- MADtv (season 1)
The first season of "
MADtv " aired fromOctober 14 ,1995 , toJune 22 ,1996 , with 19 episodes.eason summary
"MADtv"'s first season premiered in the 1995 television season, on October 14 at 11 p.m., thirty minutes before the time-slot of its chief rival, "
Saturday Night Live ".The original "MADtv" repertory cast members were
Bryan Callen ,David Herman ,Orlando Jones ,Phil LaMarr ,Artie Lange ,Mary Scheer ,Nicole Sullivan , andDebra Wilson , withCraig Anton as a featured player. The first season's cast was a mixture of seasoned television and film veterans like LaMarr, Herman, Foxworth, and Scheer, and relatively unknown newcomers like Callen, Jones, Lange, Sullivan, and Wilson. The cast was one of the most ethnically diverse sketch comedy casts of the 1990s, with one Native American (and half Irish) male, oneJewish-American male, twoAfrican-American males, oneAfrican-American female, two white males and two white females.Season one of "MADtv" relied heavily on the fan base of "
MAD Magazine ". Each episode featured the use of the "MAD" logo (which is still used today),Alfred E. Neuman images and puns, theSpy vs. Spy cartoons, and the catchphrase "What...me worry?" The first season also established some of the series' landmark characters like Jaq the UBS Guy (LaMarr),The Vancome Lady (Sullivan), Clorox (Anton), Mrs. Jewel Barone (Scheer) and Momma (Lange) from "That's My White Momma". This season also produced several enduring celebrity parodies likeOprah Winfrey (Wilson),Tom Hanks (Herman) in "Gump Fiction", Bonquita (Foxworth) andDennis Rodman (Jones) making a public service announcement.Unlike Saturday Night Live, "MADtv" had no celebrity hosts during its first season. However, the show did have special guests including
Kato Kaelin ,Joe Walsh andDean Stockwell , Peter Marshall,Michael Buffer ,Adam West ,Gary Coleman ,Jamie Farr , Ken Norton, Jr,David Faustino ,Claudia Schiffer ,Kim Coles ,Bruce McCulloch andHarland Williams . Musical groups like Poison,Pharcyde andThe Presidents of the United States (who were the show's first musical guests) also made appearances on the show.The show was renewed for 24 more episodes the following season and the full cast was invited back to headline season two.
Opening montage
The title sequence begins with several fingers pointing at a bomb. The bomb explodes and several different pictures of Alfred E. Neuman appear on the screen, followed by the "MADtv" logo. The theme song, performed by the hip-hop group
Heavy D & the Boyz , begins. Cast members are introduced alphabetically with their names appearing in caption over live-action clips of each performer. More pictures ofAlfred E. Neuman appear between the introduction of each cast member. When the last cast member is introduced, the music stops and the title sequence ends with the phrase "You are now watching "MADtv."Cast
Repertory players
*
Craig Anton
*Bryan Callen
*David Herman
*Orlando Jones
*Phil LaMarr
*Artie Lange
*Mary Scheer
*Nicole Sullivan
*Debra Wilson Episodes
DVD releases
All 19 episodes from season one were released on
DVD onSeptember 21 ,2004 , in a boxed set entitled "MADtv: The Complete First Season". The audio track included on this release was aDolby Digital 2.0 Surround mix. Extra features included the 200th episode of "MADtv" (from season nine), the best of "MADtv"'s commercial, movie, television, music video and animation parodies, a reel of season one bloopers, nine unaired sketches and a preview of "MADtv: The Complete Second Season".The season one box set remains the only complete season DVD release of the "MADtv" series. However, a compilation of select sketches, entitled "", was released on
October 25 ,2005 .External links
* [http://www.madtv.com/ "MADtv" - Official Website]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt{1|0112056}/ "{2|MADtv}"] atThe Internet Movie Database
* [http://www.tv.com/madtv/show/725/summary.html "MADtv"] atTV.com
* [http://www.jumptheshark.com/m/madtv.htm Jump The Shark - "MADtv"]
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