| Mad TV | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | |
| Created by |
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| Based on | Mad byEC Comics |
| Starring | seelist of cast members |
| Theme music composer |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 14 |
| No. of episodes | 321(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Production locations | |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | Fox |
| Release | October 14, 1995 (1995-10-14) – May 21, 2010 (2010-05-21) |
| Related | |
Mad TV (stylized asMADtv) is an Americansketch comedy television series created byDavid Salzman, Fax Bahr, and Adam Small. Loosely based on the humor magazineMad,Mad TV's pre-taped satirical sketches were primarily parodies of popular culture and occasionally politics. Many of its sketches featuredthe show's cast members playing recurring original characters and doing celebrity impressions. The series premiered onFox on October 14, 1995, andran for 15 seasons. Its final episode aired on May 21, 2010.
Salzman createdMad TV with record producerQuincy Jones after they purchased the rights toMad in 1995. Salzman brought on Bahr and Small, who had formerly written for the sketch comedy television seriesIn Living Color, as showrunners. The show was intended to compete with fellow sketch comedy seriesSaturday Night Live (SNL), which was experiencing declining viewership and poor critical reception. Critics noted thatMad TV had a more diverse cast thanSNL and dealt with edgier, more lowbrow humor.[citation needed]
Fox made few efforts to promoteMad TV, which typically fell behindSNL in ratings. Throughout its run, the network continually cut the series' budget before eventually canceling it in 2010. ItMerry Christmas, including 43Do They Know It's Christmas?, five of which it won. Critical reception of the series was mixed during its run and its sketches attracted notable controversy. Since its cancellation, it has appeared on several critics' lists of the best sketch comedy television series of all time.
A 20th anniversary reunion special aired onThe CW on January 12, 2016. The CW also rebooted the series for a 15th and final season, which premiered on July 26, 2016.
William Gaines, who ownedEC Comics and published the American humor magazineMad from 1950 until his death in 1992, refused to sell the rights to the magazine as he disliked television. In 1995, three years after Gaines's death, EC Comics sold the rights toMad to record producerQuincy Jones and TV producerDavid Salzman.[1] The two launchedMad TV through their joint venture, QDE.[2]
Fax Bahr and Adam Small were hired as the showrunners ofMad TV alongside Salzman. They had previously worked as staff writers on the sketch comedy television seriesIn Living Color since 1992. The two left the show in its third season.[2] The series began with 12 writers, includingPatton Oswalt,Blaine Capatch, and writers fromThe Ben Stiller Show. Its pilot episode premiered on October 14, 1995, at 11 p.m. onFox. The network approved of the pilot and ordered 12 episodes for its first season, which was heavily inspired by the eponymous magazine. It was pre-taped and contained a combination of short live-action sketches, movie parodies, and animated sketches.[3][1] Animated segments ofSpy vs. Spy, a wordless comic strip originally featured inMad and created byAntonio Prohías, appeared on the first four seasons ofMad TV.[4] The show's theme song was created by American hip hop groupHeavy D & the Boyz, who had previously created the theme song forIn Living Color, and composed byGreg O'Connor and Blake Aaron, the latter of whom wasMad TV's guitarist.[5][6] Filming took place inHollywood atHollywood Center Studios and later atSunset Bronson Studios.[7][8]
