Mad TV
Fox 11
11 tonight
Remember back when Mad TV was the lamer alternative to Saturday Night Live? Remember tuning in for that first half hour because Mad was slightly—ever so slightly—funnier than a local LA newscast (pick one), but no where near the same comedic league as NBC's venerable late-night juggernaut that arrives at 11:30 p.m.? Remember how those last 10-15 minutes of Mad before the SNL opening would drag on and on? My, how times change. At no time since the dreaded days of Anthony Michael Hall and Terry Sweeney has SNL sucked so hard. Indeed, these days you can count more on Mad—anchored by veterans Michael McDonald, Bobby Lee and the amazing Frank Caliendo—to consistently deliver more laughs. Tonight is a repeat of one of the funnier episodes, from January, the highlight being guest star Jaime Pressly—the pride of Costa Mesa High before she dropped out—lampooning the Bush presidency and her career-highlight role on NBC's My Name is Earl. In the skit “My Name is Dubya,” Caliendo—who, next to Bush himself, is the funniest Shrub on TV since Will Ferrell and Timothy (That's My Bush!) Bottoms—tries to go back and right all his past wrongs, ala the karma list kept by Earl's Jason Lee (wonder whose is longer?). Pressly, the most-gifted physical comedienne in decades (and among the hottest ever), also pops up in a Mad take on the most-talked about film of '05. In fact, the North Carolina native plays dual roles in the skit “Brokeback Mountain 2: The Cowgirls.” We can't quit you, Jaime!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.