Western Animation / MAD

"When it comes to quality entertainment, it takes a little personality, a lot of popularity, and a touch of class.
...and when you don't have that, you can always make fun of the ones that do!"

— Cartoon Network promo

An animated parody show created by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the iconic humor magazine MAD. Much like the magazine, MAD the TV series presents parodies of movies, TV shows, and pretty much anything currently happening in life and in pop culture. Each parody is rendered in a different style of animation, and few of the sketches last for more than a minute, all bookended by two extra-long sketches that typically parody recently-released works and/or mash two different properties together. Also, you get animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin shorts. Basically, it's either a less line-crossing version of Robot Chicken^note Veteran Robot Chicken writer Kevin Schinick is even the head writer of this show with a little bit of KaBlam! or MADtv (1995) if it stuck to the source material for longer than three seasons, was 15 minutes long instead of an hour, had more animated sketches than live-action sketches, was made for kids (but had a Periphery Demographic of 20-somethings and older teens), and didn't feel like a rip-off of Saturday Night Live and In Living Color!.

It premiered on Cartoon Network on September 6, 2010, right after the premiere of Regular Show around the time that Cartoon Network was trying to revamp itself after its disastrous "CN Real" phase. It came back for what was intended to be a second season, according to The Other Wiki, premiering on February 8, 2011. However, it was later re-categorized into Season 1, and the actual second season premiered on August 22, 2011. After four seasons and 103 episodes, MAD was not renewed for a fifth season.

This show is not to be confused with the FOX sketch show MADtv (1995), though, according to The Other Wiki, MAD is considered an unofficial spin-off of MADtv (along with Comedy Central's Key & Peele), as both shows were distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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MAD provides examples of:

• Adam Westing: The show took a page from Robot Chicken and casting characters with the actor that plays them in other shows, such as Diedrich Bader in many of the Batman skits, Andrew W.K. as himself, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy and Will Friedle as Lion-LOL in ThunderLOLcats.
  • "2 Broke Powerpuff Girls" gives us a twofer, reprising their roles are Tara Strong as Bubbles and Tom Kane as Professor Utonium (presumably, he's the narrator of the sketch) and Him.
  • Tara Strong also appeared quite prominently in "My Little War Horse", going so far as to advertise her appearance ahead of time on Twitter. The pony she played as had a striking resemblance to Twilight Sparkle.
    • In that same episode, Tara also voiced Raven in the "Teen Titanic" sketch.
    • Speaking of Tara Strong, she voiced Zatanna in the sketch "Potions 11" after voicing in Zatanna Trial Of The Crystal Wand.
  • Frank Welker even reprised his role as Garfield in "Garfield of Dreams", as well as "The Garfield No Monday Calendar".
    • Also in a Scooby-Doo sketch in the Season 4 Halloween show, Welker reprised both Scooby and Freddy, and when Old Man Mackie (the unmasked mummy villain) pointed out that dogs can't talk, the gang removes Scooby's Latex Perfection mask to reveal Welker himself, referred to as "Old Man Welker!"
  • Michael Sinterniklaas voiced Leonardo and Billy Dee Williams voiced Lando Calrissian.
  • The Brazilian dub basically lives off this trope.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub sporadically did this during the first three seasons, but really blew it out come Season 4.
• Affectionate Parody: This is how most of the skits are.
• Alpha Bitch: The birthday girl, Ashlyn, from the "My Supernatural Sweet Sixteen" skit, as the girls typically are in the series they're parodying.
• And You Were There: Used in "The Buzz Identity" as a parody of The Wizard of Oz.
  Buzz: And Julia Stiles, you were there too! ...And then you really weren't in anything after that, which is weird, because you were great in 10 Things I Hate About You...
• Animated Adaptation: In a sense; some of the jokes are culled from the magazine itself.
  • Not to mention a lot of features are brought over from the magazine, like Spy vs. Spy, Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions, Sergio Aragonés's "Drawn Out Dramas", and sketches in the style of Don Martin.
• Art Shift: Various animation styles are used, just like its magazine counterpart.
  • Spy vs. Spy has it: the animation ranges from ink scribble style, clean Flash animation, and in the most 2nd season: claymation.
  • Sometimes the style even resembles shows like KaBlam!, El Tigre, and Breadwinners, as their respective creators worked on various sketches of the show.
• At Least I Admit It: During The Lone Rango sketch, the characters admit that the animators had made the sketch before the film version had premiered. So they weren't sure if most of what they were doing was accurate, just to let the audience know before they continued.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Nearly every non-existant product this show has advertised (which isn't surprising considering that this show is the revamped version of MA Dtv 1995).
