I'm a huge fan of mad magazine and it's great to see an mad cartoon show on cartoon network, but as a geek I debate how faithful it is to the magazine. But overall it does a good job at staying true to the magazine in essence, but it's not exactly like the magazine. The show is aimed at a more younger audience then the magazine, targeting twilight, icarly, high school musical and etc. Another major difference between the show and magazine is that the magazine makes a lot of social & political humor, while the show focus only on entertainment. But the show stays true to the mad magazine spirit. Like the magazine, it has movie and TV parodies that play like mini stories and probably the best part of this show are the different uses of animation style, it is really visually appealing and impressive how they bring all these different styles together and by doing this it also stays true to the magazine, as different artists with different styles work on the magazine, from Al Jaffe to Don Martin. My favorite part of this show are the movie, TV parodies, their not exactly like the magazine but it very much in essence is. And to be honest it's hard to be just like the magazine because what works in print may not work in animation. In the magazine they ridicule the title and character's name and kind of critique the plot, but I must admit the show has some really, really good movie parodies, their well written, witty and truly funny. I like when they use the animation style of people's actual pictures and animated it, it makes the movie parody that much more better. Their first one "Avaturd" was great! The title avaturd instead of avatar is very mad magazine. Poppa smurf and grover made cameo appearance, a lot of blue and cat jokes. "Uglee" is another great parody, the song was great! Saying how glee's a rip off of other high school singing premises. "Star Blecch" is a great parody of the star trek movie,the best part is when captain kirk's dad saves the ship from exploding and his wife text a picture of their baby and it's Alfred E. Newman and he decides to kill himself! hilarious. Other great parodies include " the social netjerk","class of the titans","super80's","kung fu blander", which had a nice surprise cameo by spy vs spy. The movie, TV parodies are clever, often bringing two unlikely things together that somehow fits, like "clawfice", merging x-men with the TV show the office. It's really well written, the voice acting is great, the dialog is great with a lot memorable quotes. The sketches in between are good, like "celebrities without their make-up" the show adapted a few things from the magazine like the don martins, snappy answers, mad marginals and spy vs spy, which began with so so animation but got better over time and in the 2nd season they started using a nightmare before Christmas cartoon style, which looks really good and I love the music, it sound's sinister and that's perfect for spy vs. spy. But unfortunately no "lighter side". I like the cameos by Alfred E.Newman in sketches. Kitchen Nightmares before Christmas was another great parody with Gordan Ramsey entering nightmare before Christmas and terrorizing the monsters, the song was hilarious, "what's that!" As a hardcore fan of the magazine, with a subscription, I'm happy to see a cartoon series based on the great mad magazine and I look forward to watching it every Monday night.
Mad
(2010–2022)
cartoon network's 15 minute animated sketch comedy prime time series based on mad magazine.
17 November 2011
Warning: Spoilers