It's Mad, but it just might work BY GLENN McDONALD ILLUSTRATION BY: NORMAN MINGO, WHATSITOO U. EGENDARY MAD MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATOR SERGIO Aragones is standing at the back of a Hollywood sound stage. Before him, cast and crew prepare for the final take of "Apollo the 13th," Mad TVs Jason-meets-Jim Lovell send-up of the horror genre. Aragones, who just dropped in on the set out of curiosity, chuckles. "This should have happened a long time ago," he says. One of the founding fathers of Mad Magazine, Aragones has seen efforts to bring Mad to the TV screen float and flounder for 20 years. "This is wonderful." Aragones pauses to consider the giant orbital module prop. "You know the Russians had sex up there," he says out of nowhere. "I mean - that's the first thing you'd do, right? Zero-gravity sex? Masturbation, at least." It's a mad, mad, mad Madworld. This fall, television's upstart network teams with juvenilia's sacred, satiri- cal monthly to launch Mad TV - an ambitious foray into the occupied lands of Saturday night sketch come- dy. The show has a lot going for it - the prestige of the Madmoniker, an experienced production team, a talented cast and a world-class direc- tor (John Blanchard, SCTV Kids in the Hall). It also has some stiff com- petition - a pesky little 20-year-old comedy institution called Saturday Night Live. All right for fighting? Executive producer Adam Small realizes the particular spot Mad TV is in. It's hard enough to make a sketch show work in a half-hour weekday format. (Small wrote for In Living Color and co-produced the frequently lame House of Buggin). But competing with SNL, even con- sidering that show's current slump, is a tall order. "I don't think you can last at 11 p.m. on Saturday night without having that freedom to really be edgy," Small says. "We're going up against SNL, and the show's called Mad We better be able to pack a wallop, or we won't last." To that end, Mad TV hopes to incorporate some unorthodox ele- ments into the show, including ani- mated "Spy vs. Spy" and Don Mar- tin cartoon sequences, as well as frenetic, MTV-like computer ani- mation. The show will shoot about a third of its material on location, with the other two-thirds taped live before an audience a few days prior to the Saturday airing. "One of the things we've tried to do is use lots of different looks and textures," says executive producer David Salzman. "Like the animation, and movie parodies in 35 mm letter- box. And we plan to do at least two significant music parodies each show." Raising heck But can the show capitalize on the rich satirical tradition of the magazine? Will a network tolerate such wanton subversity? "We're going on the air with a sensibility that there are no sacred cows," Salzman says. "The magazine was always about the mocking of authority, hypocrisy exposed. It's statement comedy as well as amuse' ment comedy." Well, we'll see. Mad TV draws its spirit from the magazine, but lit- tle else. There is no actual creative liaison between the magazine, pro- duced in New York, and the TV show, written primarily by a young staff with sitcom and stand-up com- edy backgrounds. Still, there is a deliberate effort to move away from established sketch comedy norms, and you can't complain about that. Blaine Capatch and Patton Oswalt are one of the principal teams on Mad TVs staff of 15 or so writers. Pop culture junkies and comedy scholars, they riff effortlessly on << > everything from Ernie Kovacs to u The Simpsons. u "We're aware of SNL, what limits SNL and other sketch o stuff, and we try to look at our stuff M a( through that," Ca- patch says. "They better got the formula and they knew what t worked, and they were afraid to move away from it. As it got bigger and more bloated, they would get one joke - 'OK, it's a guy with ADAM SMA a massive head EXECUTIVE wound.' And they would write backwards from there." "No offense to SNL - they've had their ups and downs - but right now they're in a real bad down," says Oswalt. "They lost their focus because they got too much money and became too much of an institution." Those involved with Mad TVgo out of their way to praise SNL for its pioneering history. They're anx- ious to avoid the inevitable media- fueled confrontation. But the criti- cism is valid - they know it, we know it and SNL knows it. "This is going to sound snotty, but we're writing endings to the sketches," says cast member Nicole Sullivan. "I don't know where [SNL] lost the fact that they needed end- ings. I think they stopped caring." What, them worry? Sullivan, a classically trained actress with considerable theater experience, says most of the cast has ensemble training and experience - ,e g a; d. ,a IE another deliberate going decision on the part ainst of the producers. s "One of the rnd the things that shows have done before is called just impressions of political figures or We entertainment fig- 'I ures, Salzman b'e able says. "Usually the point of. those rck a sketches is 'Look how great I am at or we doing this impres- sion.' Some of the last. " people that do them are hilarious, but its kind of a L, Mw TV one-level form of PRODUCER entertainment." "So we looked for actors as opposed to stand-ups," says Small. All of these elements add up to a show with fundamental differences from traditional sketch comedy tele- vision. Mad TV has an ambitious agenda, and a lot on its plate. It's time to skit or get off the pot. "There's a lot of pressure," says cast member Bryan Callen. "But it's very exciting." Like the rest of the Mad TV team, Sullivan says the ultimate goal is to produce a funny, maybe even ground-breaking, comedy program. And there's only one real judge of that - America's TV nation. "My favorite moment was after shooting the pilot," Sullivan says. "My friends came out and said, 'You know what? This is funny."' "I went, 'Oh, my God. We could have a show here."' Glenn McDonald isU. Magazine'smusic editor, and he always, always pulls for the White Spy. It' s One Of The Most Useful Credit Cards On The Planet. Unless You've Stolen It. Your MasterCard' is stolen. You panic, get angry, MasterCarc. panic some more. Then you call and cancel it. Now sq b -3IQ the thief is in possession of, oh, about seven cents worth of plastic. (Maybe he can use it as a coaster when he entertains at the hideout.) So relax. You only have to pay for stuff you bought, and you can even get a new card the next day: It'll be accepted millions of places, one of which must sell wallets. MasterCard. It's more than a credit card. It's smart money. *Cri co"iti'; ppl.a s , , Gump Fiction - "I am going to get medieval on your buttocks." 20 U. Magazise * November 1995 Mad TV's sporty, reliable cast. Available in compact or mid-size sedan.