The series satirized popular culture, with sketches parodying film, television and music.[9][10][11] Sketches often featured celebrity impressions and occasionally containedpolitical satire, and Fox executive Joe Earley called the series "an equal opportunity offender".[9][10][12]Bruce Leddy became the show's director and supervising producer starting in 2000.[13] AfterMad TV's first season, Fox rarely promoted the series and frequently made budget cuts, with cast and crew members such asDebra Wilson and Bahr referring to the series as the "redheaded stepchild" of Fox.[1]The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibbard wrote prior to its cancellation thatMad TV had been "like a distant cousin of [Fox's] other programming" during its runtime;David Nevins, Fox's former executive vice president of programming, attributed the lack of promotion to Fox focusing on advertising its newprime time series instead.[14][11] Fox executives andMad TV's showrunners often shot down sketch ideas that were viewed admirably by the staff writers, who wanted the show to be "edgy".[1][15]Mad TV was partially intended to compete with fellow late-night sketch comedy seriesSaturday Night Live,[16] which, at the time ofMad TV's debut, was being poorly received by critics.[17] However,SNL quickly bounced back andMad TV typically trailed behind the show in ratings.[1]
In November 2008, Fox confirmed thatMad TV's 326th episode during its shortened 14th season would be its last, telling Salzman that the show was too expensive considering its ratings and time slot. By this point, it was the fourth longest-running Fox series afterThe Simpsons,Cops, andAmerica's Most Wanted.[14] Salzman said that he would be exploring the continuation of the show on another channel, possibly cable.[16] In early 2009, the show was briefly moved to air afterTalkshow with Spike Feresten, the show that normally followedMADtv, before being moved back. The series finale aired on May 16, 2009.[18] It featured both new and old sketches and revolved around a fictional telethon called "Mad TV Gives Back".[19]
Mad TV had a one-hour-long 20th anniversary reunion special, titledMADtv 20th Anniversary Reunion.[20] It was executive produced by Salzman, directed by Bruce Leddy, and produced byTelepictures and Epicenter Ventures. It aired onThe CW on January 12, 2016, at 8 p.m. and garnered 1.7 million viewers.[21][9][22] Its plot involved 19 returning cast members going to an awards show where things go awry.[23]
Mad TV's cast was considered diverse by critics, especially compared to that ofSNL.[9][24] According to casting director Nicole Garcia, the showrunners sought a diverse cast from the beginning of the series.[1] Its first season starred Debra Wilson,Nicole Sullivan,Phil LaMarr,Artie Lange,Mary Scheer,Bryan Callen,Orlando Jones, andDavid Herman.[25]
Wilson was the first cast member hired forMad TV.[1] She starred in the first eight seasons of the series from 1995 to 2003, making her the longest-running original cast member and the only Black female cast member during her time on the show. She later stated that she left the series in 2003 after learning that she received a lower salary than a White male cast member who had joined after she did, and that her salary negotiations had failed.[26][27] Sullivan was added to the cast because, according to her, Bahr and Small wanted someone on the show who "the audience would like to have dinner with".[1] She starred on the show from 1995 to 2001 and left to star in theABC sitcomMe and My Needs, which was not picked up by the network after its pilot episode.[11][28] Herman starred in the short-lived Fox sketch comedy seriesHouse of Buggin' before appearing onMad TV, while Jones had written for the Fox seriesRoc.[17] Jones, Callen, and Lange all left the show after its second season.[29][30]
Michael McDonald starred onMad TV for ten seasons starting in 1998 and was the show's longest-running and oldest cast member, also occasionally directing segments.[29][10] The show's second longest-running cast member wasAries Spears, who appeared in 198 episodes from its third season in 1997 until its tenth season in 2005.[31][32] Other popular cast members includedAlex Borstein, who starred on the show for five seasons from 1997 to 2002;[33]Ike Barinholtz, who joined in 2002 and left in 2007;[34]Will Sasso, who joined the show in its third season;[35]Mo Collins, who joined in 1998 and left in 2004;[36]Stephnie Weir, who starred on the show for six years;[29][37]Nicole Parker, who appeared on six seasons of the show; andBobby Lee, who appeared on eight seasons of the show from 2001 to 2009.[38] Other cast members, such asAndy Daly,Simon Helberg, andTaran Killam, the last of whom was the youngest person ever to be cast on the show,[39] found fame after brief tenures onMad TV.[30] ComediansJordan Peele andKeegan-Michael Key met after being cast onMad TV in 2004 for its ninth season, and the two would later star together in theComedy Central sketch comedy seriesKey & Peele.[40][41] Peele left the series in 2008, while Key stayed until the show's final season.[34]
