The Maddening Death Of Mad TV

hi I'm Steven Sagal I'm an American and to me nothing means America more than America and Americans so I decided to take a trip into the small towns of America that might look like Saturday Night Live doing a parody of action star Steven seagull but it's actually from the sketch comedy series Mt TV inspired by Mad Magazine the show was created by the Fox network to compete with NBC's long running late night week in Juggernaut but while SNL continues on to this very day Matt TV didn't make it out of the odds what went wrong well we've got a snap be answered to that stupid question where your boyfriend at is he getting you Refreshments is he tall is he getting you mik IES are you like mik IES but before we take a mad look behind the scenes of Mad TV why not take a moment to subscribe to the nerd doic Channel published by EC Comics the satirical comic book Tales calculated to drive you mad first hit new stands in 1952 the publication would quickly shorten its name to mad and in 1955 it would change formats and become a magazine excuse me is this Mad Magazine no it's madelle we're buying our sign on the installment plan over the decades that magazine would become a unique and strangely influential part of Pop Culture an odd mix of juvenile humor rag sociopolitical Lampoon and TV movie and popular music parodies it's mascot Alfred Newman and his catchphrase what me worry became iconic and at its peak mad sold over 2 million copies per issue spawning a wave of imitators by the 1990s Mad Magazine had become an American institution but it had never made the jump to TV because publisher William Gaines personally disliked the medium after gaines's death in 1992 however EC decided to sell the rights to a mad show to a production company owned by television producer David salsman and record producer Quincy Jones meanwhile the Fox network was looking to take on Saturday Night Live on the precipice of entering its 21st year the series had long since grown stale its 1994 season was so bad Fox had good reason to believe it could maybe steal NBC's Thunder in the sketch comedy Arena I come here to offer you a truce I'm afraid I must reject your offer of fruit juice Fox had recently experienced success along those lines with the hit series In Living Color 1995's House of buggin was developed to take its place but was cancelled just after six episodes two fill the Gap in the schedule Fox then turned to Matt TV the new show would replace the entire cast of its predecessor except future office space star David Herman alongside Herman its original lineup featured Brian Kalen Orlando Jones Phil Lamar Arty Lang Mary Shear Nicole Sullivan and Deborah Wilson Salman would act as showrunner alongside former In Living Color writers Adam small and fax bar and the show would employ a dozen writers among those Originals was future comic meast star Patton Oswalt and his then creative partner comedian Blain kapat just like Mad Magazine the series would usually take aim at pop culture and in the early years the show made a point of taking shots at SNL directly something the writers would say the network demanded it also featured occasional appearances by an animated version of mad mascot Alfred E Newman and animated segments based on the Magazine's arguably most famous recurring feature spy versus spy like in SNL celebrity Impressions and wacky characters were a staple Mad TV also had musical guests like SNL except for in its second season it had no featured celebrity hosts instead it had celebrity guests whose roles were generally much more limited than its counterparts hosts the celebrity guests did include a lot of famous faces but nothing even close to SNL's seemingly end list roster of A-list hosts Matt TV was also less prone to doing political satire than SNL and its humor was generally broader this was partially conceptual but it was also a byproduct of an aggressive standards and practices sensor at Fox and the fact that unlike SNL Mad TV wasn't live taped 3 weeks in advance the show couldn't react to world events in real time like its NBC counterpart And So It generally tried to avoid being too topical the overall effect was usually more like Saturday Night Live for high schoolers look what I can do that quality would make Mad TV extremely popular with the teenage demographic and by 2001 more teens would be watching Mad TV than SNL but the same factor meant that the show didn't really turn out to be competition for SNL any more than the 1994 children's sketch comedy series all that did now regardless of quality Mad TV had a couple of other problems to contend with for one unlike SNL which is owned by NBC Mad TV wasn't owned by Fox that meant Fox didn't have as much invested in its success as a result after the first season season the network barely promoted the show at all they also cut the show's budget a number of times which certainly didn't make competing with the