman does not identify Radner as an influence here. “"To me, she's like if Pee-wee Herman and Gilda Radner had a comedy baby," says Nick Marx, an associate professor of film and media studies at Colorado State University” (Variety)
• The Nanny. Sherman identifies the show as something she loved growing up. “I grew up liking, you know, crazy cartoons, and I love Joan Rivers and The Nanny and Garbage Pail Kids and Ren & Stimpy and stuff like that.” (Wikipedia)
• Joan Rivers (1933). Sherman names Rivers among the performers and works she loved growing up. “I grew up liking, you know, crazy cartoons, and I love Joan Rivers and The Nanny and Garbage Pail Kids and Ren & Stimpy and stuff like that.” (Wikipedia)
• Videodrome by David Cronenberg (1983). Videodrome (David Cronenberg) — titan for Sarah Sherman “I'm 15 [seeing Lynch's Blue Velvet for the first time] and I'm going, 'I guess there's, like, a dark underbelly to Americana suburbia'." When asked whether filmmaker David Cronenberg is an influence, she answered, "Yeah, one billion perc…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Seinfeld by Larry David (1989). The article lists Seinfeld among Sherman's stated comedic influences. “Sherman has said her comedic influences include television shows such as Seinfeld , The Nanny , The Golden Girls , Pee-wee's Playhouse , and The Ren & Stimpy Show .” (Wikipedia)
• The Golden Girls. The article lists The Golden Girls among Sherman's stated comedic influences. “Sherman has said her comedic influences include television shows such as Seinfeld , The Nanny , The Golden Girls , Pee-wee's Playhouse , and The Ren & Stimpy Show .” (Wikipedia)
• Pee-wee's Playhouse by Paul Reubens (1986). The article lists Pee-wee's Playhouse among Sherman's stated comedic influences. “Sherman has said her comedic influences include television shows such as Seinfeld , The Nanny , The Golden Girls , Pee-wee's Playhouse , and The Ren & Stimpy Show .” (Wikipedia)
• Maria Bamford. The article names Bamford as an influence on Sherman's early stand-up. “When she started performing stand-up comedy, she took influences from comedians such as Todd Barry , Maria Bamford , and Kristen Schaal .” (Wikipedia)
• Jerry Lewis. Sherman expresses admiration for Jerry Lewis. “I'm obsessed with Jerry Lewis ... I look like Jerry!” (Wikipedia)
• Dan Aykroyd. Sherman drew on earlier Aykroyd sketches when developing a vomit prop. “Looking back at earlier sketches in which Dan Aykroyd and Jay Mohr faked vomiting, she developed "an advanced vomit rig that's handsfree, kind of like Bluetooth style," as she describes it.” (Wikipedia)
• Raggedy Ann. Sherman explicitly credits Raggedy Ann with influencing how she dresses. “I had Raggedy Ann dolls. Thinking about it now, Raggedy Ann has heavily influenced the way I dress.” (Wikipedia)
• Massive Head Wound Harry. The article identifies Carvey's prosthetic-heavy sketch as one Sherman loves. “In SNL history, she loves Dana Carvey 's iconic sketch "Massive Head Wound Harry" ( Season 17 ), in which Carvey wore a bloody, mangled head prosthetic which is tugged and chewed by a dog.” (Wikipedia)
• Todd Barry. The article names Barry as an influence on Sherman's early stand-up. “When she started performing stand-up comedy, she took influences from comedians such as Todd Barry , Maria Bamford , and Kristen Schaal .” (Wikipedia)
• Norm Macdonald. The article explicitly identifies Macdonald as an influence on Sherman's SNL work. “She has cited Norm Macdonald as an influence on her SNL work: "He was a little troublemaker. I relate to him because he was never not himself."” (Wikipedia)
• Garbage Pail Kids. Sherman identifies Garbage Pail Kids as a childhood favorite. “I grew up liking, you know, crazy cartoons, and I love Joan Rivers and The Nanny and Garbage Pail Kids and Ren & Stimpy and stuff like that.” (Wikipedia)
• Blue Velvet by David Lynch (1986). Sherman recalls the impression Blue Velvet made on her as a teenager. “I'm 15 [seeing Lynch's Blue Velvet for the first time] and I'm going, 'I guess there's, like, a dark underbelly to Americana suburbia'.” (Wikipedia)
• Little Otik by Jan Švankmajer (2000). Little Otik (Jan Švankmajer) — ghost for Sarah Sherman (themoviedb.org)
• The Muppet Show by Jim Henson. The Muppet Show (Jim Henson) — culture for Sarah Sherman (themoviedb.org)
• The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights (Hieronymus Bosch) — culture for Sarah Sherman (wikidata.org)
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (2006). Fun Home (Alison Bechdel) — culture for Sarah Sherman (openlibrary.org)
• Pink Flamingos by John Waters (1972). Pink Flamingos (John Waters) — titan for Sarah Sherman (themoviedb.org)
• Jay Mohr. Sherman drew on earlier Mohr sketches when developing a vomit prop.
• Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (2007). Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim) — titan for Sarah Sherman
• Frank by Jim Woodring (1994). Frank (Jim Woodring) — ghost for Sarah Sherman

