Review of 9-25-1999 episode (MD-501; many spoilers)

We're back in the saddle for a fifth season of Mad TV. This review
can also be found at:

        http://www.nic.com/~dzien/nicolesullivan/md501.txt

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Opening Segment: All the Mad TV cast perform a 1930's-style song
and dance number to commemorate the start of the fifth season of
the show. This was a good idea, especially with all the pomp and
ceremony surrounding the opening of the twenty-fifth season of
SNL (five is a pretty important number, too). I don't remember all
the lyrics, but many of them seemed on the mark (e.g.: we haven't
won an Emmy, but we got a lot of e-mail, Fox treats us like crap,
etc). Then they all back out slowly when nobody applauds. We, the
loyal fans, applaud Mad TV: the show that still gets no respect.
As for the contention that surviving for a fifth season is an
occasion worth celebrating: I concur.
             
CNN Blair Witch Report: Three news reporters - Ted Koppel,
Diane Sawyer, and Bernard Shaw - go into the woods in Burkittsville,
Maryland to film a news special. They disappear, and one week later, the
footage is found. Imagine "Blair Witch" with three stolid (to the point
of being mind-numbingly dull) reporters in place of the film students and you generally
have the idea for this segment. It succeeds, in my opinion, largely
because it tracks very accurately the real movie: for example,
Shaw/Mike destroys the map; Sawyer apologizes on film for what
has happened, and of course, they all meet their demise in a ramshackle
house at the end. I would have liked it more if they emphasized a little
more the stupidity of some these reporters (no offense, but nobody's going
to mistake Peter Jennings for Einstein [Ben Stein?], at least until
he learns how to screen phone calls; Ted Koppel at least is smart
enough that he reads three books a week, although I suspect that
most of these books aren't any more complex than "Biggles Combs His
Hair"). Even so, I was laughing through almost the entire segment.

Spishak's Tee Hee Hee Shirts for Toddlers: This is about T-shirts for
toddlers with insulting phrases on them (e.g. "Loser" and "Busted
Condom"). The funny thing here is that the expectant mother complains
that the baby clothes she gets at the shower are not funny, so now
her child will have to wear the insulting t-shirt so that she could get
a cheap laugh at the shower. In the Spishak tradition, they took a
simple idea and ran with it; it's not as good as some of the real commercial
classics, like "Spishak Car Wax," or the "Namprin" one with Phil LaMarr's
exploding head. Still, this was at least as good as any of the season
four Spishak parodies.

Pretty White Kids with Problems: This isn't a parody of any particular
show; it's just a parody of shows like Dawson's Creek and Felicity which
feature a lot of really good-looking kids without any real problems
(unless you call having blackheads "real problems"). As such, the parody
works pretty well; most of the cast is in this one (we had Nicole Sullivan,
Alex Borstein, Michael McDonald, Will Sasso, Aries Spears, Mo Collins,
and Pat Kilbane). Funny especially is the way McDonald's character keeps
insisting he's only fifteen even though he has a bald spot on the back
of his head - a brilliant parody of the way all these teen dramas have
twentysomething kids playing teenagers. At the end, we get the real
Lisa Loeb doing the "Pretty White Kids with Problems" theme song. This
segment was rather long but didn't drag that much. Funny here also
are the name parodies: e.g. "Lara Flynn Gellar as Destiny." Also having
Lisa Loeb do the theme song was an interesting touch. This had a very low
budget feel to it - the only sets are the hallway and the classroom - but 
overall it was a very effective segment.

Stuart in the Well: Many Mad TV fans won't be too happy to hear this,
but Stuart (Michael McDonald) is back and he's as popular as ever. In the
words of Bruce McCulloch, "[p]eople, please: if you keep watching them,
they'll just keep making them!" [He was talking about music videos, of course,
but the same principle applies.] This is a parody of the Jessica McClure
tragedy, only with Stuart falling into the well (to get pennies, apparently).
As with most Stuart sketches, the humor is mostly scatalogical (e.g., he took
off his pants because he pooped in them - actually, this may have
been the highlight of the sketch, with his mother (Mo Collins) insisting that
the pants have to be retrieved because they cost $39.95). Many Mad TV
fans suffer through these sketches in the same way that Italians
put up with facism under Mussolini; that is to say, they put up with
it, but at the same time they hope it's only a passing phase. When you
look at it this way, Stuart doesn't seem so bad: this sketch wasn't the
worst Stuart sketch ever, and in any case watching a Stuart sketch probably
isn't quite as bad as living under a facist regime.

The Making of the New Britney Spears Video: Britney Spears (Nicole
Sullivan) takes us behind the scenes of the making of her new video
(actually a parody of "Baby One More Time" called "Lick My Baby Back
Behind"). In this brilliant parody, we see the cheesy choreography,
her abusive mother (Mo Collins) who goads her into wearing a skimpy
outfit for the video, and Spears meeting her new best friend, Brandy
(Debra Wilson) - Brandy was hired to be her best friend because Spears
hasn't had any friends for two years. The video parody seems to
capture pretty accurately the perverse undertones of Britney Spears'
public image: for example, she appeared in Rolling Stone aside a young girl's
bicycle, wearing a halter top and short shorts (with the word "BABY"
written across the derriere), looking to all the world like a young girl
waiting to be seduced by an old pervert. This segment will, of course,
do nothing to change the low esteem with which many people regard Spears
and her music, but was extremely funny, and in comedy, the latter is more
important. Another interesting element here is the way Sullivan starts
out her impression of Spears with a "normal" accent, but at a later
point affects a Southern drawl. I assume this was essentially mimicing
the way some Southerners manage to repress their accents if they make
a conscious effort to do so, but then sometimes lapse into Ozark-speak
if they forget. [Actually, I've never heard Spears speak so I don't know
if she speaks with an accent; I assume that she does because she's from
Louisiana but I really don't know.]

