Cartoon Network's MAD Series

[GeorgeC]

CN has a new MAD series on based off of the long-running magazine.

Very different from the live-action FOX MAD TV series. It's all-animation inspired by MAD Magazine classic (Spy Vs Spy) as well as more current topical subjects like this...

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/1009/12/mad.htm

Hint about the video: What would happen if you crossed Wolverine with Billy Mays? You KNOW he's selling claw-based items!

The link's to a video hosted by Comics Continuum featuring a segment from Monday's episode of MAD. The episode airs at 8 PM EST on CN.

I saw a bit of the first episode re-aired last week and I've gotta say I really didn't chuckle that much... However, the series has a potential to get better as time goes by.

Budget must be really low since A) it's only 12 minutes long, tops; and B) it's obviously Flash-animated. Low-quality stuff. The writing and voice acting will be the savior of this show.

I was impressed by the fact that veteran voice actors were used (recognized Cree Summer in a few segments) and the voice direction wasn't misplaced.

Again, it's early in the series and I really don't want to write it off just yet... Let's wait until the last episode of the first production airs to decide.

(On the other hand, Drawn Together never DID get better... That show was a disaster from beginning to end! It makes a good case for NEVER letting those producer/writers develop another series..... Hopefully, they're not in charge of this MAD series!)

[droosan]

I'm not sure how Drawn Together relates to Mad .. but I recently re-watched the first season (after having not watched the series at all since the first episode aired, five years ago), and I actually enjoyed it. DT is not 'brilliant' .. but it's not 'terrible,' either.

---------------------

on Mad: Much like its debut twin (Regular Show), I think this would seem more 'at-home' in CN's Adult Swim programming block. Some of the humor in both shows seems just this side of 'appropriate' for little kids .. and the 15-minute runtime is also more of an AS staple, than a CN one. Certainly, there's a need for 'fresh blood' (and much room for improvement) in the existing AS lineup.

But with both Chowder and Flapjack now out-of-production, I guess CN decided these should run in prime-time, instead. I'll give 'em both a chance .. for awhile, anyway.

Luckily, Adventure Time and Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated have been pretty darn awesome .. the new Looney Tunes series shows promise .. and Symbionic Titan looks incredibly geeky-cool.

---------------------

Now, I wanna pitch a Cracked TV show to Nickelodeon, to compete with Mad (just like the mags did, back when) .. here's hoping I get to direct the 'Nanny Dickering' interviews at the end of each episode.

[EricJ]

I'm not sure how Drawn Together relates to Mad

(Don't think too hard about it, he was just on a six-degree-of-separation roll once he got going...)

Now, I wanna pitch a Cracked TV show to Nickelodeon, to compete with Mad (just like the mags did, back when) ..

But seeing as how the real Mad magazine has now turned into a political/trend-column Cracked.com, there wouldn't be much point.

(In fact, haven't seen a good old-fashioned movie/TV parody in the print version for the last several issues, so can't describe how refreshing it was to see an actual movie parody of Avatar in the cartoon series, even if it did look like one of JibJab's Obama vs. McCain videos--
I'm trying to find that archive CD-rom of old Mad issues from the 60's and 70's, so I can now get all the jokes in their early-70's movie parodies I didn't see the movies to till I was grown up.)

[droosan]

I know that Cracked ceased print publication a couple of years ago (and is now just a lame 'top-ten lists' gag website, as you say) .. but Mad is still around in magazine form, isn't it..?

[Randall]

Mad is still going, but went down to quarterly publication last year. Not sure if it's moved from that schedule since. At the same time the main mag got cut back from monthly, two sister publications were canceled. More evidence of print magazines dying, unfortunately.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... -mad-fans/

I'm going to pick up that DVD-ROM sometime soon myself, the one with every issue of Mad up until a few years ago. (I've been reading a book about Mad's original publisher EC Comics, and just bought tons of EC stuff from Russ Cochran off eBay recently, so I've gotten more curioous about Mad's origins.) I was never a huge fan, but there was certainly a lot of good stuff in Mad over the years.

[EricJ]

Like most of proper Boomer age, I grew up with mid-70's Mad, and never realized what a time capsule it was of conservative Nixon-era values and pre-Giuliani NYC. Satire always flourishes during bad presidential administrations.
(I'd recently been watching mid-70's movies on TCM and Netflix, and found remote corners of my memory channeling old gags from "The Omenous" , "Airplot '77", and "What's the Connection?")

But of course, we all know Mad really started dying in the early 00's, first when they had to start bringing on real ads, which ruined the joke, and then when Warner took over the magazine and forced them to become a publicity arm for every movie and TV show the studio made.

[Randall]

Just to clarify (as Eric likely knows this), Warner took over more control after Mad after nominal publisher Bill Gaines died in 1992, but they had already owned it for a while before that.

[Ben]

I love Ficarra's quote in that link.

I actually saw the "sizzle reel" for Mad a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think we were ever able to get it uploaded to our Media section (James has been kinda busy with another site). But it looked funny to me, with a couple of laugh out loud moments (CSiCarly, Spy Vs Spy, natch) that made it look like there would be some good stuff in there alongside the mildly amusing vignettes.

I still pick up the occasional Mad Magazine when I see it. No wonder I haven't seen as many lately if they cut the circulation down. I was mostly an 80s/early 90s reader who slowly stopped collecting as much towards the late 90s. I had that DVD-ROM in my hands in an NYC bookstore once and have lamented not going ahead and buying it there are then...