Back before MTV switched to garbage programming and still ran music videos from time to time they had one of the best shows ever, Sifl & Olly. The show was the brain child of Liam Lynch and Matt Crocco and ran from '97-'99. It was like a bad acid trip meets children's TV way before shows like Wondershowzen were on the air. The two main characters are a green sock puppet named Sifl and a white sock puppet named Olly. Sifl is the calmer leader of the show, while Olly is more excitable and often breaks into crazed furies. Their assistant, Chester, is a mumbling, often nonsensical character who still claims to be great at everything. No real living people or animals ever appeared on the show (except the hamster during Precious Roy's foot long hamster sale), only puppets. The show was always very simple and low-budget. Most of the show's main characters were puppets, with background images or animations in the background via a chromakey. The two co-hosts often had a microphone in front of them. The show had an unscripted feel with the characters talking to each other in realistic, often meandering styles. Sifl and Olly would sing both original and classic songs throughout the show with an original song at the end. Though it featured puppets, the series was not intended for children. The humor often featured profanity, sexual references, drug innuendo, crude humor, bodily functions, and violence.
In this specific clip Sifl & Olly throw it over to Precious Roy, their home shopping network, for a pitch on a new line of electronic cigarettes. The skit itself is pretty bizarre but even more so considering at that time e-cigs weren't a thing and now almost 20 years later electronic cigs are everywhere. Sock puppets just predicted the future. Mind blown.
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