  • One example of such is "B.O.B.s Monster Hold Gel", which is just a living blob monster that is used as hair gel.
  • Another example is the "Underwaker", which is an impersonator of The Undertaker who wakes you up by hitting you with a chair.
  • Yet another example is "Hulked on Phonics", which teaches your child to talk & act like the Hulk, without giving them Hulk-like powers.
  • And it isn't just limited to the commercials. One skit shows that you can kill a spider by cutting down a tree so that it lands in the spider's general direction...if you want to do more damage to your house than to the spider, that is!
  • The "Rejected Superheroes" skit shows 2 superheroes that aren't awesomely practical: Sketch, who can mimic anyone's likeness but only in caricature form & Altidude, who is subject to commercial airline regulations despite his ability to fly at supersonic speeds. The "Amazing Growing Boy" is not exactly a superhero, he only shows us our own growing patterns.
• Baffled by Own Biology: In one skit titled "Pinocchio 2: Boy, Oh Boy, Real Life is Hard", Pinocchio learns that another downside to becoming human is using the bathroom.
  Pinocchio: Blech! How often do I have to do that?
  Jiminy: A couple of times a day.
  Pinocchio: For what, a month?!
• Black Comedy: Given the fact that this kids show has characters its audience likely loves being killed or maimed, this is a real given:
  • There is a rather depressing short skit depicting Lightning McQueen being crushed in a car crusher because his transmission was ruined. They didn't care about the fact that he could talk, he was still junk.
  • One sketch involved Alvin looking for Simon and Theodore, meanwhile a snake with two lumps in him is nearby.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: "2012 Dalmatians" has the president inform that the Dalmatians are landing "on the ocean, on land, and at ocean land". As he says the last part the scene cuts to a Dalmatian landing on Sea World and switching patterns with a performing orca (presumably Shamu or one of her children).
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In Thomas The Unstoppable Tank Engine, Thomas's cargo includes pillows, soft cheeses and a nuclear bomb.
• Captain Ersatz: Normally used for obvious reasons, even with their own network's shows. An interesting version though, while all of the characters have different designs and/or colors, they still keep their names. This is the opposite of many of the magazine's parodies, where the characters appear the same but have their names replaced with Punny Names.
  • One Scooby-Doo segment averts this with the characters in their correct colors and outfits. This is because Warner Bros. owns the rights to it. Same goes for DC Comics characters, but funnily enough, not for the Looney Tunes characters.
• Clip-Art Animation: Many of the sketches that parody movies and TV shows use this kind of animation.
• The Comically Serious:
  • Edward Cullen.
    Edward: I'm moody.
  • As well as Batman.
    Batman (trying to talk to a date): My parents are dead.
• Continuity Nod: One of the poster's on the werewolf's wall in the Club Moon skit is of Grey's In Anime.
  • In "Batman Family Feud", the dead guy from CSiCarly appears as a member of the Berkel family.
  • In "Pirates of the Neverland: At Wit's End", the two aliens from the second episode can be seen in the background when Captain Jack Sparrow realizes he's lost.
  • Ribbitless gives us the story behind Kermit's audition tape for American Idol from Cliffordfield. Even Fozzie didn't think the skit would head in this direction.
  • In The X-Men Games, Professor Xavier is seen watching Ay Carly before his TV loses signal.
  • The episode Potions 11 / Moves Like Jabba had a skit on the Easter Bunny hiding eggs, which resulted the Johnson family not being able to find them. The news intro for the episode Addition Impossible / New Gill had the same family trying to find the eggs, this time gagging from the rotting smell because the bunny still won't reveal their locations.
• Couch Gag:
  • The "Breaking News" segment, which actually contains not one, but TWO gags. First is the news story itself, and in season two:
    Anchor: We return you to MAD, already in... the middle of a Couch Gag.
  • Season 3 replaces this with a "MADvent Calendar", which makes references to news in Pop Culture during the week of premiere.
    Been editing TV Tropes for a week? Here are some MAD moments you may have missed!
• Cutaway Gag: On "Two and a Half Man", with a special appearance by a parody of Peter Griffin.
• Christmas Episode: Season 1 had "Da Grinchy Code", Season 2 had "FROST^note a parody of Lost, Toy Story, and the Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer/Undercover Claus" and Season 3 had "Fantastic Four Christmases/Scroog'd"
• Deadpan Snarker: Sassie, a parody of Lassie takes this trope up to eleven.
• Disney Acid Sequence: "A MAD Look Inside [Celebrity]'s [Body Part]"
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: In "Malcolm in the Middle Earth", Malcolm wins a science fair because he's the only entrant using actual science instead of magic.
