MAD

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Not to be confused with the national security policy. An animated parody show created by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the iconic humor magazine Mad. Much like the magazine, Mad the TV series presents parodies on anything and everything. Each parody is rendered in a different style of animation, and few of the sketches last for more than a minute. Also, you get animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin shorts. Basically, it's either a less line-crossing version of Robot Chicken with a little bit of KaBlam! or Mad TV if it stuck to the source material for longer than three seasons, was 15 minutes long, had more animated sketches than live-action sketches, and didn't feel like an Alternate Company Equivalent of Saturday Night Live.

It premiered on Cartoon Network on September 6, 2010, right after the premiere of Regular Show. It came back for what was intended to be a second season, according to The Other Wiki, premiering on February 8, 2011. However, it was later recatagorized into Season 1 and the actual second season premiered in August 22, 2011.

This show is the successor to an earlier sketch show on the FOX network titled Mad TV (1995-2009).

Visit the show's website here.

Tropes used in MAD include:

Buzz: And Julia Stiles, you were there too! ...And then you really weren't in anything after that, which is weird, because you were great in 10 Things I Hate About You...

  • Animated Adaptation: In a sense; some of the jokes are culled from the magazine itself.
  • Art Shift: Various animation styles are used, just like its magazine counterpart.
    • Spy vs. Spy has it: the animation ranges from ink scribble style, clean Flash animation, and in the most 2nd season: claymation.
      • Sometimes the style even resembles shows like KaBlam! and El Tigre.
  • Black Comedy: There is a rather depressing short skit depicting Lightning McQueen being crushed in a car crusher because his transmission was ruined. They didn't care about the fact that he could talk, he was still junk.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: "2012 Dalmatians" has the president inform that the dalmatians are landing "on the ocean, on land, and at ocean land". As he says the last part the scene cuts to a dalmatian landing on Sea World and switching patterns with a performing orca (presumably Shamu or one of her children).
  • Captain Ersatz: Normally used for obvious reasons, even with their own network's shows. An interesting version though, while all of the characters have different designs and/or colors, they still keep their names. This is the opposite of many of the magazine's parodies, where the characters appear the same but have their names replaced with PunnyNames.
    • One Scooby Doo segment averts this with the characters in their correct colors and outfits. This is because Warner Bros owns the rights to it. Same goes for DC Comics characters.
  • Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: Parodied with a commercial for Villain Hand Sanitizer.
  • Clip Art Animation: Many of the sketches that parody movies and TV shows use this kind of animation.
  • Continuity Nod: One of the poster's on the werewolf's wall in the Club Moon skit is of Grey's In Anime.
    • In "Batman Family Feud," the dead guy from CSI-Carly appears as a member of the Berkel family.
    • In "Pirates of the Neverland: At Wit's End," the two aliens from the second episode sketch about one of the aliens posting an allegedly obscene message on his SpaceNook wall can be seen in the background when Captain Jack Sparrow realizes he's lost.
    • Ribbitless gives us the story behind Kermit's audition tape for American Idol from Cliffordfield. Even Fozzie didn't think the skit would head in this direction.
    • In The X-Men Games, Professor Xavier is seen watching Ay Carly before his TV loses signal.
    • Episode Potions 11; Moves Like Jabba had a skit on the Easter bunny hiding eggs, which resulted the Johnson family not being able to find them. The news intro for episode Addition Impossible; New Girl had the same family trying to find the eggs, this time gagging from the rotting smell because the bunny sill won't reveal their locations.
  • Couch Gag: The "Breaking News" segment, which actually contains not one, but TWO gags. First is the news story itself, and in season two:

Anchor: We return you to MAD, already in... the middle of a Couch Gag.

Do you ever feel like you're not really real, just a puppet doll dealt a lousy deal?

