Real Reason the New 'All That' ( 2001-2005) was bad

They even botched Vital Information because Lil JJ was way too loud and forceful in his delivery (as if he was knowingly insulting you). What made the skit work (at least when Lori Beth Denberg was doing it) was that the person delivering it was very deadpan and dry.

I always in the back of my mind, wanted to believe that the first revival of All That was a tad bit "white washed". People seem to forget that All That during its early years, had a very "hip-hop" edge or flavor to it. For one thing, virtually all of the musical guests came from rap or R&B. Also, when All That started, there seemed to be a conscientious effort made to have as ethnically diverse of a cast as possible. Like you had more people of color (Alisa, Angelique, Kenan, and Kel) than you did white people (Josh Server, Lori Beth Denberg, and Katrina Johnson were the only whites in the cast at the start).

The Sugar & Coffee skit, where Kyle Sullivan and Lisa Foiles played these hyper-active, manic TV show hosts was kind of emblematic of what was wrong with the "new" All That. It was pretty much their version of the Randy & Mandy skit but instead of overindulging in chocolate, they overindulged in well...you should already know by the title. The problem was that Sugar & Coffee was an extremely, and I mean extremely, one-note skit (the whole joke is that Kyle and Lisa are extremely manic and drink and eat a ton of sugar and coffee) that they stretched way too far. It got very repetitive very fast to put it in another way.

I also think that they relied too much on vulgarity and gross-out humor. Remember when the cast did the "On-Air Dare" in bumpers on SNICK? That pretty much says it all in terms of All That from that era being knee deep into gross-out humor. As I addressed to elsewhere, you in hindsight can tell that Seasons 7-10 had a lot of Dan Schneider's influence (i.e. loud, very bizarre, sometimes dark and mean-spirited comedy).

I also believe that the 2002-05 run may have been a tad bit too on the nose when it came to mentioning then current popular culture. For example, they did a skit that spoofed the Osbournes around the same time that the MTV reality show was running. They also had a parody of American Idol called American Idiot. And then there was the Harry Potter parody, Harry Blotter (or something to that effect).

I don't recall All That in its first run, being so deliberate or obvious when mentioning pop culture. There was the Spice Boys but it wasn't a clear as day spoof of the Spice Girls. They had Katrina Johnson impersonate H. Ross Perot, but I doubt that most kids watching wouldn't immediately gotten that reference.