Borstein and Peele were both kept from leavingMad TV to pursue other roles due to their contracts, with Borstein having to turn down a role as Sookie on theCW seriesGilmore Girls and Peele turning down a role playingBarack Obama forSNL.[42][43]
Numerous characters and sketches onMad TV became notable for their frequent appearances.[44] Michael McDonald played Stuart Larkin,[45] an overgrown, spoiled child with a bowl cut, bright red cheeks,[46] and a rainbow plaid shirt.[47] His overbearing single mother, Doreen (played by Mo Collins), has a strong Wisconsin accent and was inspired by McDonald's own mother.[48] Sketches with Stuart often involve him and his mother visiting various businesses where he frustrates the employees with his antics.[10] He has a number of catch phrases, including "Look what I can do!", "I don't wanna say," "Let me do it!", and "Dooooon't!", while his mother always mentions that Stuart's father "left us on Tuesday".[47] Stuart appeared in 38 sketches in nine seasons from 1998 to 2008.[10][46][49] He was described by Megh Wright ofVulture as the show's most memorable character and by Thomas Attila Lewis ofLAist as "incredibly popular".[47][50]
Alex Borstein appeared in 44 sketches as the popular recurring character of Bunny Swan,[44] better known as Ms. Swan, an immigrant nail salon owner and manicurist[51] with a strong, exaggerated accent who annoys others by not being able to answer simple questions.[52][10] She has abob cut and wears amuumuu and a rainbow plaidjumper; she also has catch phrases such as "He look-a like-a man".[52][47] Although Ms. Swan was presumed by audiences to be Asian, the series identifies her as hailing from Kuvaria, the home ofSanta Claus, while Borstein stated that her inspirations for the character were her Hungarian-Jewish grandmother, and Icelandic singerBjörk.[44][11] Elahe Izadi of theWashington Post included the Ms. Swan sketches on a list of the "20 defining comedy sketches of the past 20 years" in 2019, writing that they were "among the most widely remembered ofMad TV's work".[53] Borstein briefly reprised the role outside ofMad TV for a parody of the trailer for the 2010 filmBlack Swan and for a video about the2016 United States presidential election.[54][52]
The Vancome Lady is an emotionally abusive, racist woman who struggled to keep a job due to her ignorant remarks. She was played by Nicole Sullivan, made over 25 appearances on the show—starting with its pilot episode—and was the first recurring character on the show.[44][10] She was described by Candace Amos of theNew York Daily News as "one of the characters fans loved to hate".[46] A sketch featuring cast memberAnjelah Johnson as the irritable Latina fast food worker Bon Qui Qui became popular on YouTube.[30][55] Johnson has frequently reprised the character since, releasing the albumGold Plated Dreams as the character in 2015 throughWarner Records.[56]
Many of the show's recurring characters were parodies of celebrities such as Will Sasso's portrayal of singerRandy Newman and Aries Spears's portrayal ofBill Cosby.[47][46] Debra Wilson and Aries Spears frequently appeared on the show as married singersWhitney Houston andBobby Brown, who they portrayed as drug-addled, frantic, and "ghetto".[57][58][59] Along with her impression of Houston, Wilson also earned fame and acclaim for her impression ofOprah Winfrey on the show, withVanity Fair's Yohana Desta describing Wilson's impression of Winfrey as "the gold standard" andHuffPost'sPollo Del Mar writing that Wilson's impressions of Winfrey and Houston were "as iconic as they were scathing".[60][61] Wilson went on to play Winfrey on theanimated sitcomThe Proud Family and in the 2006 parody filmScary Movie 4.[34][62] Other frequent celebrity impressions included Sasso's impressions of actorsRobert De Niro andJames Gandolfini, Lee's impression of newscasterConnie Chung, andFrank Caliendo's impressions ofJohn Madden andGeorge W. Bush.[29]