• Dropped in the Toilet: In the segment "Gross and Beyond Gross", the announcer says that a guy accidentally dropping his cell phone in the toilet is gross. He then says that the cell phone the guy fished out of the toilet isn't his, which is beyond gross.
• Duck!: Given that the premise of "Duck" was a Chuck parody with a duck as the title character, the use of this trope was inevitable.
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome:
  • Parodied in a short skit where Ming-Ming, who is in a spelling bee, spells 'serious' 'S-E-W-I-O-U-S', to which Elmer Fudd, who is the judge, tells her she's cowwect.
  • The entirety of the "Body of Pwoof" skit.
• Evolving Credits: The opening changes every season by changing the color of the background, the top of the cover in the pile MAD books and using characters from previous sketches.
• Eyes Always Shut: Their caricature of Johnny Galecki/Leonard Hofstader falls under this category.
• Face Stealer: According to the "Fantastic Megan Fox" sketch, Megan got her looks by stealing Kristen Stewart's hair, Scarlett Johansson's eyes, and Angelina Jolie's lips. Before this, she was an actual fox.
• Finger-Tenting: Parodied with a commercial for Villain Hand Sanitizer - the reason villains always are seen rubbing their hands together evilly is actually because they're using this product.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The spies sometimes make cameos that are a few seconds long.
  • In the "S'up" episode, in a gag where a shoe store owner tries to convince an alligator that he's not giving her alligator shoes, a pair of pots can be briefly seen behind a sign saying "Crocks".
  • Rossi's Facebook page in "Criminal Minecraft" includes Garcia's status saying she "can't wait until 1.9".
• Gag Series
• Gainax Ending:
  • Parodied in "The Buzz Identity", which quickly devolves into an Inception parody.
  • In Not-a-Fan-a-Montana, Elvis Presley is behind everything, and to avoid being found out, they blow up the Earth. Yep.
• Gassy Gastronomy: In the in-universe ad for "Thunderpants", a kid ends up farting loudly after eating chili at his school's cafeteria, so he buys the soundproof Thunderpants to cover up the noise.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Taken to the extreme with Ben 10 Franklin.
• How the Character Stole Christmas: Played with in "Da Grinchy Code". It turns out that the characters investigating the crime, Tom Hanks, Indiana Jones, and Nicolas Cage, actually stole the presents.
• Hulk Speak: "Hulked on Phonics" is a reading-improvement system based on the principles of this.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: Mostly involving the word Mad or Alfred E. Neuman.
• I Like My X Like I Like My Y: The "Optimus Prime Suspect" sketch had Optimus Prime as a detective who kept making 'like my coffee analogies that didn't work; e.g. "I like my perps like I like my coffee: in a coffee cup".
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Lampshaded in "Star Wars earned Stripes".
• Inappropriate Speak-and-Spell: In the sketch, "Rejected Toy Story 3 Characters", one of these characters was Speak N' Swear, a literal interpretation of this trope.
  Boy: How do you spell 'house'?
  Speak N' Swear: How the *BLEEP* should I know?
• Kangaroo Court: In "Law & Ogre", Shrek considered Grumpy Bear as the suspect, in his trial, Fiona is the prosecutor and the judge is Puss in Boots. The one who really did it was Yogi Bear.
• Kent Brockman News: The news anchor who opens every episode since the 9th one up until season 3.
• Kill All Humans: Apparently Megan Fox's goal if she malfunctions.
• Lampshade Hanging: Constantly to the source material they're parodying in most sketches.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Practically all of the characters.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Take away the Stop Motion visuals of "Flammable", and it sounds like Katy Putty is just singing some low self-esteem metaphors that make as much sense as those Katy Perry used in "Firework":
    Do you ever feel like you're not really real, just a puppet doll dealt a lousy deal?
  • The Social Netjerk has the Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Mordecai and Rigby telling Sean to speed up the sketch as they're on next. At the time, their show was indeed right after MAD.
  • The "Hip-Hop Hobbit/The Monday Project" episode references Mad being bumped to Thursday in place of The Annoying Orange. Ironic because this was the week that Mad moved back to Monday and Annoying Orange went to Thursday.
• Level Grinding: "Final Brantasy", the cereal that tastes better the more you level up by eating it. It starts off tasting like burnt rubber at level 1, then unburnt rubber at level 2, then makes its way to tasting like sand at level 45.
• Limited Animation: Several segments were animated 2D digital puppetry, such like animator Steven K.L. Olson and one of the MAD artists, Tom Richmond.
• Lower Half Reveal: In "Cliffordfield", Sesame Street is under attack by a radioactive Clifford. When Oscar the Grouch decides to leave his trash can to avoid getting stomped, he is shown to have a pair of feminine-looking legs, much to everyone's shock. He then tells them "What? It's from my mother's side!"
