Good riddance!
Never funny.
Never clever.
Never witty.
Constantly repetitive.
Constantly mind-numbingly stupid.
Constantly featured the most obnoxious characters.
14 years was undoubtedly far too long.
Now if only they'd finally cancel SNL. At least that show used to be funny way back in the mid-nineties.
Oh and I'm sure people want to know what sketch comedy I find funny in comparison to this heaping pile o' garbage?
"Mr. Show with Bob and David"
"Kids in the Hall"
"Tim and Eric Awesome Show"
Some of "The State"
Some of "In Living Color"
Some of "Chappelle's Show"
I agree with some of what you said, and I am also a big fan of Mr. Show and Kids In The Hall. And while I thought this show sucked really hard, I thought it got better in recent years. From around the time Ike came along it got good. I'm not saying it was just Ike that made it good, I'm just using that as a time reference, as I'm not sure what year.
I found MadTV to be EXTREMELY dumb in the days of Mrs. Swan, Vancome Lady (sp?), Stuart, Lorraine, and pretty much every other recurring character on MadTv. Not only were they dumb and not funny the first time, but then every time they came back, which was all too often, the premise of the sketch did not change one bit. It was the same old crap. I will add that Will Sasso did some funny stuff during those years, but it was drowned out by piles of crap heaped on by other cast members.
But I found the show to have redeemed itself in it's later years. The sketches were funnier, people like Keegan Michael Key and others brought a lot of great stuff to the show, and actually made me set my DVR for MadTV, which was something that I used to say only as a joke.
So while I always used to hope for the show to get cancelled, I hate that it did when it was finally getting good.
I think it was good in the first couple years.
The later years (post-2006), they had too much simple racial humor, too much lower common denominator humor, humor that was obviously very cheap because a lot of it was in front of an audience that looked like the Golden Globes.
Stuff like Bobby Lee just showing off his out-of-shape body, Michael McDonald's often insulting characters, Nicole Parker being overused, etc.
The song parodies and Tv parodies were dumber.
This song parody of Umbrella struck me as the single lowest moment of the show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rSeI0nhjU
They just decided, let's throw in some cheap sex jokes, let's get gross and perverted. This didn't even qualify as satire anyways.
Let's not forget, at that point FOX was cutting the shows budget and removing cast members.
The last 2 seasons didn't even give the show enough budget for full-length episodes. Imagine SNL having to make a 65 minute episode with the budget for a 45 minute episode?
Nice list of sketch comedy shows. Mr. Show was awesome and introduced me to Bod Odenkirk and David Cross. Kids in the Hall was a favorite of mine when I was a kid when it was running on CBS and later comdedy central and I still watch it whenever I see it on. Now we get to Tim and Eric awesome show. I was introduced to these 2 when I caught the first episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor. I didn't know what to make of it until I saw another episode and I realized that it was the strangest yet funniest show I had ever seen. I was pissed when it was cancelled and then Awesome Show debuted and it's one of my favorites. The State and In Living Color were all great in parts but I thought seasons 1 and 2 of Chapelle Show were classic (that lost season was trash). There was 1 funny sketch I saw on Mad TV during the first season (I think) ... Steven Seagal was making a movie about the civil rights movement (he was of course in black face) and Rosa Parks was a young sexy woman with ninja swords. Other than that it was all crappy Ms. Kwan and Stuart sketches
shareIm amazed they removed madtv and snl is still running.
They need to cancel snl its pathetic not funny and its just taking up space and needs to be removed asap.
It's about time they cancel Mad TV. It can't be said enough: Mad TV is the WORST sketch comedy show ever! It's a disgrace to sketch comedy.
And don't even try to compare it to SNL.
There's a reason why SNL has been around for so long. It's because it's the most respected and most celebrated sketch comedy show ever. SNL started it ALL! 'Nuff said.
Yeah, but SNL still sucks no matter how long it's been around. It used to be good, but now....I agree with some that it also needs to be cancelled.
shareDo you know what is funny about SNL? People now look back at the mid 90s cast (Farley, Spade, Schneider, Sandler, Rock, Hartman, Nealon, etc.) as classic but if you remember at the time people then were saying they sucked. I liked the show at the time but everyone would tell me how they sucked compared to the Eddie Murphy, Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase era. I think the show sucks now and I haven't watched in years but it is funny to me that the mid 90's cast is now looked at as the "gold standard"
shareI thought Mad TV was a great show when it was on, but a terrible show when it was off. It was very up and down and largely dependent on the cast (not unlike SNL). It had it's horrible years and it's brilliant years.