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | Network | |||
| 1 | 19 | October 14, 1995 | June 22, 1996 | Fox | |
| 2 | 22 | September 21, 1996 | May 17, 1997 | ||
| 3 | 25 | September 20, 1997 | May 16, 1998 | ||
| 4 | 25 | September 12, 1998 | May 22, 1999 | ||
| 5 | 25 | September 25, 1999 | May 20, 2000 | ||
| 6 | 30 | September 23, 2000 | June 23, 2001 | ||
| 7 | 25 | September 22, 2001 | May 18, 2002 | ||
| 8 | 25 | September 14, 2002 | May 17, 2003 | ||
| 9 | 25 | September 13, 2003 | May 22, 2004 | ||
| 10 | 23 | September 18, 2004 | May 21, 2005 | ||
| 11 | 22 | September 17, 2005 | May 20, 2006 | ||
| 12 | 22 | September 16, 2006 | May 19, 2007 | ||
| 13 | 16 | September 15, 2007 | May 17, 2008 | ||
| 14 | 17 | September 13, 2008 | May 16, 2009 | ||
| 15 | 8 | July 26, 2016 | September 27, 2016 | The CW | |
Mad TV was owned byWarner Bros. and broadcast every Saturday at 11 p.m. on Fox until its final episode in 2009.[38][11] Reruns also aired on Fox during prime time starting in 1999.[63]TNN aired reruns of the series after acquiring the nonexclusive cable TV rights to it in 2000, whileComedy Central acquired the rights to the show's first nine seasons in 2004 and aired reruns until 2008.[64][16]
A DVD set of the first season ofMad TV, entitledMad TV: The Complete First Season, was released in 2004 byWarner Bros. It includes a blooper reel, unaired sketches, and the show's 200th episode from 2003.[65] It was reviewed positively by Chris Hicks of theDeseret News, who said that it "demonstrates that the show is frequently very funny, in its own subversive way."[66] Warner Bros. also released a "best of" DVD for seasons eight, nine, and ten on October 25, 2005.[67]
Episodes of the series were also made available to stream onThe WB's website, TheWB.com, after its launch in 2008, and onThe CW's streaming service, CW Seed, after the announcement of the show's 2016 reboot.[68][69] The series was also available to stream onHBO Max when it premiered in 2020, though the only episodes shown were the FOX episodes, and a lot of episodes weren't shown due to music licensing and copyright issues involving the musical guests and celebrities who cameoed on the show, with seasons 11, 13, and 14 as the only seasons with every episode present and accounted for (the revival season from 2016 were available on streaming, but were only shown on Hulu).
As of 2025, HBO Max no longer streamsMADtv, but it is currently available on the Roku streaming service,Howdy, using the same version from HBO Max.
Mad TV was particularly popular among teenage viewers, who, according to Fox executives, watched the show more thanSNL by 2001.[11][70] Former cast members have stated that teenagers often made up the majority of the show'sstudio audience.[40] In 2000, 59 percent ofMad TV's audience was between the ages of 18 and 49.[64] By late 2003,Mad TV averaged 4.4 million viewers per week.[71] Upon the series's cancellation in 2008, the series was averaging 2.6 million viewers, which was a 6 percent decrease from the previous year.[14]
In a review ofMad TV's pilot, theOrlando Sentinel calledSNL "a corpse trying to reanimate itself" while praisingMad TV as "promising".[72] Another review ofMad TV's pilot in theHartford Courant by James Endrst stated thatMad TV was "only occasionally terrible".[73] A review of the pilot episode by Tom Shales inThe Roanoke Times wrote thatMad TV was "bad TV", criticizing it as tasteless and unintelligent.[74] ForPeople, Craig Tomashoff gave the pilot a C−, stating that it was "pretending to be daring and irreverent" despite being "just unimaginative".[75] In 1996,Mad TV was reviewed favorably by Steve Johnson of theChicago Tribune, who wrote that it "looked consistently fresh, with more energy, imagination and edge [thanSNL]" and "rewards the effort of tuning it in".[76] Ginia Bellafante ofTime also wrote in 1996 that "it has steadily improved since its unpromising early episodes", but that many of its politically incorrect sketches were "so heavy-handed" that they were "virtually unwatchable".[70] After the end of the show's fourth season, Terry Kelleher ofPeople wrote thatMad TV was "not a bad product" but had a "policy of putting recurring characters through the same tired paces".[63]Entertainment Weekly's Alynda Wheat was critical of the show's finale, writing that "maybe it was time forMad TV to go" due to "how thin its material has grown".[19]