• Medium Blending: It combines many forms of animation including stop motion and traditional animation.
• Melancholy Musical Number: One sketch had Gordon Ramsay singing about how he felt empty doing the same shows over and over and desired variety.
• Memetic Mutation: In-universe, the dogs use internet memes to wage war on the Thundercats in "ThunderLOLcats".
• Moon Logic Puzzle: An entire bit based on this and rebus equations put together.
• My Little Panzer: All the toys in the "Toys 4 Brats" fake commercial (and you thought Irwin Mainway's toys from Saturday Night Live were dangerous).
• My Little Phony: Several:
  • My Little War Horse: Pinkie Pie in a crossover with War Horse.
  • Thunder-LOL-Cats: Lion-O verses memes, Ponies included.
  • Cowboys and Alien Force: an Applejack ersatz in a Mind Screwy crossover that also involves Ben 10: Alien Force, Stretchy bands and multiple title cards.
  • Rainbow Dash and Bernstein: Rainbow Dash replaces the titular puppet of Crash & Bernstein.
  • My Little Pwny: The most direct parody. A Parody Commercial of ponies causing nothing but trouble (especially of the "painful to humans" variety).
  • The Adjustment Burro: Twilight Sparkle starts dating Eeyore, in a mashup of Winnie the Pooh (2011) and The Adjustment Bureau.
• Mythology Gag: The intro ends with the ground getting folded in through the middle, with the remaining background pieces forming the MAD logo, much like how the magazines have a picture on a page that gains new meaning when it's folded down the middle.
• Ninja:
  • According to the fourth episode, they sometimes infest your apartment like roaches.
  • They also shoot spitwads and throwing stars at the chalkboard while the teacher's back is turned, and disappear when he turns around to get one student in trouble. Batman does this later on, and the kid just accepts that he can't get out of it.
• No Ending: Lampshaded in the end of uGlee where Principal Figgins stated that there's no budget for an ending.
• Non-Indicative Name: "That's What Superfriends Are For" is a musical about how despite being called the Superfriends, the big three (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) really don't treat any of the lesser names like friends at all. Plastic Man and Black Lightning's names go forgotten by Batman, Black Canary can't get Superman to feed her cat, Doctor Mid-Nite can't get a ride to the airport, and members turnover incredibly frequently, aside from the big three. This leads them to change the team's name to the Justice League.
• Nosebleed: The bully in "Naru210" gets one from Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu.
• Nose Nuggets: In one skit, a man tied up at a bank uses his snot to douse a stick of dynamite. This was adapted from an Al Jaffee gag that appeared in the mag.
• Official Parody: The DC Comics material, as the show goes out under the DC banner. (Parodies made by the show's creative team even appeared on DC Nation.)
• Parental Bonus: If this show is even meant for kids at all, a lot of the references go over their heads (like the CSI, District 9, Two and a Half Men, or The Bourne Identity parodies).
  • One really clever bonus was in The Monday Project, which opens with Jon Arbuckle saying that since Odie's original owner Lyman was missing for so long, he was declared legally dead. While Garfield has a show on Cartoon Network, Lyman hasn't been seen or mentioned in the comic strips since 1983.
• Parody Assistance: The voice actors from the original would sometimes voice their parodic counterparts.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Gaming's Next Top Princess
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Mickey Mouse does this while wiping out other cartoon mice in the "Mickey Mouse Rodent Control" ad.
• Pun: Pretty much every title of ever short (whether it's a mash-up or a Take That! against how lame the show/movie is). Examples include "Yu-Gi-Bear", "Ko-Bee Movie", and examples listed on this page. Even gets lampshaded in the title sequence for "Law & Ogre", where the narrator admits they just did it for the title.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy
• Recycled IN SPACE!: It's essentially Robot Chicken for kids (or MA Dtv 1995 if they didn't make the show In Name Only).
• Reduced to Dust: In the sketch "DolPhineas and Ferb Tale", Candace says to Phineas that she's telling their mom. After that, Candace gets blasted by Cyborg, which turns her into dust, with her eyeballs intact.
  Candace: Phineas, I'm telling Mom!
  (Candace gets blasted into dust)
  Cyborg: Man, I hate tattletales.
• Running Gag: At any moment someone is going to turn into a werewolf, or already is a werewolf.
  • "RAAAH! HULK NEED MORE SCREEN TIME!" (Cue him actually invading other sketches for that episode.)
• Screw Yourself: In "Naru210", Naruto gets voted to be Prom King (from his shadow clones, natch). Prom Queen? His female self.