comparatively extravagant SNL any easier but the biggest problem Mad TV faced was that in 1995 Saturday night life finally started getting good again when Mad TV began development SNL was seemingly on its last legs in Bar's words it was described as a wounded zebra and we were the Young Lion it did not however go down that way instead SNL would rebound that very year a development bar with later credit to the creation of Matt TV saying part of it was because our competition we got word that Lauren Michaels had seen our pilot and I think he heard footsteps they got will farell that year and raided the ground Lings a week in Saturday Night Live might have been vulnerable to competition but reinvigorated the show was simply too iconic challenge Mt TV beat it in the ratings for a short time but SNL quickly regained its footing and never looked back despite everything mttv would go on to have a 14 season run and at the time of cancellation in 2009 it was Fox's fourth longest running series you would think with that kind of longevity Matt TV like SNL would have launched the careers of a generation of comic stars but while a handful of cast members would go on to have noteworthy careers that never really happened there's no single reason why this is the case it's partially a function of the series being perceived as a kid show and partially because SNL's higher profile and bigger budget attracted more Rising comic stars in the first place no doubt the fact that Mad TV's cast didn't get to share the stage with SNL's top tier celebrity hosts and and acquire some Fame by association also played a part the fact that Mad TV wasn't cranking out Mega stars made it less noteworthy to the general viewership over time bar and small departed at the end of season 3 leaving the show without a single Lauren Michaels type guiding voice writers and producers could disagree on how much of the show needed to be pop culture parodies and while some of the cast were bragging about how the series wasn't afraid to be mean some of the writers were under the impression they weren't out to offend anyone the result could be a weird mish mash of comic Styles we're just like Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore except He's 33 and I'm 93 but even if you just like Mad TV for its style and cast being a fan wasn't always easy season 3 also notably saw the departure of a full quarter of the original cast and by season 7 all but Wilson would be gone then at the end of season 8 three fan favorite cast members Alex Borstein Will Sasso and Andrew daily would all leave and after that Mad TV became a revolving door of talent as it struggled to find a New Groove ratings sank over time and additional budget cuts in season 11 stopped producers from making more than two new hires in the name of budget cuts the later Seasons also saw some experimentation with format changes and eventually most of the animated content would be cut over time the production started to look noticeably cheap then in its 14th season the network moved the show an hour later from 11: to midnight viewers didn't follow and producers were eventually informed that the series was too expensive for the meager ratings it was attracting by the time Mt TV was canceled its magazine counterpart was also on the ropes selling less than 150,000 copies per issue in 2018 its publisher would in New Stand distribution completely ever since the magazine which to date has sold over 411 million copies has been available only in comic book stores and Via subscription Mad TV was revived by the CW for a brief 15th season in 2016 but it wasn't renewed and the brand hasn't been seen since for fans of Mad TV it's maddening to think about what it might have been if SNL bounce back if the creatives could have found a consistent comedic Voice or if Fox hadn't been so stingy with the budget the show died a death of a Thousand Cuts and given mad's unique place in culture that's kind of a shame maybe Alfred E Newman should have been worried after all so what do you think were you a fan of Mad TV and if so do you wish someone would bring it back let us know down in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video you'll definitely find others you like if you check out the rest of the channel as always thank you for subscribing to nerdstalgic he

Channel: Nerdstalgic

Views: 308,974

Keywords: MadTV, MadTV Failure, MadTV Final Season, MadTV Reboot, MadTV CW, Nerdstalgic, MadTV Saturday Night Live, MadTV SNL, MadTV Bobby Lee, MadTV Will Sasso, MadTV Key & Peele, MadTV Comedy Central, MadTV Stuart, MadTV Sketches, MadTV Best Of, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live Legacy, Saturday Night Live History, Saturday Night Live Monologue, Saturday Night Live Musical Guest, SNL, SNL Weekend Update, Bobby Lee Bad Friends, New Rockstars, ScreenCrush, IGN, Corridor Crew

Id: 6HigJly6h3A

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 12 2024