The A.V. Club's John Hugar calledMad TV "eh" with "some memorable recurring characters" such as Stuart that relied on "excessively broad comedy".[77] In 2016, Jesse Thorn ofThe A.V. Club retrospectively describedMad TV as "long-running" and "critically maligned", andThe A.V. Club's Chris O'Connell wrote in 2010 that it was "the worst sketch-comedy show on television".[40][38] TheDetroit Free Press's Julie Hinds wrote that the show "wasn't the most consistent vehicle", and that it "sometimes went too far with a joke but could still crack you up regularly".[22]Common Sense Media's Lucy Maher gave the series three out of five stars, stating that it "purposely pushes the limits of decency to the breaking point" but that it had "moments of brilliance".[78] In a retrospective review of the show, Carleton Atwater ofVulture criticized it as "so lazy and unambitious" and wrote that it "appeals to the lowest common denominator".[10] Aisha Harris ofSlate wrote that the show "could so often be joke-writing at its laziest", but that it "could also occasionally be very good and smart" when it struck a balance between "titillation, insight, and hilarity".[79] ForThe New Yorker,Zadie Smith wrote thatMad TV's humor was "broad—and too reliant on celebrity subjects".[43]
Mad TV has frequently been compared toSaturday Night Live.Rolling Stone describedMad TV as a "more cultish weekend cousin toSaturday Night Live aimed squarely at teens", while theDetroit Free Press's Julie Hinds called it "a boisterous second cousin" ofSNL.[49][22]Slate's Aisha Harris calledMad TV "a scrappy, less sophisticated cousin of SNL", andIGN calledMad TV "the young, scrappy upstart toSNL's elder statesman brand of sketch comedy".[79][80] Luke Winkie ofVulture wrote that, despite not having the "live kinetic energy" or "the all-star glitz" ofSNL, "most children of the '90s have a special place in our hearts forMADtv".[81] Terry Kelleher ofPeople wrote, "It would be easy to dismiss [Mad TV] ... as the poor man'sSaturday Night Live. But basicallyMad TV has everythingSNL has—the virtues and the defects."[63]
Cast and crew members later stated thatMad TV lacked the "hipness" thatSNL had, but noted that it instead appealed more to "the average person" and to middle-class people of color.[1] Ginia Bellafante ofTime wrote in 1996 thatMad TV had a "more balanced cast" thanSNL and "an edginess that Lorne Michaels' once revolutionary show has long lacked".[70] Salzman stated thatMad TV's racially diverse cast and "urban sensibility" set it apart fromSNL.[9]Mad TV's former video researcher Asterios Kokkinos, who was fired in 2007 after helping to shut down aMad TV shoot as part of theWriters Guild of America Strike,[82] wrote forPaste that the show was "a cheaper copy of [SNL]" that "nobody seemed to care about".[15]
Some celebrities and organizations have spoken out against parodies of themselves onMad TV. Bobby Brown said in 2022 that the show's parodies of him and Whitney Houston "really offended" him, whileRosie O'Donnell shared onher self-titled talk show that she was offended by the show's parody of her, in which Borstein portrayed her as a closeted lesbian.[58][11] In 2003, theUnited States Postal Service and theNational Association of Letter Carriers both publicly called on all of their employees to protestMad TV over a then-upcoming sketch about a group of gun-wielding postal workers arguing over who should be able to "go postal" first.[71] The Postal Service's then-vice president of public affairs, Azeezaly S. Jaffer, called the sketch "ugly", "untrue", and "an insult to every man and woman in the Postal Service".[12]