• Self-Deprecation: MAD Magazine regularly makes jokes about how lame, childish, moronic, and unfunny their magazine is, so the writers of the cartoon continue the apparent tradition.
  • The Wall-E-Nator considers the studio that makes MAD to be the "biggest producers of garbage".
  • In the Stinger at the end of "Da Grinchy Code", it turns out every present but a stack of MAD magazines were taken.
  • The Watcher gives an awkward pause when Captain America asks if MAD will win an Emmy. (Ironically, they did get nominated for one in 2012.)
  • The ending of the "Cowboys & Alien Force" sketch. "It's a mash-up of two genres; they do it on MAD all the time!"
  • The news anchorman, Richard Succar, does this all the time.
  • Scuttle the seagull brings Ariel some trash when she moves into a new apartment. One of them is a fork, and the other is a copy of MAD Magazine, which he thinks might be used for cleaning the toilet.
  • The plot of "Once Upon a Toon" is that old Cartoon Network characters are trying to prevent something horrible - and that horrible thing is MAD, of course, as it's replacing the cartoons they're from.
    Johnny Bravo: Whoa! I just had a nightmare where I was no longer on TV. And I was replaced by some show that constantly makes pop-culture references, but doesn't really make jokes about them.
  • The final sketch of the 100th episode is a parody of "The Best Song Ever" about One Direction being trapped in a hotel room with a TV that only has previous episodes of the show.
• Shaped Like Itself: "Sports Drink Drink". The sports drink designed to replenish worn-out sports drinks.
• Shout-Out:
  • Someone on the staff is probably a big Pixar fan. "Trans-Bore-Mores" contained cameos from Remy, WALL•E and Mater. "2012 Dalmatians" featured a cameo from Carl (Up) — and Up was parodied as S'Up (in which Carl has to deal with the cast of Jersey Shore flying with him instead of an earnest yet irritating Boy Scout and his dog), and "Wall-E-Nator" (obviously) turns WALL•E into a feelingless robot on the hunt for trash. There was also a skit on rejected Toy Story 3 toys.
  • And it's not just Pixar, either; the main characters from Ice Age make a cameo in "Star Blecch", and Scrat shows up near the end of episode five. Also, Flint from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has appeared three times. "Trans-Bore-Mores" also had a brief mention of The Iron Giant.
  • On another occasion, Danny Phantom appeared once, albeit with green hair.
  • Finn and Jake appear in Malcolm in the Middle Earth.
    • Coraline did too, as one of the people falling out of the overturned wardrobe.
    • The other people that fell out of the wardrobe? Spock and Alice.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya appears in Yo Gaga Gaga, but with pink hair.
    • And seconds after that, she's stepped on by a giant Lady Gaga.
    • Astro Boy was there too!
  • Considering the creators, Jessie having blue hair and James having green hair in "Pokémon Park" may have not been coincidental.
  • In The Buzz Identity, after being told that his life is actually a lie, Buzz then asks Wheezy if the cake was a lie too.
    Wheezy: "No, the cake is real, and also incredibly rich!"
  • Mordecai and Rigby show up and beat the crap out of Sean Parker in The Social Netjerk, telling him he makes them seem funny.
    • They also show up in Rio-A, where Mordecai is among the birds that get a Green Lantern ring.
  • The Gaming's Next Top Princess segment had a brief cameo of Felicia of all people.
    • Felicia? Try a brief cameo of Amy Rose!
  • In the Cowboys & Aliens crossover sketch, the Applejack Captain Ersatz sports a faded version of her G3 incarnation's colors.
  • The ThunderLOLCats sketch is filled to the brim with references to "stupid overused memes". It not only references the LOLCats meme, but also Shoop da Whoop, Weebl & Bob ("I'm a Narwhal! The Jedi of the sea!"), My Little Pony, Bunchies, a spectacular replication of the Internet Trollface, Angry Birds, Weegee, the Not Even Doom Music cat, Nyan Cat, and numerous other internet memes with a striking degree of accuracy. In addition, the cats' firewall is breached by a horde of Creepers, and one of the figures on the engraving at the start seems to bear a resemblance to one of the wizards from Magicka.
    • The maker of that skit is a YouTuber.
  • "Grey's In Anime" not only pokes fun at Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dragon Ball Z (WHAT!? 9000!?), panty shots, and Pokémon, but also sneaks in two generic anime characters parodying the Caramelldansen dance and Pedobear.
  • In Kung Fu Blander, when trying to find something black and white that can stop Lord Shen and his Angry Birds, Po picks up Reshiram and Zekrom.
  • One sketch has two people dressed like two characters from El Tigre appear as bystanders.
  • To My Cage of all things: The title "My Little War Horse'' is most likely a reference to this strip.
