In honor of MAD TV’s 20th anniversary special this year, we decided to round up the best MAD TV skits ever made.
For those too young or just plain don’t remember, MAD TV was like a JV version of Satuday Night Live. It was Chappelle’s Show before Chappelle’s Show. It was Key & Peele from a decade ago. In fact, Key & Peele were both cast members. It was perfect.
Mad TV was an American comedy sketch television series originally inspired by Mad magazine. Its first TV broadcast was on October 14, 1995. The one-hour show first-ran on Saturday nights on Fox, and was in syndication on Comedy Central. The series finale aired on May 16, 2009. The show was nominated for 35 Emmy awards, winning five.
On December 11, 2015, it was reported that the series will be returning for a one-hour special on The CW to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary. A large portion of the original cast, including Alex Borstein, Mo Collins and Michael McDonald, will be returning. The special aired on January 12, 2016.
The Sopranos on Cable TV
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One of the first skits to put me on to MAD TV, the idea of The Sopranos being cut and edited for a cable channel is simple humor at it’s finest. Will Sasso is perfect as Tony Soprano, and this skit serves as both simple entertainment and a take down of the beloved Sopranos.
R. Kelly Trapped In The Cupboard
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Nothing like a good R. Kelly skit, and boy, are these gold. Watching this, it’s easy to see why Comedy Central gave Jordan Peele his own show. These lyrics are hilariously benign, and Peele’s looking directly at the camera is the perfect type of creepy.
Anything With Lorraine Swanson
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Even if you haven’t seen MAD TV, you might have seen a Lorraine Swanson sketch. A confused elderly woman from Minnesota, there is something about Lorraine Swanson that is inherently hysterical. Her voice is infuriating, her actions are annoying, and that noise she makes… oh god, that noise… all just makes for a well of comedy gold. The character was so funny, that all the sketches were based on her doing menial tasks such as going to the dentist, buying a bed, or eating at a buffet.
Deal Or No Deal
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Another sketch where Key & Peele shine, this Deal Or No Deal parody is great on a number of levels. Obviously, Key & Peele’s chemistry is on point. The frustration of Howie Mandel is subtly hilarious. There were so many things about this show that needed to be made fun of, an MAD TV nailed every single one.
The iRack
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Say it out loud. “I Rack”. Sound familiar? That’s because you’re saying Iraq. It what might be MAD TV’s finest sketch ever, they both skewer those Apple press conferences and George Bush’s plan for the war in Iraq. In honesty, it actually a sublime metaphor for that war. This skit was peak MAD TV: genuinely hilarious and an absolute destruction of popular current events.