Mad/Radar

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Mad


Well, the cartoon is rated TV-PG (and it is said to be the revamped version of Mad TV, which was rated TV-14 and not meant for children to begin with, despite its many Subverted Kids Show sketches, both animated and live-action), so a page like this is expected, but even by Cartoon Network's standards (if any) for PG-rated shows outside of Adult Swim, the writers do manage to sneak some stuff in that makes viewers wonder/exclaim, "What Do You Mean It's for Kids?!"


  • The "Grey's In Anime" sketch gave Pedobear a cameo. However, he was painted green and wasn't showing his standard facial expression, though the animatic version of the sketch had Pedobear as he's commonly shown.
    • The Panty Shot, also from "Grey's In Anime" (shown above).
  • The fact that authors are One of Us pops up in the opening. There are two signs, one reading "LOL" - which is all-ages-friendly - and another reading "LMAO". If you know what the "A" in the acronym means, well, you already guessed it - the word ass sneaks in every episode by default. For crap-past-radar antics worldwide, this is sure a once-in-a-lifetime achievement.
  • Speak and Swear on "Rejected Toy Story 3 Characters": "How the [bleep] should I know!?". Granted, it was bleeped out, but still...
  • In "Big Time Rushmore," one of the costume ideas George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln wear to create their boy band image are kinky, S&M-style leather attire. Abraham Lincoln is the only one who liked wearing his costume and when the four turn back to normal thanks to their fairy godmother Taylor Swift, Abe is the only one who keeps his costume.
  • Spider-Baby got away with a strong breastfeeding joke involving Mary Jane coming in to babysit.
    • Getting more specific, the scene has Mary Jane ask Spider-Baby, "Is someone hungry?" in a seductive voice, with the camera visibly zooming on her boobs.
  • And in "Fantastic Megan Fox" Megan Fox considers targeting Scarlett Johansson's eyes...just as the camera focused on her breasts.
    • Also on "The Fantastic Megan Fox," Scarlett Johanssen shrieks, "What the cuss?!" when the literally-depicted Megan Fox steals her eyes. Justified in that in the movie The Fantastic Mr. Fox, they use "cuss" as a substitute for all swear words.
  • "The Da Grinchy Code" had Indiana Jones's line, "I'll take this stick here/My Staff of Ra/And shove it on up/Your tiny Who-Kah!" with one of the Whos gulping and turning pale ( The Who-Kah was a Dr. Seussian machine).
  • "Pokémon Park": "Yeah, we got their balls! ...Stop laughing!"
  • The pumpkin in "Avaturd" looks like a breast. Especially after the doc cuts out a chunk, and it lands where the nipple should be.
  • The Juicy, Jr.'s fake commercial has a kid (who ordered the newest sandwich that makes life messy for him -- his shirt gets stained, he gets blamed for keeping his room dirty, and a bully punches the kid after accusing him of calling him a bonehead) end up in jail for a murder he didn't commit. The burger at the end says, "Fresh meat!" and snickers, implying that the kid will get raped in prison.
  • They parody a lot of movies that are more suited for older audiences -- that parody of Unstoppable mixed with Thomas the Tank Engine, The Bourne Identity mixed with Toy Story 3 (and a little bit of Inception), I Love You Man mixed with Iron Man, iCarly mixed with CSI: Miami...
    • They made a District 9 parody ("The Fresh Prawn of Bel Air"). Granted, it parodied The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air more than it did District 9, but the question remains: if MAD is supposed to be a kids' show, why the heck would the writers use District 9 for a parody?
      • The original animatic was supposed to have one of the prawns on a cover of Vanity Fair which had the words, "Sex" written on it over and over again. On the actual show, this was replaced with illegible scribbling. So actually, the word "sex" was supposed to sneak into every episode.
    • Another one: "S'Up", which is a mash-up of an innocent family-friendly movie (Up) with a very sleazy and very reviled reality show (Jersey Shore).
    • They also did a Two and A Half Men parody ("Two and a Half Man") that included a drunk driving reference (Charlie crashes his car into the house and belches), a bestiality reference (it's implied that Alan's son is from his "summer in Narnia"), several moments of Toilet Humor, and Charlie hitting on an ice princess with the line, "Wanna see my vuvuzela?" It also helps that the episode that had this sketch aired around the time that the real Charlie Sheen was once again making the news for being a train-wreck.
    • They did two parodies of Keeping Up With the Kardashians: one was Keeping Up with the Car-Crashians that featured the Kardashian sisters getting into car accidents and the other was a mash-up of Keeping Up With the Kardashians with Conan the Barbarian. Seriously, either the writers don't know what shows are age-appropriate for kids or they do know, but figure it's much more fun to slip it in their show, so long as the censors don't notice.
  • The parody of "Hop" ("Hops") got away with a drug joke: when the officer confronts E.B. at a party (held by a badly-drawn Bugs Bunny), the Trix rabbit is shown frantically trying to flush cereal down the toilet in the same way a drug addict (or dealer) would flush his stash down the toilet when the cops come.
  • In "Naru-210", Naruto uses his woman transformation with Censor Steam and a bystander points out that another guy's nose is bleeding.
  • In Pirates of the Neverland they got away with a message on the back of Hook's ship: "ship happens".
  • Meredith says she's got just the thing for Rogue in "The Clawfice" after Rogue tries to absorb her persona and becomes depressed.
  • Fireworks come out of Katy Putty's breasts in the "Flammable" sketch, but that also happened in the "Fireworks" music video they parodied.
    • There's also the rather violent ways the paper woman and the clay man were burned (not the Sesame Street-esque muppet man; he was singed rather badly, but he was rescued in time by a pair of live-action hands with a fire extinguisher) and the implication that Katy Putty is a pyromaniac.
  • Papa Smurf's Pizza Commercial, "The bluest meatballs"
  • And the slash fans cried at the loss of this momentous moment (go to 2:30) during "Class of the Titans."
    • If you listen closely, you can even hear the audience object.
  • Some of the Spy vs. Spy sketches feature graphic violence.
  • The sketch "What's In A Name" is one of the few instances of blood on a kid show.
  • The Halloween episode also had a sketch about window paint that looks like blood.
  • The word "crotch" is used in one sketch in "I Love You Iron Man/Ben 10 Franklin".
  • This show is known for sketches about people projectile vomiting (including in other people's mouths and ears).
  • The intro also features "The MAD Strip Club" and "Gay Cowboys" covers.


  1. back when the X rating just meant that it was rated "R" or a really heavy "PG-13" at most