There were times that Mad TV was funnier than SNL. I thought the first season or so of Mad TV was horrible and an obvious attempt to knock off of SNL but around Season 2 they started finding their way and from Seasons 2 - 6 or so the show was great. Then after that it was very hit and miss. I thought they started turning around again around Season 10, but then in Season 13 they completely changed the format of the show and that killed it. The last 2 years were horrible, when they moved to that theater and tried to be more like a traditional 'variety' show. They should've stuck with what they knew because that was bad. I have to say it deserved it's cancellation because it couldn't have gone on much longer with the horrible format of the last 2 seasons.
The humor in Mad TV was never anything too special, pretty typical celebrity lampooning and one-dimensional characters, but when it was good it really did make you laugh, even if it wasn't the smartest stuff.
I've always felt like SNL used it's celebrity hosts as a crutch. I mean, they do have some "classic" bits, but the show is about 30% very funny stuff and 70% crap that people barely chuckle at.
Personally i've always thought mad tv was way better, just because they "went too far" often, but that's just me.
"I was in the hall... I know because I was there."
MadTV was by far better than SNL during the 90s.
Now both shows deserve to be canceled.
kill yourself, moron. This show was very funny, and lightyears better than SNL has been for decades
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I agree with Tim and Eric that pile of *beep* needs to be canned. That is the lowest point of TV right now
shareI don't understand how this has been on tv for over ten years. Its simply terrible. It isn't that its bad comedy or low brow... Its just that it isn't actually funny in the slightest.
For some reason since the switchover went to digital I don't get NBC anymore so decided to sit through an episode tonight. I just don't understand how this show is still going. Saturday Night Live has had some great years and some funny sketches. As a general rule its been pretty crappy these last few years but at least I see where they're going with the humor. Not the case with Mad TV. Painful to watch.
You must be on drugs. SNL has been HORRIBLE for YEARS. The women on the show must've been picked from a Least talented people in American contest. While true that since Bobby Lee has joined Mad, it has gone downhill, it is still EONS better than SNL
shareI'm glad they are finally canceling it. But it wasn't always this bad. Just recently over the past 4-5 years has it gone downhill. I think we can all agree the classic ones (which weren't always that funny) were vancome lady, stuart, rusty, marvin tikvah, lida and melina, swan. But I absolutly loved when Debra did Oprah..she was amazing at that. I to this day can not watch the real oprah or take her seriously because I always think of Deb, and same with Michael playing Dr. Phil. I also loved when Deb as Oprah would make fun of Steadman. ie. "I have my own vanilla child at home and the other day I said to him I said Steadman do you ever feel depressed living in my shadow?" That was when she interviewed the Godard family with DOT. The other one was a jackass skech when they were all beating her up and she says "stand up steadman taaaaaaaaaalk to americaaaaa. And he's really Oprah you're gonna let me say something?" Those were *beep* hilarious!! I laughed soo hard.
But even recently the skeches that used to be funny were funny no more. Michael Mcdonald must have done Stuart for 10+ years and it was funny near the beggining when he didn't talk and he just made stupid faces and gestures..but they ruined that by making him run his mouth in the new ones it wasn't funny!
But when they brought deb and nicole back to do oprah and the vancome lady and lida and melina..they kept to the original concept and it was still funny.
Some of the newer cast members are a joke..they are soo not funny. Ardyn and Christa are 2 of the most annoying cast members ever. Just their voices alone make me want to turn off the volume until their skech is done. I don't know what FOX was thinking hiring those 2, but they made the show fail..not on their own but played a big part.
I've been watching MAD since I was 12 I'm now 23, and it used to be my favourite show I would try my darndest to stay up till 11 and now Im always up then but I don't make an effort to watch it like I used to. So after 14 years its about time they pull the plug.
Ardyn and Christa aren't so bad. But Bobby Lee brings the show down. The guy is annoying, and not that funny.
shareIf you think MADtv is the worst comedy sketch show, you need to watch Australia's "The Wedge".
Seriously, The Wedge makes MADtv look like the comedy genius of the world...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5psItr_kjjo
And they were some of the funnier sketches!
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Well, I am a fan of both SNL and MadTv. The funniest sketch comedy show for me was Chappelle but that is a different story. SNL had its down years which was the early 90's when had that huge cast with Farley, Nealon, Elliot, etc. I thought when Madtv came out, it pushed the limits with its sketch comedy with animation and parodies. Then SNL brought in Farrell, Kattan, Oteri and Morgan and it got much better. The early 00's was th best for both shows because they started infusing young talent. Then Madtv fell off big time since 05.
Sweet Christmas!!