I recognize the irony of Cracked, a magazine that began as a mere rip-off of MAD Magazine, talking about MADtv.
But since MAD ceased publication in 2019 and Fox never had a sketch comedy series named CRACKEDtv, I think it’s more than appropriate for me to pay respect to this funny show, which ran for 14 years as a direct competitor to Saturday Night Live. It produced some of today’s biggest comedy stars, many of whom appear in these 10 hall of fame-worthy shorts.
“Randy Newman Sings Songs About Star Wars”
We began with Will Sasso skewering one musician, and I want to end with another.
MADtv’s joke about Randy Newman is that he can write an idiotic song for any movie. Here, George Lucas has tasked him to write songs for the new Star Wars movie.
Newman speaks directly to the camera and says “Did I get to see any of the movie? No, but I don’t need to see a movie to write a song about it.” That sums up the whole sketch, which features Newman singing stupid song after stupid song about Ewoks, Droids and Admiral Ackbar.
“The Syndicated Television Debut of ‘The Sopranos’”
This parody of The Sopranos features Will Sasso as Tony Soprano, Nicole Sullivan as Carmela and other MADtv cast members as various characters from the HBO crime drama.
The premise and central joke of the sketch is that The Sopranos has been edited so it can run on network television, but instead of using traditional censorship like bleeping profanity, the offensive content is just cut out.
This reduces the entire episode to less than three minutes. The premise alone is funny, but it wouldn’t have worked without a master class effort from the editing room.
“Darlene McBride: Take Back America Tour”
Sadly, Nicole Sullivan’s character Darlene McBride remains relevant today. Darlene McBride is a conservative country music singer who sings all kinds of racist and offensive songs with lyrics like “The Lord Loves the NRA, he told me so the other day” and “What’s so bad about the back of the bus?”
The character returned a number of times and a commercial parody was the best usage. An ad for McBride’s “Take Back America Tour” runs through a variety of racist, right-wing songs before cutting to a map of her tour across America, which forms a swastika.
“Lorraine at the Second Hand Store”
Like Stuart, it’s probably fair to say that Mo Collins’ character Lorraine was overused, but that’s also because she so reliably delivered laughs. Lorraine was an old woman whose constant throat-clearing and incessant questions made her the most annoying person alive. Lorraine should have been intolerable for the audience, but Mo Collins made it work.
“Stuart: Police Station”
Michael McDonald lasted for a full 10 years on MADtv because of his sheer versatility. He excelled at being both weird as well as serving as a masterful straight man when a scene called for it. His most memorable character was Stuart, who definitely falls into the former category. Stuart was a shy, stupid manchild with doll-like makeup, a bowl haircut and a high-pitched ridiculous voice. MADtv delighted in putting him in all kinds of compromising situations from being arrested to being kidnapped and everything in between.
While it’s probably fair to say the character was overused, the reason for that was because he was so consistently funny. Mo Collins played his over-protective mother that added a lot to the sketches.
“Whitney Screws Up The Classics”
One of MADtv’s longest-serving cast members was Debra Wilson, who did a killer impression of Whitney Houston. “Whitney Screws Up The Classics” spoofs the late-stage, sad state of the music legend’s career.
“Somebody Stole My Weed”
MADtv is also where Key & Peele stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele got their start and the MADtv sketch “Somebody Stole My Weed” would have been equally at home on either show.
Peele plays a crazy guy who calls the cops because his weed was stolen (this was back when it was much more illegal) and he tells the most incriminating story possible to get the cops to recover his missing weed. Especially fun is how Peele refers to the two officers in the scene, played by Key and Taran Killam, as every pop culture cop he can think of, from Turner and Hooch to Jake and the Fat Man.
“Coffee Twins”
The conceit of “Coffee Twins” is that the central joke isn’t funny, but beating it into the ground makes it funny. Written by Katie Dippold, the sketch stars Arden Myrin and Crista Flanagan as two normie women working in the same office. One day, the women happen to have the same travel mug. One of the women then says they’re “Coffee Twins” and from there they cannot stop laughing about it.
In a recent CRACKED interview where MADtv alumni chose their favorite sketches, Myrin chose this one, saying “The sketch was about eight minutes of us non-stop laughing about how funny we thought it was that we were coffee twins. Then we’re driving out in the world and we’re still laughing and we’re calling each other. Then at the end, I’m still laughing in bed, calling her, laughing and thinking about it.”
The sketch takes a dark turn at the end when Myrin’s husband (played by Bobby Lee) doesn’t understand what’s so funny about “Coffee Twins.” Infuriated, Myrin tells him “I hope you die in a car crash!” before angrily turning over and going to bed.
“‘Wizard of Oz’ Lost Scene”
MADtv often pushed the limits of good taste and not all of its material aged well, (I’m looking at you, Ms. Swan) but the show often shined when it pushed boundaries. For example, this Wizard of Oz parody. Aries Spears plays an escaped one-legged slave (because there’s still slavery in Oz, apparently).
He briefly joins Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, but instead of asking for a brain, a heart or courage, he simply wants to ask the Wizard for a new leg. The sketch skewers the racist attitudes of the 1930s, and it ends with the slave and Dorothy having sex in some bushes, offering that’s why the scene was cut. Is it all in good taste? No, but it is funny.
“Kenny Rogers’ Jackass”
Kenny Rogers was an actual country music legend responsible for “The Gambler” and dozens of other hit songs, but on MADtv he was just a stupid drunken maniac played by Will Sasso. While there are a variety of Kenny Rogers shorts that are worthy of selection, I’m choosing “Kenny Rogers’ Jackass,” where the Gambler stars in a parody of Johnny Knoxville’s MTV series. Rogers is hit with a cattle prod multiple times, tries repeatedly to catch a baseball bat in his teeth and pukes up more than a gallon of milk. The most inspired prank was “Chicken Boxing” in which Rogers and the real Steve-O from Jackass both wear a chicken on each hand and proceed to punch each other.
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