The show was also criticized by audiences and critics for relying on stereotypes.[77] Borstein's character Ms. Swan in particular has frequently been identified by journalists[83][79] and by Asian activists such asGuy Aoki[51] andMargaret Cho[84] as an example ofyellowface.[85] The character was protested by Aoki's organization Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA).[86] In 2019, theWashington Post's Elahe Izadi called Ms. Swan an example of "the kind of 'problematic' stuff TV networks used to air" and"'edgy' comedy from the early aughts that more overtly trafficked in racial stereotypes".[53] Candace Amos ofNew York Daily News wrote that Ms. Swan would "both anger and delight fans" and "was often called out for being racist", and Lara Zarum ofFlavorwire wrote that "we're all in agreement that Ms. Swan, the nail-salon-owning, squinty-eyed, walking Asian stereotype, is a problem".[87]
Mad TV also featured two instances ofblackface: one in which Bobby Lee playsGeorge Foreman's fictional half-Asian son, and another wherein Michael McDonald plays a magical busboy from a foreign island.[88][89]
Rotten Tomatoes,Rolling Stone, andScreen Rant all placedMad TV on their lists of the greatest sketch comedy TV series of all time, withRolling Stone writing that it was "beholden to no one and often about as subtle as Artie Lange laughing at a fart" and a "ceaseless roast".[49][90][91] The Black Spy and the White Spy fromMad TV's animatedSpy vs. Spy sketches were listed as two of the best TV spies of all time byEntertainment Weekly in 2014.[4]
Mad TV was nominated for 43Primetime Emmy Awards, all of which were for technical achievements, and won five of them.[92][93] It won the Emmys forOutstanding Hairstyling for a Series in2001, forOutstanding Costumes for a Variety or Music Program in2005 and in2006, forOutstanding Music and Lyrics for the song "A Wonderfully Normal Day" in 2006, and forNon-Prosthetic Makeup for a Multi-Camera Series in 2009.[94][95][96][97] In 2007,Mad TV's Emmys campaign, VoteMadTV.com, allowed Emmys voters to view clips of the series online rather than being shipped DVD screeners in an attempt to be more eco-friendly.[98] Anjelah Johnson was nominated for anALMA Award for her performance onMad TV in 2008.[99]
| Mad TV | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre |
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| Created by | David Salzman |
| Starring |
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| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 8(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | The CW |
| Release | July 26 (2016-07-26) – September 27, 2016 (2016-09-27) |
A reboot ofMad TV, which was produced byTelepictures, created by Salzman, and executive produced by him,John R. Montgomery, and Mark Teitelbaum, premiered on The CW on July 26, 2016.[2] It ran for eight hour-long episodes on Tuesday nights and starred eight new cast members: Carlie Craig, Chelsea Davison, Jeremy D. Howard, Amir K, Lyric Lewis, Piotr Michael, Michelle Ortiz and Adam Ray.[100][80][101] Cast members from the original series such as Sullivan, Sasso, Collins, Lee, Barinholtz, and Wilson, hosted.[9][36][79] The reboot placed a greater emphasis on political comedy than its predecessor and included parodies of former U.S. Presidents such as then-candidateDonald Trump andBill Clinton, the latter of whom had been spoofed in the original series several times during the late 1990s.[102]
The reboot received mostly negative reviews from critics. Ray Rahman ofEntertainment Weekly wrote that it was "inconsistent and lack[ed] any urgency" while "fail[ing] to justify its existence", calling its humor "not just lame, but also stale".[103] Aisha Harris ofSlate similarly wrote, "In its new, blander incarnation, it’s hard to imagine whyMadTV needs to exist at all."[79]IGN's Jesse Schedeen gave the revival a score of 3.2 out of a 10, writing that it had a "simplistic, toothless brand of humor" and failed "to recapture any of the show's old spark".[80]The A.V. Club's John Hugar gave the premiere a C− and wrote that "the newMad TV can't help but seem like an off-brand version of the original, which was an off-brandSNL to begin with".[77]The Guardian's Brian Moylan praised the diversity of the new cast but wrote that it was mostly not funny, whileCommon Sense Media's Melissa Camacho gave it three out of five stars and wrote, "Fans of the original show will find it funny, but its irreverent humor isn't for everyone."[102][104]