  • Level Grinding: "Final Brantasy", the cereal that tastes better the more you level up by eating it. It starts off tasting like burnt rubber at level 1, then unburnt rubber at level 2, then makes its way to tasting like sand at level 45.
  • Memetic Mutation: In-universe, the dogs use internet memes to wage war on the Thundercats in 'ThunderLOLcats.'
  • Moon Logic Puzzle: An entire bit based on this and rebus equations put together.
  • My Little Panzer: All the toys in the "Toys 4 Brats" fake commercial (and you thought Irwin Mainway's toys from Saturday Night Live were dangerous).
  • /MyParentsAreDead: episode segment "Super Hero Millionaire Matchmaker"
  • Ninja: According to the fourth episode, they sometimes infest your apartment like roaches.
    • They also shoot spitwads and throwing stars at the chalkboard while the teacher's back is turned, and disappear when he turns around to get one student in trouble. Batman does this later on, and the kid just accepts that he can't get out of it.
  • Nosebleed: The bully in "Naru210" gets one from Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu.
  • Nose Nuggets: In one skit, a man tied up at a bank uses his snot to douse a stick of dynamite. This was adapted from an Al Jaffee gag that appeared in the mag.
  • One of Us: With constant references to Internet memes, Video Games, and cartoons from the 1980s and 1990s abound, it's VERY easy to assume that the writers are this.
  • Parental Bonus: If this show is even meant for kids at all, a lot of the references go over their heads (like the CSI, District 9, Two and A Half Men, or The Bourne Identity parodies).
  • Parody Assistance: The voice actors from the original would sometimes voice their parodic counterparts.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Gaming's Next Top Princess
  • Rapid-Fire Comedy
  • Recycled in Space: It's essentially Robot Chicken for kids (or Mad TV if they didn't make the show In Name Only).
  • Running Gag: At any moment someone is going to turn into a werewolf, or already is a werewolf.
  • Sadist Show
  • Screw Yourself: In "Naruto210", Naruto gets voted to be Prom King (from his shadow clones, natch). Prom Queen? His female self.
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: In-universe; in the Cloverfield parody, Cliffordfield, Big Bird screams, "Don't let him get me! I'm a one-of-a-kind children's character!" When Clifford crushes him, Big Bird turns into SpongeBob SquarePants and groans, "Okay, I see your point," implying that the children of today would probably look at Big Bird as a SpongeBob knock-off, when really it's the other way around.
  • Self-Deprecation: MAD Magazine regularly makes jokes about how lame, childish, moronic, and unfunny their magazine is, so the writers of the cartoon continue the apparent tradition.
    • The Wall-E-Nator considers MAD the biggest producers of garbage.
    • Occurs again in the Stinger at the end of "Da Grinchy Code" — it turns out every present but a stack of MAD magazines were taken.
    • The Watcher gives an awkward pause when Captain America (comics) asks if MAD will win an Emmy.
    • The ending of the "Cowboys & Alien Force" sketch. "It's a mash-up of two genres; they do it on MAD all the time!"
    • Hell, the news anchorman, Richard Succar, does this all the time.
    • Scuttle the seagull brings Ariel some trash when she moves into a new apartment. One of them is a fork, and the other is a copy of MAD Magazine, which he thinks might be used for cleaning the toilet.
  • Shaped Like Itself: "Sports Drink Drink". The sports drink designed to replenish worn-out sports drinks.
  • Shout-Out: Someone on the staff is obviously a big Pixar fan. "Trans-Bore-Mores" contained cameos from Remy, WALL-E and Mater. "2012 Dalmatians" featured a cameo from Carl (Up) -- and Up was parodied as S'Up (in which Carl has to deal with the cast of Jersey Shore flying with him instead of an earnest yet irritating Boy Scout and his dog), and "Wall-E-Nator" (obviously) turns WALL-E into a feelingless robot on the hunt for trash. There was also a skit on rejected Toy Story toys.

Wheezy: "No, the cake is real, and also incredibly rich!"

S-M-A / Double L-V / I-L-L spells Smallville if you add an E.

  • Spiritual Successor: To KaBlam!!, Robot Chicken, and Mad TV.
    • Also, to the pilot/special, and also the FOX sketch show Mad TV, whose producer promised that the show would be revived and revamped on cable when news hit that the FOX incarnation of the show would be canceled in 2009.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: "We now return to MAD, already in...credibly obsessed with these movies."
  • The Stinger: After the credits, they do a few more seconds of a sketch from earlier on (most of which are edited out in reruns to make room for the closing credits and to get to the next show as quickly as possible).
  • Stock Sound Effects: "ArThor" had one segment that referenced Donkey Kong. The sound effects used were, appropriately enough, the ones from the Atari2600 port of the game.
  • Surreal Theme Tune: Some random man and what sounds like a group of kids babbling "Hey yabba, boy yamma, Mad!" + a kazoo and Jew's harp = The MAD theme.
  • Take That: In "Trans-Bore-Mores":

Optimus Prime: Sam, the Decepticons are after something really, REALLY important this time. They want the... Uh...

Optimus Prime: Rock of...

  • Optimus sees a poster of Ke$ha.*

Optimus Prime: No...Talent-tron...

