Poll: SNL (Saturday Night Live) or MAD TV? [Archive]

Doug W

02-16-2005, 05:17 PM

Voted for Mad TV, but to be honest I have trouble watching a full episode of either one.
Its my opinion that Saturday Night Live needs to be canceled, they should be mocking Paris Hilton as viciosly as possible not having her host. But then I think the same thing about thing about almost all the hosts they've had in the last two years.

davids

02-16-2005, 05:41 PM

spoiled rotten stipid whore! Snl= host
south park her pet commits harikri
snl tries to do a sketch! is she really as dumb as she apears to be?

Deathstroke

02-16-2005, 10:06 PM

SNL, nothing tops Weekend Update!

Grant

02-16-2005, 10:10 PM

spoiled rotten stipid whore! Snl= host
south park her pet commits harikri
snl tries to do a sketch! is she really as dumb as she apears to be?

I love it when CBR resembles open mic night at a weird late hours coffee bar.

Sean Walsh

02-17-2005, 07:38 AM

MAD TV lost it after its 2nd season. I haven't been able to tolerate 10 minutes of it since.

SNL, while currently on my "just go to bed before it starts" list, is still so much better than MAD TV...

i_mmmchocolate

02-17-2005, 07:51 AM

I'm divided on this because I like both. I'm not a religious viewer for either though.

I chose MAD TV because lately when I watch TV it seems to be on. I haven't caught SNL on the tube in the longest time.

The Voice of Reason

02-17-2005, 03:17 PM

Fox owns Comedy Central now, so they now play Mad TV practically nonstop, and it makes me sick. SNL is much better, even now.

I Must Break U

02-17-2005, 05:28 PM

since will sasso left mad i don't even watch it anymore. I also haven't seen any of this season's SNL but i am still going with SNL they are just funnier. Plus back when jimmy fallon was on the show it was great to see him in a sketch with Haratio Sanz because they were always laughing, at themselves and each other, during the scene.

Ugoff

03-20-2005, 08:05 PM

I say MAD TV, but SNL can be funny at times, especially when the guys or girls in a skit start to crack up for no reason.

StawNilla, I'm a huge GORILLAZ fan also, so rock on.

Moving on, both SNL and Mad TV we're perfect yesterday. Mad TV was just so funny. THe last two skits we're so-so but everything else was lol fun. SNL was the winner that night thanks to Ashton(damn this boy can act his ass off!) and Gwen Stefani(I have to say "Hollaback Girl" is one of the hottest tracks on her solo CD). I was overjoyed by Ashton's acting range. He played such different characters so convinceingly. What did all u you think? (if anyone starts a new Simpsons thread, tonights episode rocked!)

eJm

03-21-2005, 05:21 AM

They're showing SNL every Saturday over here in England.

The best episode I have seen so far is the Jude Law one. The Sky Captain parody and him dressing up as Nicky Hilton and Tony Blair were priceless.

Haven't seen MadTV ever, so I wouldn't know.

Artemis1

03-21-2005, 06:59 AM

I love Mad TV's "Gump Fiction". That was funny.

IamtheRock3

03-21-2005, 07:10 AM

Gump fiction was a long time ago

Mad TV uses the same charcter way to much. SNL does this but not as much as mad TV

Mad USED to better then SNL

Both lost it luster thought. SNL seem to depend on the host. A bad host can ruin it (see Paris) a good host can pick it up (see Chistopher Walken and David Alan grier)

Artemis1

03-21-2005, 07:30 AM

Stewart keeps MAD TV way better than SNL.

DDM

03-21-2005, 09:23 AM

MAD TV is funnier when compared to the stale stagnant SNL.

Ontir

07-29-2006, 11:40 PM

Saturday Night Live has been whimpering since the last 3 years that Mike Meyers was on. How it's avoided cancellation is beyond me. It's just sad to see what this show's been reduced to!

SUPERECWFAN1

07-30-2006, 06:51 AM

Saturday Night Live has been whimpering since the last 3 years that Mike Meyers was on. How it's avoided cancellation is beyond me. It's just sad to see what this show's been reduced to!

Actually the cast in the late 90's proves that wrong. The show managed to come back and do very well from 1997-2001. Its just that now Lorne Micheals has to bring in a cast to replace Hammond , Fey , Parnell and Ferrell .

Jeremy A. Patterson

07-30-2006, 01:17 PM

Well, Kenan Thompson is now part of the SNL cast. Can Kel Mitchell & Josh Server be far behind?

J.A.P.

drwho

07-30-2006, 01:53 PM

Jeremy A. Patterson

07-30-2006, 01:57 PM

Kenan is the fat kid. Kel is the thin one!