  • In The Iron Giant Lady, Jenny gets crowned "Homecoming Robot" by Sheldon, Bunnie Rabbot is knocking out Chuck Norris, WALL•E and EVE appear again, and you can see Rosie in the crowd at the end, with a robot from I, Robot and Robots.
  • Even Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt gets a reference when a snippet of the Demon Sister's Theme plays in a short that otherwise has no other references to Panty and Stocking.
  • "Pokémon of Interest": The commissioner mentions knowing every line of Gravity Falls by heart. Sketches of the main characters can be seen on his board.
• Shown Their Work: Admittedly it's for pop culture, but the amount of detail they put into most of the parodies is pleasantly surprising. They do miss the mark now and then (see Shallow Parody) but the majority of the sketches show that they do look into what they're parodying.
  • "Grey's In Anime" and "ThunderLOLcats" are good examples of this.
  • "Randy Savage: 9th Grade Wrestler" is pretty accurate to the original show.
• Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions: There is a recurring segment named this (which is based on the actual article in MAD Magazine).
• Spelling Song: From Smallville: Turn off the Clark:
  S-M-A / Double L-V / I-L-L spells Smallville with an E.
• The Stinger: After the credits, they do a few more seconds of a sketch from earlier on (most of which are edited out in reruns to make room for the closing credits and to get to the next show as quickly as possible).
• Stock Ness Monster: The Nessie sketch.
• Stock Sound Effects: ArThor had one segment that referenced Donkey Kong. The sound effects used were, appropriately enough, the ones from the Atari 2600 port of the game.
• Surreal Theme Tune: Some random man and what sounds like a group of kids babbling "Hey yabba, boy yamma, Mad!" + a kazoo and Jew's harp = The MAD theme.
• Take That!: Given that it's MAD...
  • In "Trans-Bore-Mores":
    Optimus Prime: Sam, the Decepticons are after something really, REALLY important this time. They want the... Uh...
    [Optimus sees a poster of The Rock.]
    Optimus Prime: Rock of...
    [Optimus sees a poster of Kesha.]
    Optimus Prime: No...Talent-tron...
  • Another bash on Kesha: On "Pirates of the Neverland: At Wit's End", Captain Hook tells Captain Jack Sparrow that the crocodile who always chases him makes the most horrible noise — "tick tock". Not the clock noise; "that annoying Ke$ha song" ("TiK ToK"), followed by the crocodile opening his mouth and a screwed-up, sound-alike version of "TiK ToK" starts playing.
  • Even shows on Cartoon Network aren't safe; case in point, Groan Wars which makes fun of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
    • Whoever wrote The Social Netjerk threw in a Take That! at Regular Show:
      Mordecai: You know what I like about you, Sean? You make me seem funny.
  • They don't seem to care for a lot of other Cartoon Network shows, particularly noticeable in The Watcher's speech to Captain America in "Avenger Time". Which then leads into yet another case of Self-Deprecation:
    Captain America: [after The Watcher and Captain America say how the other cartoon shows aren't as funny as MAD] They'll be sorry, because MAD probably wins an Emmy in the future, right?
    The Watcher: ...You better get back to your friends.
  • Star Blecch had several lines about how Star Trek (2009) stole a whole bunch of ideas from Star Wars.
  • uGlee was pretty much a whole Musical Episode about how Glee's premise of teens singing in high school is no different than the premises for High School Musical, Jonas, Hannah Montana, Victorious and Fame.
  • One skit in the Wall-E-Nator episode involved a Take That! to Nickelodeon awards shows; after the hostess gets Covered in Gunge, she turns into an Eldritch Abomination.
    • During Wall-E-Nator, the MAD producers poke fun at themselves, just like they always do.
  • The show also has a lot of potshots at the Marmaduke movie.
  • They seem to really hate Kristen Stewart, as they're always showing her as a really unhappy chick.
  • Also, in Pokémon Park, the following lines:
    "[Yu-Gi-Oh Island] is the same, only more complicated and less fun."
    "Oh, like Digimon Island."
  • In "Ko-Bee Movie", Ko-Bee discovers he has a human counterpart and wants to take action. An Exbee of Jerry Seinfeld suggests taking him to court, however Ko-Bee says it would be very boring for a movie. At the end, Jerry Seinfeld Bee comments on how Ko-Bee Movie was a much better movie than Bee Movie.
  • "Super '80s" has a scene of Seth Green trying to crash a truck into a train full of 1980s pop culture icons, exclaiming, "If I can't have the '80s, nobody can!" Later, one of the children refers to Madonna as the person Lady Gaga spent her career copying (then added that Russell Brand stole his act of being a comic weirdo from "Weird Al" Yankovic.). Also, an interviewee who looks like Michael Ian Black on I Love The '80s sadly comments that shows like I Love the '80s count as television. Finally, when the '80s icons go back to where they belong, they fly to Steven Spielberg's house, because his career would die without such retro figures as Indiana Jones.
