Mad TV

Mad TV (stylized as MADtv) is an American sketch comedy television series created by David Salzman, Fax Bahr, and Adam Small. Loosely based on the humor magazine Mad, Mad TV's pre-taped satirical sketches were primarily parodies of popular culture and occasionally politics. Many of its sketches featured the show's cast members playing recurring original characters and doing celebrity impressions. The series premiered on Fox on October 14, 1995, and ran for 14 seasons. Its final episode aired on May 16, 2009. Salzman created Mad TV with record producer Quincy Jones after they purchased the rights to Mad in 1995. Salzman brought on Bahr and Small, who had formerly written for the sketch comedy television series In Living Color, as showrunners. The show was intended to compete with fellow sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL), which was experiencing declining viewership and poor critical reception. Critics noted that Mad TV had a more diverse cast than SNL and dealt with edgier, more lowbrow humor. Fox made few efforts to promote Mad TV, which typically fell behind SNL in ratings. Throughout its run, the network continually cut the series' budget before eventually canceling it in 2010. It was nominated for numerous awards, including 43 Primetime Emmy Awards, five of which it won. Critical reception of the series was mixed during its run and its sketches attracted notable controversy. Since its cancellation, it has appeared on several critics' lists of the best sketch comedy television series of all time. A 20th anniversary reunion special aired on The CW on January 12, 2016. The CW also rebooted the series for a 15th and final season, which premiered on July 26, 2016.