Peers and kindred spirits

• Dan Bulla. The article explicitly describes Sherman and Bulla as frequent collaborators. “"You talk to every department and a lot of people are like, ‘Well, what should the wardrobe be?'" says Dan Bulla, a frequent writing partner for Sherman.” (Variety)
• Louie Zakarian. Sherman worked with Zakarian on a special-effects prop. “"I've been at the show for 29 years now," says Zakarian. "I get some pretty crazy requests, but some of Sarah's are really out there."” (Variety)
• Scott Egleston. Egleston and Sherman put on Helltrap Nightmare together. “While in Chicago, Sherman (alongside Luke Taylor, David Brown, Wyatt Fair, and Scott Egleston) developed the comedy show Helltrap Nightmare” (NYLON)
• Luke Taylor. Taylor and Sherman put on Helltrap Nightmare together. “While in Chicago, Sherman (alongside Luke Taylor, David Brown, Wyatt Fair, and Scott Egleston) developed the comedy show Helltrap Nightmare” (NYLON)
• Colin Jost. Jost encouraged Sherman to create their Weekend Update segments. “Regular viewers have seen her covered in talking meatballs, flailing about with new googly eyes, and tormenting "Update" co-anchor Colin Jost with a variety of characters.” (Variety)
• Jake Gyllenhaal. Speaking about Gyllenhaal, Sherman recalls performing a sketch with him. “Sherman cackles, hisses, and repeatedly stabs an exasperated HR representative (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) in the leg until the entire office explodes” (NYLON)
• Magic for Humans. Sherman worked as a writer on Magic for Humans. “She staffed on the Adult Swim series THREE BUSY DEBRAS and Netflix’s MAGIC FOR HUMANS.” (The Stand)
• Three Busy Debras. Sherman worked as a writer on Three Busy Debras. “after writing for The Eric Andre Show and Three Busy Debras , Sherman’s time in LA came to an end.” (NYLON)
• Eric André. Sherman opened for André on his tour. “comedian and actress Sarah Sherman says opening for Eric André was the best job of her life because he’s the only person who is crazier than her” (Bravo)
• The Eric Andre Show. Sherman worked as a writer on The Eric Andre Show. “Sarah opened for Eric Andre’s national tour and wrote on THE ERIC ANDRE SHOW.” (The Stand)
• I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson by Tim Robinson (2019). I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Tim Robinson) — geography for Sarah Sherman “Tim Robinson, Kyle Mooney, etc.).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Wyatt Fair. Fair and Sherman put on Helltrap Nightmare together. “had a monthly show called Helltrap Nightmare along with Luke Taylor, David Brown, Wyatt Fair, and Scott Egleston.” (Wikipedia)
• David Brown. Brown and Sherman put on Helltrap Nightmare together. “had a monthly show called Helltrap Nightmare along with Luke Taylor, David Brown, Wyatt Fair, and Scott Egleston.” (Wikipedia)
• Aidy Bryant. Sherman discusses Bryant’s help during her early time at SNL. ““And she's just the funniest, best person ever. She's been there for 10 years and you think about like, She's been helping people there for 10 years.” (NYLON)
• Dua Lipa. Sherman says she performed the sketch with Dua Lipa. “We did this sketch called 'The Anomalous Man,' where I play this mythical creature beast with Dua Lipa , it was kind of an Elephant Man parody.” (Wikipedia)
• Los Espookys by Julio Torres (2019). Los Espookys (Julio Torres) — peer for Sarah Sherman (themoviedb.org)
• Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain by Please Don't Destroy (2023). Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (Please Don't Destroy) — collaborator for Sarah Sherman
• Wayne's World by Lorne Michaels (1992). Wayne's World (Lorne Michaels) — collaborator for Sarah Sherman
• Standup Solutions by Conner O'Malley (2022). Standup Solutions (Conner O'Malley) — peer for Sarah Sherman
• Animal Furnace by Hannibal Buress (2012). Animal Furnace (Hannibal Buress) — geography for Sarah Sherman
• Hairy Who and the Chicago Imagists by Leslie Buchbinder (2014). Hairy Who and the Chicago Imagists (Leslie Buchbinder) — geography for Sarah Sherman
• Fire Island by Bowen Yang (2022). Fire Island (Bowen Yang) — collaborator for Sarah Sherman
• Together Together by Patti Harrison (2021). Together Together (Patti Harrison) — peer for Sarah Sherman

Who Sarah Sherman influenced

• Smiling Friends by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack (2020). Smiling Friends (Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack) — legacy for Sarah Sherman
• Ziwe by Ziwe Fumudoh (2021). Ziwe (Ziwe Fumudoh) — legacy for Sarah Sherman