  • Kung Fu Blander is chock full of Take Thats at things like Kung Fu Panda (outright said by the main character that the movies are getting worse), and Mr. Popper's Penguins (criticizes its moral and the alleged wrong turn in Jim Carrey's career).
  • In "Smallville: Turn Off the Clark", there's a huge amount of take that (against Smallville, Julie Taymor) and Shown Their Work (the references to the show like Dr. Fate's future seeing, Clark's dad coming back to life, Brainiac having the model of Cartoon Brainiac and the coloring of the main comic's Brainiac).
  • The internet itself, in the ThunderLOLcats skit.
  • The amnesiac protagonist of Cowboys & Alien Force says he wishes he could forget the last Indiana Jones movie (which was The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).
  • Jersey Shore takes quite a few beatings itself. They all get tricked into falling to their deaths in an Up parody, but also in Jersey Thor, where Thor confuses their hairstyles with elaborately styled horned helmets that his own family often wears back in Asgard. Also, in a "Celebrities Without Their Makeup" segment, When you remove King Kong's makeup, you get Snooki.
  • "Captain American't" has Colonel Philips ask Dr. Erskine to improve the movie's CGI after completing the Super Soldier project.
  • "Destroy, Bob the Builder, Destroy" is a Take That! at Destroy, Build, Destroy.
    • Also one of Hole in the Wall called "Hole in the Great Wall".
  • DolPhineas and Ferb Tale doesn't even run for thirty seconds before it delivers a potshot at Nicolas Cage.
    Sawyer: Oh, you poor washed up thing!
    Nicolas Cage (wet and covered in barnacles): Hi, I'm Nicolas Cage, I'll bounce back.
    Sawyer: I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about that!
  • "Garfield of Dreams" has a take that against Hollywood, funny pages, funny pages-based movies, and Seth MacFarlane.
  • "Modern Family Circus" is one big shot at The Family Circus. (Not so much Modern Family, though.)
  • In a parody of The Avengers, Poki tries to make Bruce Banner angry by making him watch The Annoying Orange.
    Bruce: Did he say angry? Or bored?
  • They must really have it in for Cars, as most sketches that feature Lightning or Mater have them getting killed/destroyed.
    • Which came to a head in "Outtagascar"
      Lightning: Wait a minute, I shouldn't be here. I've only had two movies. The original, and the one where we have to go to Europe because there's a race. But then Mater gets confused for a spy because he sounds like... yeah okay, I guess I should be here.
    • And if that didn't do it, shortly after there's this gem:
      Buzz: (After getting run over a few times) Once again, Pixar is ruined by cars.
  • They have a whole song parody to the tune of "Call Me Maybe?" that bashes the Total Recall (2012) remake.
  • In "Addition Impossible", Ghost Rider buys a Nicolas Cage mask from the Red Skull.
    Ghost Rider: *Puts the mask on and it immediately burns away* Waaaste of money...
  • They made two Take Thats at The Land Before Time and its numerous sequels.
  • The Twilight Saga and Keeping Up with the Kardashians are frequent targets of the show.
    • "Twilight: Staking Dawn" is a Take That! against the former as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whitney, and Two and a Half Men.
  • Shazam! & Cat ends with a Take That! toward Dan Schneider and his television shows.
  • The Tintin movie got a bit of a potshot in "My Little War Horse":
    Albert Narracott: Tintin! Stop whatever boring adventure you're doing and come with me!
  • One segment has Bob the Builder calling Handy Manny out for the latter's show being a blatant ripoff of the former's.
• Taped-Over Turmoil: In "Cliffordfield", the cast of iCarly throw Zack and Cody a Bon Voyage party, which Freddie films, and they also invite Kermit the Frog as a guest because Miss Piggy dumped him. As Freddie films the party, Kermit asks him if he's taping over his American Idol audition tape. Freddie tells Kermit, "Of course not. What do you think I am, stupid?", and the following scene shows Kermit singing a modified version of "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé.
• Taught by Television: The antagonist in "Naru210" claims he beat Naruto in their (unseen) fight because he watched Kung Fu Panda 27 times.
• Tie-In Cereal: Invoked. There is a parody commercial for "Cloudy with a Chance of Flavor" based on the animated movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
• Time Skip: Averted in their Legend of Korra/Dora the Explorer parody. Unlike Korra who is introduced as a little girl, only to cut to her a young woman, the title character of Legend of Dora goes to Republic City as a little girl.
