The Maddening Death Of Mad TV 

MadTV felt more raw and edgy at the time. I always preferred it over SNL.

As far as I'm concerned, Michael McDonald, Debra Wilson, Will Sasso, Aries Spears, Nicole Sullivan, Alex Borstein, Mo Collins, Stephanie Weir, Nicole Parker, Phil Lamarr, Frank Caliendo all deserve a place in the television comedy pantheon.

The wrong show died...

MadTV was an underrated gem that should have gotten more attention. So many people from that cast are funnier than most people in Hollywood and don't get the credit they deserve

I didn't know what SNL was until my late teens but i watched MadTV as a kid

The fact that the narrator felt the need to say in the introduction that it was NOT a SNL skit, but rather a show "called MadTV"... like it was forgotten in time... breaks my heart. This show was a big part of my late teens/early 20s.

Mad tv was way funnier then snl

Fun fact: Family Guy was originally going to start as a series of shorts on MadTV, but MadTv’s budget was not big enough to support animation production, so the idea was scrapped.

Kenny Rogers jackass sometimes pops in to my head for no reason.

I loved Mad TV growing up as a kid. Absolute gold. Things went down hill and it stopped being a thing. Miss the gold old days, lol.

MAD TV John Madden and Kenny Rogers skits will always be iconic

As a teen not living in the US, I wasn't exposed to SNL as it was not airing in my country. But we did have MadTV in syndication, so I have very fond memories of those forst 5 seasons. What a great cast!

Stuart what are you doing? "holding a chicken and smoking a cigarette" I will never forget that line

Mad TV > SNL. No Contest!

I never thought SNL was ever funny but I used to watch this like crazy

Years later and I still randomly think of Debra Wilson’s Whitney Houston parody and it kills me every time

The OJ Simpson touring golf courses looking for the killer was my favorite skit.

ADAM SMALL IS DAVID ALLEN GRIER.. AT LEAST THATS THE PICTURE YOU USED @02:37 LOL

For my money, the Will Sasso/Pat Kilbane/Ares Spears era was one of the funniest sketch comedy shows ever produced, with the "Son of Dolomite," "Sling Blade," and "Rocket Revengers" sketches being highlights.

I grew up on Mad TV, would always get a Mad TV magazine every time I flew because it kept me distracted. It will always have a special place in my ❤.

“It was viewed as a kids show that didn’t offend.” This statement right here is why critics are so often WRONG. I think the reason people loved MadTV was that they WEREN’T afraid to offend pop culture and celebrities. SNL during that time didn’t allow themselves to be silly and only focused on Political type stuff a lot of the time, until Will Ferrel. As someone in college at the time, me and my buddies LOVED watching MadTV! Characters like Stuart and Miss Swan and UPS guy and Kenny Rodgers weren’t deep and insightful and they didn’t need to be! It was just silly off the wall fun and funny to watch. It wasn’t very geo political and thought provoking and was also rarely boring whereas SNL so many times the skits would just drag on and on 😑 Miss MadTV and don’t think SNL is funny at all. Those days are long gone. And like so many commenters have stated it’s only funny cause everyone is TOLD how funny it is. That’s not funny it’s sad.

I was raised on mad tv, my brother & I still quote Stuart and miss Swan

Fire your fact checker, if you have one. The picture you have for Adam Small is actually David Allen Grier, who was on In Living Color. The picture comes from "Chocolate News" which Grier Co-created with Adam Small, and which Grier starred in.

That’s not a picture of Adam Small! That’s David Alan Grier, son.

I remember my mind being blown when I found out Phil LaMarr was Samurai Jack. He was funny on MadTV, but he's a genius voice actor.

The first time I saw their Sopranos parody, was when I was on break at work. The part when they were going "Fu...Fu...Fu...Motherfu...Fu...Fu..." I laughed so hard I almost choked on my sandwich.

Flashbulb memory, watching MadTV and learning about Princess Diana. While she passed on Sunday (August 31, 1997), the news broke Saturday evening. I was too young to understand, I was just annoyed I couldn't watch the rest of my show because everyone was covering the crash in Paris.

That picture you used for Adam Small is actually David Alan Grier

For a time MADTV was better - Orlando Jones - Phil LaMarr - Artie Lange - Nicole Sullivan - Debra Wilson - Alex Borstein - Will Sasso - Aries Spears - Bobby Lee - Mo Collins - Michael McDonald - Stephnie Weir - Ike Barinholtz - Simon Helberg - Jordan Peele - Keegan-Michael Key MADTV was SO GOOD for a while....the cast is STACKED Kenny Rogers Jackass Bobby Lee and John Cena skit Can I Have Your Number Coach Hines There's one skit with an NFL coach doing a press conference after the game that I CANNOT FIND...it was a gem. Man that show was good.

Grew up on Mad TV in my teens. Way more relevant than SNL.