As for Nicole Sullivan not doing good impressions, she would be the first
to admit that she is not a good mimic, but it should be noted here that
Spears does not seem to have much of a personality to mimic in the first
place, so in all fairness this impression is hard to do. Her impressions
of such people as Meg Ryan, Drew Barrymore, and so on, are better because
there's more with which to work. I also agree that physically she doesn't
look much like Spears, but on the other hand, none of the other female cast
members do, either, and Sullivan was the most logical candidate, since at
least she has the right color hair (though I think Spears colors her
hair) and is about the same size and build (at least, the same build of
the post-plastic surgery Britney Spears).

[By the way, I don't mean to denigrate the music of Britney Spears, but
as I write this, MTV is airing a commercial for her new single, "Drive
Me Crazy," and it sounds exactly like "Baby One More Time."]

Mad TV at the Emmys: Will Sasso and Alex Borstein go to the Emmys and
talk to celebrities. This segment didn't accomplish much, other than to prove
that you can say "assh*le" on broadcast television. [Remember that
sketch about two years ago where one of the characters is insulting
another character whom she dated and she calls him an "asshead"? How
times have changed...] The best line here was from with Kirsten Johnson
from "Third Rock from the Sun": when Borstein asked her if she thought she
was pretty than Borstein, she said something like it all depends on taste,
and since her taste tends towards tall blondes, yes. It was good to see
"Wierd Al" Yankovic, too, who did "Behind the Music" a few months ago, and
the only depressing thing they could come up with was that his movie bombed.

Tae-Bo - The Movie: This is a parody about a Tae-Bo expert (Aries
Spears) bent on proving that Tae-Bo is the best way of staying fit - and
the video only costs $29.95. [Tae-Bo here is touted as a combination
of boxing, karate, and Tae Kwon-Do - I'm not sure if "Tae-Bo" is a neologism
or not.] This was probably the weakest segment of the show (it has to compete
against Stuart, but since this segment was not only pretty weak, but was
longer, I think it wins the race to the bottom). The segment did have it's
moments, though. I liked when Spears confronts his arch-enemy: Richard
Simmons (Will Sasso). Sasso's impression not totally accurate; he seems
to emphasize mainly the lisp, but it's still funny. In fact, perhaps they
should have Sasso as Simmons with Kilbane as Howard Stern, with Stern
insinuating that Simmons is gay, and Simmons acting offended (just like they
do in real life). The production values weren't too good here, either, and
it shows.

Good News: Fifty-three minutes into this sketch comedy program, alas,
another sketch! Husband and wife (Aries Spears, Debra Wilson) get into a
fight over who has better news. They fight each other for the right to
tell their good news to the other first; at the end, after exchanging
several blows, each has a revolver leveled at the other. Then we
see the message "[t]he only good news is in the Bible - A Message
from the Church of Jesus Latter Day Saints." It wasn't the best sketch,
but it was good enough for the second sketch of the year, especially the
ending.

Closing Segment: The cast is back in 1930's regalia again to
close the show. This was pretty good.
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There were no 501 blues! [Sorry about that.] MD-501 was a good show.
I hesitate to say how good it was, because I like to see how the shows
hold up with the passage of time, but even so, it's safe to say that this
show was better than last year's disastrous season opener, and better than
the season three opener. In my opinion it was NOT as good as the pilot
episode (and in any case, it didn't make as strong an impression on me as
MD-101). Still, it's surprising that the show was good at all, given the
sorry state of the show last year, and almost four years after the debut
of Mad TV, the show still hasn't lost its edge. The most interesting element
in this show is the fact that Mad TV has gone over almost entirely to
parodies (providing ammunition for everyone who says that Mad TV is
essentially different from SNL because Mad TV, like the magazine, concentrates
on parodies, and thus deflecting, to a certain extent, straightforward
comparisons), and there's only two sketches here. Budget restrictions are
still a problem, it seems, since most of the segments ran pretty long; in
most cases, it worked, since it actually gave the writers more time to
develop ideas, but at some points it caused the show to drag a little.
Nevertheless, if they put out a show as good as this one twenty-four
more times (they probably won't), this will be an excellent season.
The cast is good, although in my mind the ultimate cast will always be
the original cast, especially with Dave Herman and Bryan Callen. Interesting
is that for the first time since season two, no new cast members were
added. One member of the old cast is gone - Andrew Bowen - but I can't
think of any point here where he would have been likely to do a
significantly better job with one of the roles.

I also note with some sadness the absence of "Spy vs. Spy," although
since they haven't made any new ones since season one, there was little
point in repeating the old ones. I would also add "Monroe" to any list
of Mad Magazine characters which could potentially be made into an
animated segment.

Also note that Mad TV has gone the way of prime time shows now in that
most of the credits are now a split screen in which half the screen
is devoted to promos for Fox's upcoming shows. While this may seem
trivial (and indeed it is somewhat surprising that Mad TV has managed
to avoid this kind of crass commercialism as long as it has; most shows
started doing this about five years ago), it will definitely cut down
on the comedic content of the show. For example, would the series pilot
have been as funny as it was if you didn't have Phil LaMarr and Bryan
Callen arguing whether Abraham Lincoln could be played by a black
(during the closing credits)? Similarly, in MD-102, you had the cast
members going through Nicole Sullivan's "diary" over the closing credits,
which also was pretty funny. Overall, though, this was a good show. (8/10)

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Web site updates: Added page covering Nicole Sullivan on "Later"
(including clip of Mad TV promo from the show). Can be found
at:
        http://www.nic.com/~dzien/nicolesullivan/nicolelater.html