J.A.P.

malephoenix

07-30-2006, 02:11 PM

Actually the cast in the late 90's proves that wrong. The show managed to come back and do very well from 1997-2001. Its just that now Lorne Micheals has to bring in a cast to replace Hammond , Fey , Parnell and Ferrell .

I don't care what the ratings say; SNL hasn't been actually funny for years. [See sales on Uncanny X-Men for similar pattern.]

Stretch Dude

07-30-2006, 02:20 PM

Am I the only one on this board that thinks keenen or the kal guy is on the show just cus he is a fat black kid? I have, yet to see anything considered remotely funny with him on it. I wonder if Andy Milonakis could give him competition in the talent department.

If you're saying Kenan Thompson has never been funny, Superdude would like a few words with you.

(So would Pierre Escargot, but I doubt you'd understand them.)

the film freak

07-30-2006, 04:08 PM

Actually the cast in the late 90's proves that wrong. The show managed to come back and do very well from 1997-2001. Its just that now Lorne Micheals has to bring in a cast to replace Hammond , Fey , Parnell and Ferrell .

It's been pretty decent last season and some of the new guys are really funny. Though it's kind of sad that most of the best bits are the preshot stuff.

SUPERECWFAN1

07-30-2006, 04:17 PM

I don't care what the ratings say; SNL hasn't been actually funny for years. [See sales on Uncanny X-Men for similar pattern.]

Its not just ratings. Norm McDonald , Darrell Hammond , Will Ferrell and Kris Kattan had some funny stuff in those years. The Election year in 1999/2000 was a high point where Ferrell's " George W Bush " impression became the best part of the show.

They had some funny years within in this time. Its just that the cast has slowly all left. That happens on a show. :(

malephoenix

07-30-2006, 09:02 PM

Its not just ratings. Norm McDonald , Darrell Hammond , Will Ferrell and Kris Kattan had some funny stuff in those years. The Election year in 1999/2000 was a high point where Ferrell's " George W Bush " impression became the best part of the show.

They had some funny years within in this time. Its just that the cast has slowly all left. That happens on a show. :(

*shrug*

To each their own. I personally found most every single sketch to be literally devoid of humor. I think Kattan and Ferrell are good actors, but the material they had to work with for those seasons just made me wish I hadn't even tried to come back to the show. (I had actually thought the entire run of the series had been crap until I saw the some of the episodes from the first three seasons in syndication. How they got from there to today, I'll never understand.)

Matt K

09-05-2006, 11:32 AM

SNL and Mad TV immediatly spring to mind. The orginal Mad TV cast was excellent and the first 3 seasons were great, especially since SNL at the time was crap. However after the first cast overhaul things started to go downhill. Will Sasso and Ares Spears were hillarious but the reoccuring characters started to get real annoying and the sketches they were in became meaningless ways to trot out the character. But man were those easy seasons funny.

Ontir

09-05-2006, 01:44 PM

Dan Apodaca

09-05-2006, 05:43 PM

Norm MacDonald was the last creative gasp that SNL had. The show is completely incapable of even approaching the sort of material they once did weekly. MadTV might not be what it once was, but it still makes me laugh, as opposed to "SNL" which just makes me cringe, and remember the days when it was something that people from teens up, talked about not only the next day, but all the next week.

Eeewww. Current MadTV is the stuff that makes me cringe. It's like they hold casting calls for all of Los Angeles' most obnoxious actors.

And Norm MacDonald? Please. Tina Fey, Darrell Hammond, Amy Poehler, and Chris Parnell are all funnier than him, individually. Not that I disagree with you on SNL's general suckitude, either, but there was one season, around 2001, I think, where they had an amazing period of glory and inspiration.

Unfortunately, it didn't last.

J. Robb

09-05-2006, 06:03 PM

Sketch shows are like sports teams, they're only as good as the players and coaching/writing. Unfortunately, most sketch shows can't survive a couple bad seasons like SNL can. Heck, it seems most sketch shows can't survive a couple seasons even when they're funny.

I'm still a fan of SNL, I've seen plenty of bad seasons before and they've managed to bounce back. They really need a couple players to have breakout seasons this year.

Ontir

09-06-2006, 10:15 PM

Eeewww. Current MadTV is the stuff that makes me cringe. It's like they hold casting calls for all of Los Angeles' most obnoxious actors.

And Norm MacDonald? Please. Tina Fey, Darrell Hammond, Amy Poehler, and Chris Parnell are all funnier than him, individually. Not that I disagree with you on SNL's general suckitude, either, but there was one season, around 2001, I think, where they had an amazing period of glory and inspiration.

Unfortunately, it didn't last.