It can’t be stated enough how SNL had massive movie stars . Mad TV was home of the best voice actors currently working today . Phil Lamar , Debra Wilson , Alex Borstein , and even Nicole Sullivan for Shego can get enough praise for the voice talents

MadTV will always be funnier than SNL

at 2:36 isn’t that david alan grier?

You should do an episode about the animated MAD show

Thanks for mentioning In Living Color. I grew up watching that before I ever watched SNL.

Will Sasso leaving before spoofing Lance Bass’s plans to go into space with the Russians is the greatest missed opportunity in TV history.

I LOVED MAD TV!!! Will Sasso's parody of Steven Segal, Steward, and Key & Peele got their start on there before doing their comedy show years later was so good. I was really heartbroken when they canceled it.

Kenny rogers jackass was some of the best entertainment I’ve ever seen

I'd like a Mad TV movie, like Kids in the Hall Brain Candy, but with all the Mad TV characters in an ensemble piece like a comical Magnolia or Pulp Fiction.

When I was a kid, my parents never watched SNL. They only watched Mad TV. And I would hide on the stairs to watch because it was so funny but my parents thought I was too young.

Me and my ex-wife used to love Will Sasso back in the day. Dude always killed it😂 edit: Also, @2:35, that's David Alan Grier, not Adan Small. No, we do not all look alike, lol.

Was a huge fan of Mad TV through the first 4 or so seasons. Watched almost every episode when it first aired; and have those seasons on DVD now.

Wat. @2:37 that's a picture of David Alan Grier from In Living Color, not Adam Small lol.

Coach Hines and Will Sasso’s Kenny Rogers were absolutely the best characters ever. Also, being named Stewart, this show affected me greatly.

"Viewed as Kid Friendly and didn't want to offend anyone" Meanwhile, skits like Darlene McBride's Take Back America Tour

I loved MAD TV. The Abercrombie store sketch has a special place in my heart

A TV version HAD been tried before this. There was an animated MAD Magazine TV pilot made in the 1970s, but it never actually aired because they couldn't get any corporate sponsors on board. It wasn't seen by the public until just a few years ago when it was uploaded to RU-vid. I watched MAD TV almost until it ended. One season towards the end, all of a sudden the skits just didn't even have sets anymore, and everything was on a single stage. Then for a while it was still on, but there weren't any new episodes, and they would just repeat the same two or three "Best of MadTV" specials over and over again (which didn't, in fact, contain the best sketches, not even close), containing very dated material, including a sketch about the George W. Bush vs. John Kerry election, long after this election had ended. I'm confused by the whole "Mad TV is for teenagers" thing. Wasn't SNL also for teenagers originally? People frequently say that the best era of SNL is whatever one was airing when you were a teenager. I liked MadTV better, simply because SNL dragged on way too long, and too many lengthy commercial breaks, due to the show being live and needing time to switch out the sets and costumes, and musical guest segments. I lived on the west coast, so SNL wasn't even live anyway. SNLs individual sketches always dragged on too long. Something that was funny for maybe a minute would be dragged on for 10 minutes.

Stewart, Mrs. Swan, Lowered Expectations, Gump Fiction. So happy to have been able to watch this show every week growing up.

I thought Mad TV was fine, but man, there were some skits/characters that they ran INTO THE GROUND. I think a lot of the cast did "OK" after they departed the show, but I do think some of them should have been bigger names.

Dude why do you have a picture of David Alan Grier as Adam Small?

2:36 why does “adam small” look exactly like david alan greer

“Speak into the microphone 👶🏼🎤” -Stuart (most iconic character ever)

There needs to be another sketch comedy show to compete with Saturday Night Live. Mad TV is funnier and more timeless, but SNL was also really good during that era, too. Now that SNL has no challengers, they're completely resting on their laurels.

*obligatory truthful “better than SNL” comment*

Used to watch this with my mom as a child. Great memories.Mad always brings a smile to my face. R.I.P. Mom ❤

Im so glad to see people talking about MAD tv, i used to watch it religiously, it was always way gnarlier and more subversive than snl. Glad to see it get some love

Mad TV was more similar to in living color since they had two of their writers but most of the Mad TV fans I've met were either very young people or POC. An audience for the longest time SNL didn't reach out to. It's hard to do Mad TV now cause the original audience has grown up. (It's like that old joke, when did SNL stop being funny, it didn't You Grew Up.)

Losing Borstein and Sasso ended it for me. Huge loss of talent.

When I was in my late teens/early 20s and had my first apartment my friends would come over every Saturday and we would party and watch the new episode of MadTV ever week, we did it right up to the last episode, even though the show really dropped in quality noticeably in the final season, we kept with the tradition right to the end. I still thought the show was amazing in the mid 2000s even though most people think the show wasn't as good once Will Sasso and Nicole Sullivan were gone, but I still loved the Ike Barenholtz/Key&Peele/Michael McDonald/Nicole Parker era

I remember hearing Aries Spears in an interview with the All Out Show (Shade 45) and was asked about Mad TV. He said it was "unwatchable".