    • Another bash on Ke$ha: On "Pirates of the Neverland: At Wit's End," Captain Hook tells Captain Jack Sparrow that the crocodile who always chases him makes the most horrible noise -- "tick tock." Not the clock noise; "that annoying Ke$ha song" ("TiK ToK"), followed by the crocodile opening his mouth and a screwed-up, sound-alike version of "TiK ToK" starts playing.
    • Even shows on Cartoon Network aren't safe; case in point, Groan Wars which makes fun of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
      • Whoever wrote The Social Netjerk obviously has a bitter dislike for Regular Show:

Mordecai: You know what I like about you, Sean? You make me seem funny.

    • They don't seem to care for a lot of other Cartoon Network shows, particularly noticeable in The Watcher's speech to Captain America in "Avenger Time".
    • Star Blecch had several lines about how Star Trek stole a whole bunch of ideas from Star Wars.
    • uGlee was pretty much a whole Musical Episode about how Glee's premise of teens singing in high school is no different than the premises for High School Musical, JONAS, Hannah Montana, Victorious and Fame.
    • One skit in the Wall-E-Nator episode involved a Take That to Nickelodeon awards shows; after the hostess gets Covered in Gunge, she turns into an Eldritch Abomination.
      • Hell, during Wall-E-Nator, the MAD producers poke fun at themselves.
    • The show also has a lot of potshots at the Marmaduke movie.
    • They seem to really hate Kristen Stewart (and Twilight, though that's more of an acceptable target than Kristin Stewart), as they're always showing her as a really unhappy chick.

Fred (in place of Edward): Everyone you know will be dead in a few decades, but who cares? You'll have sparkly skin!

    • Also, in Pokémon Park, the following lines: "[Digimon Island] is the same, only more complicated and less fun." "Oh, like Yu-Gi-Oh Island"
    • In "Ko-Bee Movie" Kobe discovers he has a human counterpart and wants to take action. An Exbee of Jerry Seinfeld suggests taking him to court, however Kobee says it would be very boring for a movie. At the end, Jerry Seinfeld Bee comments on how Ko-Bee Movie was a much better movie than Bee Movie.
    • "Super '80s" has a scene of Seth Green trying to crash a truck into a train full of 1980s pop culture icons, exclaiming, "If I can't have the '80s, no one will!" Later, one of the children refers to Madonna as the person Lady Gaga spent her career copying (then added that Russell Brand stole his act of being a comic weirdo from Weird Al Yankovic.). Also, an interviewee who looks like Michael Ian Black on I Love The '80s sadly comments that shows like I Love The '80s count as television. Finally, when the '80s icons go back to where they belong, they fly to Steven Spielberg's house, because his career would die without such retro figures as Indiana Jones.
    • Kung Fu Blander is chock full of Take Thats at things like Kung Fu Panda (outright saying by its main character no less that their movies are getting worse), and Mr. Popper's Penguins (criticizes its Aesop and the alleged wrong turn in Jim Carrey's career).
    • In "Smallville: Turn Off the Clark", there's a huge amount of take that (against Smallville, Julie Taymor) and Shown Their Work (the references to the show like Dr. Fate's future seeing, Clark's dad coming back to life, Brainiac having the model of Cartoon Brainiac and the coloring of the main comic's Brainiac.
    • The internet itself, in the ThunderLOLcats skit.
    • The amnesiac protagonist of Cowboys & Alien Force says he wishes he could forget the last Indiana Jones movie.
    • Jersey Shore takes quite a few beatings itself. They all get tricked into falling to their deaths in an Up parody, but also in Jersey Thor, where Thor confuses their hairstyles with elaborately styled horned helmets that his own family often wears back in Asgard. Also, in a "Celebrities Without Their Makeup" segment, When you remove King Kong's makeup, you get Snooki.
    • "Captain American't" has Colonel Philips ask Dr. Erskine to improve the movie's CGI after completing the Super Soldier project.
    • MAD seems to have something against Cars. Every other time it's referenced, Lightning Mcqueen or Mater get killed off for no apparent reason.
    • "Destroy, Bob the Builder, Destroy" is a (well deserved) Take That at Destroy, Build, Destroy.
      • Also one of Hole in the Wall called "Hole in the Great Wall".
    • "Twilight: Staking Dawn" is a Take That against Twilight, Whitney, and Two and a Half Men.
    • DolPhineas and Ferb Tale doesn't even run for thirty seconds before it delivers a potshot at Nicolas Cage.

Sawyer: "Oh, you poor washed up thing!"
Nicolas Cage (wet and covered in barnacles): "Hi, I'm Nicolas Cage, I'll bounce back."
Sawyer: "I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about that!"

Its just a mash-up of two genres, MAD does it all the time!

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