Mad TV: funny or not funny?
 

I was watching this the other day, and I can honestly say I do not see how this show has been on the air for so long. The skits they do aren't as much funny as they are annoying and out of left field IMO, and they also seem to like to give the most annoying recurring characters the most airtime.

Anyone else not particularly like this show? The eps. I have seen are from about the 99-01 era.

Not funny, but funnier than SNL.

Agreed.

I haven't watched a full episode since the first season, but every time I watch a little of it now, I am unable to get through one full sketch.

I think I have to disagree. While SNL doesn't serve up the laughs consistentlyor that often, it at least gets a good host every now and then who delivers the funny. Mad TV seems to drive a lot of stuff into the ground and not know when it is stale.

And SNL was the master of that (and still is) waaay before MAD TV came along. :)

Maybe your definition of funny isn't funny......just a thought. That show hasn't survived 11 seasons on FOX (a broadcaster notorious for pulling the plug on a show early, and at the first sign of trouble) for no reason at all.

*cough*Debbie Downer*cough*

Well, my definition of funny is Monty Python type stuff and The Big Lebowski, so maybe that's why I don't get into it as much as other people.

SNL now, or SNL ever?

In the beginning I enjoyed their movie parodies. Occasionally I'll see a skit that's funny, but most of the time it comes off as obnoxiously weird. The whole show just has a sort of low rent feel to it, even after all these years. Most of the recurring characters feel forced, like they decided they would be "fan favorites" before even getting any actual input from audiences. And the laughs feel very canned, almost like a bad 70s/80s sitcom.

Not funny.

The actors are good.

The first season was very good.

It's the "let's-just-make-up-an-exaggeratedly-stupid-and-annoying-character" school of comedy. The only ones that have really mined comedy gold with it are SCTV and Kids In the Hall. It's never worked well on SNL, MADtv or elsewhere...

My best friend and I have this "theory" on the show:

As everyone knows, Mad Magazine is a "parody" magazine. It makes fun of everything that's important or popular in today's society. When they would create their own television, one would expect sketches that are parodies of things that are currently popular in our society. That's how the first two seasons are basically. A good majority of the sketches during those seasons are parodies while there's the handful of sketches that let the actors and writers do their own thing, some of which spawned reoccuring characters (sadly).

As the series progressed and as it started losing it's better preformers (Orlando Jones, David Herman, and Artie Lange all jumped ship after the second season), the series started turning into present day SNL-lite. We believe this mostly because the show got terrible ratings and even more terrible reviews. While the show did have some good regular preformers every now and then (Alex Borstein, Frank Caliendo, Mo Collins, Andrew Daly, Pablo Francisco, Pat Kilbane, Bobby Lee, and Will Sasso are some that come to mind), you also have the preformers which are unterribly funny and are only good for the purpose of driving reoccuring characters right into the ground (Michael McDonald and Stephanie Weir easily come to mind).

After the second season of the show, it quickly went down hill fast as the show lost the whole "parody" aspect and just became a training ground in which the actors and writers would try and launch sketches for characters that can be featured on a regular basis. While every episode of the show would have a funny sketch or two, you had to sit though around ten unfunny sketches as well. Now the show in it's tenth or eleventh or twelth season is just unpainfully funny. However, as others have mentioned, it's a lot better than the solid shit SNL has been putting out for the past five years...

However, I do like Seth Meyers on current day SNL. Everyone else currently involved with SNL should be taken out back and be shot (yes, this includes Tina Fey, unless she wants to become my personal sex slave).

Tina Fey is the only reason I ever tune in to SNL on occasion. I will say that a lot of SNL's skits seem like they have a good concept that they just can't pull off correctly. MadTV's skits seem like they were stupid from the get go and even worse in terms of execution.

MadTV still has its moments but as the years have gone by, writing has gotten poorer and the number of good cast members have dwindled. I think of the current cast, the standouts are Michael McDonald (does the manchild bit), the black guy, and Bobby Lee (the Asian guy). Stephanie Weir, the fat guy (John Madden) and the other fat guy (President Bush) are OK. Rest are forgettable. Earlier seasons of MadTV were much more consistently funny.

MadTV ceased being funny when Nicole Sullivan left.

Bobby Lee is great. I love the " Uh-oh Hotdog " guy.

I think I might have to agree with this..

Couldn't vote on the poll, though.

Mad tv was just not funny at all.

I've always argued that while SNL has the "high school" comedy down (which is pretty piss poor considering they had a good young adult audience years ago), MadTV has the "Middle School" crowd. It's jokes are not intellegent at all, and thus, I find it to be stupid most times.

there are certain recurring characters on MadTV that I find funny, so I voted yes it's funny, but I agree with the SNL comment. Whenever I am forced to watch that show by other people, it's just pure torment. SNL has not been good for the last 10 years, if not longer. Occasionally certain hosts will make the show funny, but as a whole, it's just terrible.

I'd rather watch MadTV over SNL any day.

Having said that, I don't watch current episodes of MadTV, so have no idea what the show is like these days....I usually just catch the reruns on Comedy Central from time to time.

It's been plummeting downhill ever since the days of The Greatest Action Story Ever Told and Raging Rudolph/The Reinfather. Items like those were very, very funny. But it's been a pretty bleak 8 or 9 years since. I stopped tuning in unless I was desperate a long time ago.

Mad TV still very funny and with BIGGER HARRIER BALLS than SNL -EVER- had....

Are there hits and misses on MADTV? Sure. But the misses are always fewer than the misses on an average SNL ep.

I have to drink A LOT to enjoy Mad TV. I haven't ever found an episode to be funny enough that I didn't want to stick a pair of scissors in my leg just to watch the blood flow instead of the tv.

That may be a bit exaggerated, but I guess my point got across.