MADtv is a late night sketch-comedy show based on the humor of the popular MAD magazine. Material includes celebrity impersonations, music video, commercial, movie, and TV show parodies, recurring characters, musical guest... more »s, and the occasional mock cartoons. The show competes against another popular sketch-comedy show, the long-running Saturday Night Live, but the show is aimed at a younger audience. With the show's revolving-door cast of talented, comedic actors and numerous Emmy Award nominations, MADtv is truly a success story. MADtv airs at 11 PM Saturdays with most FOX affiliates, and episodes from the first 8 seasons air on Comedy Central at various times of the day. DVD Features:
Great show, AWESOME release quality! I'd rate this 6 stars.
Twiddles42 | MN, USA | 10/07/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"19 hour long episodes, one three double-sided/dual-layer discs, at a reasonable price that's not out to fleece the customers, unlike so many other season sets of hour-long shows (or, indeed, the multitude of half-hour shows where they stuff 8, 9, or 10 half-hour episodes on a single-sided/single-layer disc and look like crap and have the unmitigated audacity to sell for the same ~$33 price.)
Not just that, the bloopers and 200th episode extras were a great joy to watch, as were the 'best of' clips and unreleased skits. Not to forget knowing that Warner Bros (the distributer) has enough faith to announce on disc 3 that season 2 will be coming!!
These episodes look and sound great as well (how could they not?)
No other TV show has been given this excellent level of treatment on DVD, and MadTV itself is a worthy enough of a show (at least to me).
Big kudos to Warner Bros on the quality of this release! Now if only they would release their 'Doctor Who' titles in dual-layer. :-)
While I tend to look more at disc quality, I should say something about the show's quality. MadTV was FOX's latest attempt (1995) to create an edgy show, after In Living Color was put to sleep and The Edge not meeting expectations. Many skits are brash and envelope pushing, but only in a good way. (okay, some are distasteful, as is typical for the genre, but most will leave you with a smile on your face.)
The show also has a modern day feel to Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (1968). Naturally, as Laugh-In paved the way for all subsequent skit shows, including Saturday Night Live. (Indeed, Lorne Michaels of SNL fame started with Laugh-In as well.)
Standout actors are Orlando Jones, Debra Wilson, and Nicole Sullivan, but there's not a bad actor of the bunch.
Am looking forward to seeing more seasons released, hopefully with the same amount of quality and extras put into them!"
This is a COMPLETE collection of MAD TV- Season One
Patrick T. Gorman | Diego Garcia, BIOT | 10/04/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"They sure didn't hold out anything in this DVD collection of season ONE. Every episode, every skit, and every parody is there. No censors, no bad editing. Its ALL there! I was really suprised and I am still very satisfied with my purchase, since I was expecting cheap quality. Sound is awesome, picture quality is what you would EXPECT from DVD.
All in all though, Season one is quite tame compared to the rest, but it is great watching how it all started!
Disc 3 has some bloopers on it. Not enough special features throughout, only on Disc 3. But I can't really complain, because overall the whole package seems too much for such a little price. Definite 5 Stars!
Cant wait for Season Two so I can see more Spishak commercials!"
The beginning
N. Durham | Philadelphia, PA | 01/08/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"When Mad TV premiered on Fox in 1995, it provided a great alternative to a then duller than usual Saturday Night Live. While there are a number of skits that are as equally dull on this first season set, Mad TV made a name for itself with it's scathing and irreverant sense of humor and parodies of commercials and general pop culture. While the first season's cast didn't feature many of the familiar and hilarious faces that fans of the show would come to love (Michael MacDonald, Alex Borstein, Mo Colins, Aries Spears, and Stephanie Weir would come in later seasons), it did feature some breakout talent like comedians Orlando Jones and Phil LaMar, Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lange, fan favorites Nicole Sullivan and Debra Wilson, and Office Space's David Herman. Dull moments aside, the cast mostly does some great work, and the claymation and animation shorts are laugh out loud hilarious. All in all, longtime fans of the series will want to check this out for a nostalgia trip down memory lane, and new viewers will want to give this a look as well to see where it all began."
Better than SNL
Paul Ittoop | Aurora, IL | 11/29/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is one of the funniest late night sketch shows in the world. Who cares about SNL. I mean SNL's funny but not as good as MAD TV. Plus the MAD magazine came out in 1952 and SNL came out 1975. I didn't see this DVD season 1 but I see it LIVE on Fox every Saturday nights at 11/10 PM central. My favorite character is Michael McDonald. He's real funny in the show. I like those episodes where he plays as Stuart. And sometimes, he comes out in his underpants. I hope they make a MAD movie one day. If they do, they should call it "The MAD movie." And they should show the picture of the original guy on the MAD magazine Alfred E. Neuman but they should have the original characters playing in it. But I'd have to say, this is 10x better than SNL."
You are now watching Mad T...V... MAD!
Michael Gmirkin | Beaverton, Oregon, USA | 12/11/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It's rude, it's crude, it's utterly insane and hilarious! Like others, I saw this when it first aired and laughed my hindquarters off... However, I worried that the DVD treatment would be poor or that it wouldn't stack up as well as I'd remembered it.
Mercifully, I was not disappointed at all. Even from the first episode, I was laughing myself silly, and feeling guilty about it the whole time (it's a very guilty pleasure). Some of the sketches were a bit off-color, or off-kilter (I've only gotten through a couple so far, since it just got here last week), but for the most part it was on par with the best of Saturday Night Live. It's a great pop-culture send-up. Some of the material is dated, but that happens with any semi-topical show dealing with then-current events.
Still, the picture and music is good, it's got all the original lead-ins and lead outs (going from/to commercial and back), and music, and some special features to boot.
Fan-freakin'-tastic! And the price is right (appx $9 on sale over the holidays; can't beat that for a full season release)!
Now, if they'll just start releasing the other seasons! Perhaps, in the meanwhile, I'll hop over to In Living Color for a while, and catch up on my vintage comedy...
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Addendum:
Forgot to mention packaging, so heere goes. It's pretty attractively packaged. However, I'll add the caveat that they used double-sided discs, which I'm NOT a fan of. An extra side to try keeping fingerprints off of, and to keep from scratching. I'd rather see subsequent releases utilize single-sided discs with print on one side and data on the other. It's generally more attractive, and less problematic, even if it costs a fe extra pennies to mass-produce.
I also noted that the clips used on the inside were the push-button-to-release type, however, sometimes pushing the button doesn't seem sufficient, and it feels like the discs get "stuck." A few Highlander fold-outs behaved that way too... Anyway, it's worrisome, 'cause I tend to worry about breaking discs or chipping the inner ring of the disc on the holder, which might lead to a larger crack forming... So, if they could remedy that on the next release, that would be good. Otherwise, the fold-out seemed attractive and not ungainly. Likewise the outer box was attractive, as well."