Sherman's Showcase

It’s 100%, brilliantly executed, hilariously spot-on parody, created by the rising-stars duo Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle.

A joyful Sunbeam Mixmaster of a sketch show, a Spirograph set spinning through decades of black pop culture, finding faintly psychedelic patterns, in the shared tradition of Sun Ra and K-tel. Its premise is pure meta-absurdism. ... For all the show’s self-awareness, it feels warm, organic, and spontaneous, not cold or contrived.

Clever, laid-back, and sneakily weird, the new IFC series Sherman’s Showcase will be catnip to pop-culture-history obsessives. ... But what makes this series stand out is how it weaves in a utopian fantasy element. Its invented gallery of African-American entertainers are contextualized as part of a thriving black culture that’s obviously part of the mainstream, not operating adjacent to it, or struggling to claim a little corner.

Sherman's Showcase offers a lot to laugh, and occasionally marvel, at.

There’s something hugely refreshing about “Sherman’s Showcase,” a show that makes you giggle before you realize, “Hey, that’s pretty smart.”

There are sharp musical parodies; spot-on period costumes; amusing impressions (Mary J. Blige, Lana Del Rey); and appearances by executive producer John Legend, Tiffany Haddish, Quincy Jones and more. Though Showcase is more allusive and ambitious than South Side, both shows are funny.

While there are recurring characters and some structural throughlines — episodes follow the dancers, guests, controversies, etc. — the show generally jumps around without lingering too long on any given subject. That can make it a little disorienting to follow, but the brisk rhythm also keeps both the IFC and fictional versions of “Sherman’s Showcase” from getting stale too soon.

“Sherman’s Showcase” is starrier, with a brightness and energy to match. ... The format, stretched across eight episodes, allows Riddle and Salahuddin to throw a lot of things against the wall, and they don’t all stick. ... Those with stamina can hang around for the bits that work.