A Stephen Colbert & Steve Carell Flashback

Between them they've been nominated for nine Emmy Awards, but they started out much like many of their comedy brethren: Performing silly songs for throngs of semi-captivated Chicago audiences. Such was the history of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell. As was the case for many of their now big-name contemporaries, this mythical past took place at Second City.

Carell and Colbert overlapped in their time at Second City, with Colbert even serving as Carell's understudy for a time in 1991. In 1996 the pair performed as the two halves of The Ambiguously Gay Duo, first seen on The Dana Carvey show and seen in more recent years in a 2011 episode of Saturday Night Live featuring Jon Hamm and Jimmy Fallon.

In this flashback we find the pair in the era in between their start and their legacy: In 1993, singing "The Obvious Song" with two fellow Second City-ers. The song itself is, well, obvious, but I get a similar thrill watching this as I did watching Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch performing their two-woman show Dratch & Fey at Second City in 1999.

You really can't compete with Second City for their '90s comedy star output, can you? Other contemporaries include Amy Poehler, Amy Sedaris, Bob Odenkirk (Saul!), and many more.

Image: Second City