Darrell Hammond was funny, one season, about 10 years ago. Fey and Poehler have had their moments, but even at their most hysterical, they don't come close to anything even remotely subversive, which is what the show used to be about, and why MacDonald, the last person with even a hint of it, was fired. I'm not saying MadTV is always hysterical, in fact, I don't watch either regularly, but SNL makes me want to stop watching TV forever, while I can still laugh, when I see Mad.

DWEarhart

09-06-2006, 10:22 PM

Norm MacDonald was the donkey every horse spit on because they thought he was a rotten horse. The man was the funniest thing on SNL when he was left to fend for himself, and the best Weekend Update anchor in years. Colin Quinn was good, too. So was Dennis Miller.

Now, many cast members are on the chopping block, Horatio Sanz and Keenan Thompson being a couple of them. The show should have been cancelled almost a decade ago. I say that with sad sounds between my ears.

Sketch comedy is hurting right now. I don't have Showtime, but I'd like to see that new series with Aries Spears, with Damon Wayans running the show, The Underground.

Dreadstar

09-07-2006, 07:34 AM

Holy crap! SNL is still on?

DDM

09-07-2006, 09:54 AM

Holy crap! SNL is still on?

Yes, the NBC folks must be smoking a lot of something to fry their brain cells to keep SNL on for this long. I think the only people who really think SNL is funny is the comedians & writers on the show. However, as a precaution, you're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes; this is a sign you're not funny.

Conn Seanery

09-07-2006, 08:04 PM

Ever try to tell a joke and find yourself laughing before you get to the punchline? It doesn't necessarily mean the joke isn't funny, or that you think you (the joke teller) are hilarious. Ever lie or play along with a gag to fool a friend, and then burst out laughing in the middle of it because you find it funny? It doesn't necessarily mean the gag isn't funny. Ever go up on a stage, preform a skit in front of lots and lots of people, many of whom are laughing at you and your group's antics, and find yourself suddenly attacked by the giggles? It doesn't necessarily mean the skit you're doing isn't funny.

If you've had any experience with any of those things (telling jokes, participating in a gag or skit, or if you've ever laughed), i'm sure you've felt the same way at some point. Maybe you just weren't preforming on live TV watched by millions of people.

So ease up on the judgment. If you don't find the show funny (*shock*) that's fine, but it's live freakin' TV. Mistakes happen. Would you have given some of the old black and white TV stars, who always used to preform live, the same kind of crap for breaking character because they found something funny? Would you call them unprofessional? Or would you sit there, butt mysteriously unclenched, and realize that they're people too and not just humor dispensing machines, succeptable to infectious laughter just like the rest (of most) of us?

J. Robb

09-07-2006, 08:25 PM

So ease up on the judgment. If you don't find the show funny (*shock*) that's fine, but it's live freakin' TV. Mistakes happen. Would you have given some of the old black and white TV stars, who always used to preform live, the same kind of crap for breaking character because they found something funny? Would you call them unprofessional? Or would you sit there, butt mysteriously unclenched, and realize that they're people too and not just humor dispensing machines, succeptable to infectious laughter just like the rest (of most) of us?
I think it depends on how often each performer does it. When Stephen Colbert completely lost it on the Daily Show a few years ago it was hilarious because he is usually so straight-faced. When Horatio Sanz does it almost every sketch, people still laugh, but it comes off more as a crutch than a mistake.

Conn Seanery

09-07-2006, 08:42 PM

I think it depends on how often each performer does it. When Stephen Colbert completely lost it on the Daily Show a few years ago it was hilarious because he is usually so straight-faced. When Horatio Sanz does it almost every sketch, people still laugh, but it comes off more as a crutch than a mistake.
I don't anyone's done it so much that it's unforgivable or the show unwatchable (and i'm including Fallon here). I don't watch SNL to be whisked away to some fictional fantasy land whose entire comedic presence and believability is so easily threatened by an actor or actors with cases of the giggles. I watch it because it's light and amusing to me. It's not Shakespeare, and it doesn't pretend to be.

J. Robb

09-07-2006, 08:56 PM

I don't anyone's done it so much that it's unforgivable or the show unwatchable (and i'm including Fallon here). I don't watch SNL to be whisked away to some fictional fantasy land whose entire comedic presence and believability is so easily threatened by an actor or actors with cases of the giggles. I watch it because it's light and amusing to me. It's not Shakespeare, and it doesn't pretend to be.
I agree, but it is professional comedy, with writers working hard to write funny stuff, with lots of production put into it. It's just kind of a shame when it devolves into Beavis & Butthead. It still gets laughs, but it's "easy laughs". Not the kind of stuff you'll still be quoting weeks (or sometimes years) later.