n-mo They say that Saturday Night Live used to be a very bold, risqué, hilarious satirical piece. That was apparently back in the day before I was old enough to know the difference, because I can remember exactly ONE SNL sketch that was genuinely funny or that hit the mark with parody. (And it was the former, not the latter.)MADtv, however, was another story altogether. Its appearance was quite propitious: 1995, right in the midst of that that idealistic Golden Ascendancy when Middle America was growing fatter and richer with its lower-class Playgirl Playmate in the White House, an exploding appetite for cheap outsourced consumer goods, the 90210-lifestyle poisoning teenagers' imaginations to the point of lethality, pop music about to produce its most horrific bunch ever in the form and/or image of the ex-Mousekateers... and no more good satire show that hit home just how HORRIFIC this all was!Enter MADtv, which lampooned the peculiarities of 1990's and 2000's politics, lifestyles, habits, entertainment and everything else under the sun in America. Finding ripe targets was in itself pretty easy: in retrospect (though some certainly saw it even then and were laughed off as loonies, or worse, as John Birchers) it is difficult to argue that almost anything that went on politically, economically, socially or culturally in America during those decades was a *positive* development. (The lone exception might be the disappearance of 1980's hair styles and clothing.) But what made MADtv so brilliant was its unabashed sense of humor about just how ridiculous everything was.Taken at face value, most of the parodies on MADtv are tastelessly vile, but even this aspect is so skillfully executed as to appear a subtle, genius commentary on the tastelessness and vileness of 90's and 00's American society. MADtv never rose to the prominence of SNL, and perhaps we ought to be thankful for that: MADtv never succumbed to the temptation to start taking itself seriously and trying to one-up the figures it sent up in their own fields.Whether it's Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Bill O'Reilly, the Clintons, Oprah Winfrey... MADtv just hits to the heart of it all. At a time when the most ridiculous elements in America were becoming its most serious spokesmen, we had MADtv to show us the madness of it all. So sad so few listened, and so sad we no longer have it with us to help us laugh at how much worse it gets every day.(Don't hate. Despite my location I grew up in the U.S. of A. and things are not much better over here...)

b_havag Mad-TV is a strange show. It ranges from some of the best comedic pieces you'll ever see, to the stuff that simply sucks. Anyway, I think most of the sketches is on the better half on the scale.Therefore, I recommend it to be viewed on YouTube. There you can seek out the best of them, sketches that are absolutely hilarious, and easy 10/10. Keywords are "Stuart", "Bush Mad TV", "Nicole Parker", "VerbAlert" (Ron Pederson), "Man Up", "Kenny Rogers Jackass, Apprentice and Fear Factor", "Deal or no deal parody", "Sex and the City", "Clay Aiken", "Sprint Ringtones", "Steven Segal", "Arnold Schwarzenegger" and so much more. Many of these will have to be written with "Mad TV" as extra to find what you're looking for.The best sketches are out there, there are many of them, and they are hilarious. Unfortunately, Mad TV has a significant number of bad comedy acts as well, and therefore I must give an 8/10 overall.

michael_the_nermal Horrible, horrible TV show! Why Comedy Central decided to repeat old episodes of this program is beyond me. It really sucks! I am, of course, speaking about the seasons after the first two. The first two seasons were golden, and if I was exclusively talking about those seasons, this show would have gotten eight out of ten stars. None of the comedians appearing after the first two seasons who were not part of the original cast are any good. They were, and are, awful. The comedy is not funny at all. AT ALL!!! The original cast was full of very talented comedians, like Artie Lange, Phil LaMarr, and Mary Schorr (or whatever her name is), all of whom should have gotten better deals after they left MAD TV. This show is highly overrated, and less worthy of your channel surfing time than Saturday Night Live, another horrible show. Go out on Saturday night and have fun, and leave MAD TV to wither and die, as it deserves to.

Keith Ammann For the first couple of seasons, MadTV was the best sketch comedy to be seen on television since the original Saturday Night Live. It was anarchic, unpredictable, off-the-wall and, most of all, fresh. The ensemble cast was great, the claymation segments were gut-bustingly funny, and even the recurring shticks, such as the "Lowered Expectations" dating service videos and "Cabana Chat," were loose enough to allow a lot of variation.Then something bad happened.The cast changed -- not a problem in and of itself, except that several very versatile performers were replaced by performers who were not as versatile. (The crucial element in ensemble sketch comedy is every actor's being able to play a straight role.) Much worse, the writing changed. Suddenly MadTV was succumbing to the same phenomenon that had plunged recent seasons of SNL into cringeworthy humorlessness: the Recurring Character.You knew exactly what you were going to see every week on SNL: A Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch. A sketch with those two loser club guys. A cheerleader sketch. The same actors came back week after week and did the same characters over and over, long past their expiration dates.MadTV was doomed when it became apparent that every one of its episodes was also going to be the same: A Vancome Lady sketch. A UBS Guy sketch. A Stuart sketch. A Swan sketch (what an offensive character, not to mention singularly unfunny). A James Brown sketch (Aries Spears doesn't even do James Brown well). A sketch featuring whoever that lady who can't sit still or pay attention to anything is supposed to be. Enough, already! The only advantage MadTV had left over SNL was that it showed two sketches in between each commercial break instead of only one.Oh, how I long for the days when a simple dressing-down of an executive assistant by his boss could blow up into a manic exchange featuring such over-the-top lines as: "God? God is not here! Your report was so insanely disappointing, it drove God away!" Alas, it is not to be.