Madtv was awesome. Felt like a calmed down version In Living Color.

Miss MadTV such a pinnacle of my childhood

The first Borstein/Green greeting card company sketch was so damn funny, especially when the wheelchair crashes. There was a censored segment I believe of Sullivan and McDonald as a couple arguing with each other. The dialogue about his sexual preferences included her being painted in mime paint and laying in an ice filled tub so he could pretend she was a corpse. But then there was some sort of line that got audibly bleeped which was pretty rare. However, the line was still there in the closed captioning if you turned it on. I don't remember exactly what the joke was that was censored but it had something to do with menstrual blood & got a big reaction from the audience.

Never watched Mad TV, I basically went from All That to SNL, and I credit a decent amount of that to Keenan, a legend

Please do a separate video on just how bad the 90’s era of SNL was. The gist, Crappy skit, commercial, repeat for 90 minutes.

Funnily enough, MadTV was dubbed and aired in other countries, unlike SNL. (Obviously because one was live and one was prerecorded). That is why I, as a none American, am way more familiar with MadTV than with SNL. Love MadTV as a kid.

I have been on a binge of old MadTV. The first six seasons are the best.

2:36 that is David Allen Grier sir , not Adam Small😅

That picture isn't of Adam Small but of David Alan Grier.

That was David Allen Grier 😂

Crazy how Will Sasso's Steven Seagal parody became more and more accurate with each passing year, XD

Mad TV had a number of hilarious skits. Should be note worthy also for having a number of talented female cast members.

You used a David Allen Grier photo for Adam Small, dude lol

I loved mad on Cartoon Network

This was my favorite series at the time. It was a great time on FOX. It's sad that SNL still exists and MADtv is gone.

Will sasso as Kenny rogers is always gonna be hilarious

Considering the current state of SNL, someone should be looking into making a decent skit based show

Spishack... we're working on it 😆

Your Adam small photo is actually David Alan Grier.

love that u started it with one of my favorite skits

I'm kind of surprised this video didn't touch on the strange animated spinoff on Cartoon Network.

I loved Mad TV. Fox killed a lot of shows that could have gone the distance if they had just stopped messing with the schedule.

Grew up on MadTv and still love it to this day! I wish it got the recognition i deserved, it did launch some amazing careers but by the time those who got famous really "made it", MadTv was long gone. Definitely would love to see the seasons get a proper streaming and DVD release!

2:37 😂 that's David Allen Grier you have a picture of bud, not Adam small.. lol

MadTV was better than SNL

It was so good when it started but as the years went on the cast they would hire got less and less funny.

I turned 12 in '95 and I think I watch it all the way up to graduating high school then became too busy to stay watching what I always watched. MAD TV was definitely 1 of my favorite tv sitcoms. I think it be pointless to try to revive this show, especially during today's time, even stad up comedy is practically gone. What a shame

MadTV is one of my favourite shows of all time. The cast is absolutely amazing and talented. Micheal McDonald, Debra Wilson, Mo Collins, Stephanie Weir, Nicole Sullivan, Nicole Parker, Ike Barinholtz, Jordan Peele, and Keegan Micheal Key--SO MANY OTHERS are so iconic and I wished that all of them saw the super stardom they deserve. Im glad some cast members have gotten a spotlight or were on our screens at all but I think they deserve more credit and i hope they know the impact theyve had on fans. Seriously they are so amazing! Back then and to this day, SNL never appealed to me and I felt bored alot while watching them when I tried. Theres only rare gems i like from them.

yes

I for one appreciated the Al Jaffe reference at the beginning of the video, well done sir, well done.

I thought this was gonna talk about the cartoon Network show lol

Better than snl

"Like SNL for high schoolers" Except I loathed Mad TV in HS, and as a theater kid I'd turn down basically every Mad TV sketch I was asked to be in. SNL > Mad, even at age 14. It came off as immature even back then. SNL now is beginning to feel like Mad did then.

The show wasn't popular here in Australia, but one of the local networks used to show it at about 1-3AM and it had a bit of a cult following, certainly amongst my friends and I. I seemed to recall losing interest after about season 6, I think most of the original cast were gone by then and it just wasn't the same.

"In 1995, Saturday Night Live finally started getting good again." - Are you fucking serious?!? That's when it started to suck!!

Tragic story: I was watching the very first episode of MAD in 1995 and I woke up in the hospital. No I didn't laught myself to death. Had a minor stroke. So, that's what that show will always remind me of.

The picture of “Adam small” is really David Alan Grier lol.

Love the breakdown of the show, and I hate to say but... BUT the pictures you put up for the show writers that moved from 'In Living Color' to 'Mad TV' had an incorrect reference to a picture described as 'Adam Small' but the man in said picture is David Alan Grier, an actor from 'In Living Color'.

For being the springboard to launch Key & Peale's career and having Phil Lamar, Mad TV deserves better.

Every Saturday night I would tune in to watch this