• Timmy in a Well: Parodied in Sassie, where the titular smartass dog complains (in English) about this plot.
  Farmer: What's that, boy? Timmy's stuck in a well?
  Sassie: I said "bow wow". What part of that sounds like "Timmy's stuck in a well"!? I'm hungry, for crying out loud.
• Title Scream: Parodied with "Spin the Wheel & Win the Cash Before Time Runs Out & Also Maybe Win Prizes!" The Wheel of Fortune-esque screaming takes so long that there's no time left to actually play the game!
• Toilet Humor: Lots of it, just like the magazine.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: in "Money Ball Z", Goku takes an exceptionally long time to power up, and the pitcher decides to wait for him to finish. When Vegeta steps up to bat and powers up next, everyone, including the team coach, manager, sporting agents, and audience all take up some other activity to help pass the time, including watching the entirety of Peter Jackson's King Kong.
• Truer to the Text: In comparison to the live-action MADtv (1995), which largely dropped any connection to the magazine aside from the name after the first three seasons, this series adapts much more of the magazine's recurring features (including the MAD Marginals!) and is closer in tone.
• The Un-Reveal: Done to Mind Screw levels in "Gaming's Next Top Princess".
• Uplifted Animal: The Ribbitless skit portrays the Muppets as this.
• Vampiric Werewolf: One skit parodying The Twilight Saga has Edward and Jacob face off, only to bite each other and turn into werewolf/vampire hybrids. They then decide to ditch Bella and go hang out together.
• Visual Pun: The show does a lot of this.
  • In one episode, they advertised "The Adventures of Iron Man", then showed a laughing face on an iron a la The Annoying Orange.
  • They're even willing to pull off more obscure puns. In "Downton Shaggy", Mr. Bates dressed up as Batman to rescue his idol, "Foot Man". In his day, a "batman" was a soldier who acted as a personal servant and bodyguard, Mr. Bates himself being an example of one in his own show.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In a few sketches, a character appears in a prominent role for one quick gag, then never appears again for the rest of the sketch (such as Hägar the Horrible in So You Think You Can Train Your Dragon to Dance, who is introduced as one of the celebrity guest judges for the eponymous show but is then conspicuously absent from the judge's table for the rest of sketch). This was eventually lampshaded in Jacks the Giant Slayers where Flapjack appears as one of the "Jacks" for hire and is introduced as someone who "once had a TV show on Cartoon Network, but probably won't be seen again after this scene". Sure enough, in the next wide shot, Flapjack is missing from the group of Jacks and doesn't appear again for the rest of the sketch.
• X Meets Y: In-show, a lot of the parody titles (read: the parody titles that don't childishly make fun of what's being parodied, like Are You Karate Kidding Me?, Avaturd, uGlee, and The Social Netjerk) are combos of two or more TV shows, movies, cartoon series, etc. Some examples:
  • CSiCarly: CSI and iCarly
  • I Love You, Iron Man: I Love You, Man and Iron Man
  • Ben 10 Franklin: Ben 10 and Benjamin Franklin
  • Cliffordfield: Clifford the Big Red Dog and Cloverfield
  • Pirates of the Neverland: At Wit's End: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Peter Pan (the Neverland reference).
  • WALL-E-NATOR: WALL•E and Terminator
  • 2012 Dalmatians: 2012 and 101 Dalmatians
  • Naru210: Naruto and Beverly Hills, 90210
  • Pooh Grit: Winnie the Pooh and True Grit
  • Soul Tron: Soul Train and TRON
  • So You Think You Can Train Your Dragon to Dance: How to Train Your Dragon and So You Think You Can Dance
  • Pokémon Park: Pokémon and Jurassic Park.
  • Hops: Hop and COPS
  • The Buzz Identity: Toy Story 3 and The Bourne Identity (with some pieces of The Wizard of Oz and Inception)
  • Arthor: Arthur (2011) and Thor, with the titular character of Rango thrown in as well (since Thor, the Russell Brand remake of Arthur, and Rango came out in theaters around the same time)
  • The Clawfice: The X-Men and The Office
  • Rio-A: Rio and Green Lantern (2011) (Oa is the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps)
  • Captain America's Got Talent: Captain America and America's Got Talent
  • Thomas the Unstoppable Tank Engine: Thomas & Friends and Unstoppable
  • The Fresh Prawn of Bel-Air: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and District 9 (the prawn aliens were from the latter movie)
  • ThunderLOLcats: ThunderCats and THE INTERNET. ALL OF IT.
  • Cowboys & Alien Force actually has a rather non-indicative title; while a crossover of Cowboys & Aliens and Ben 10: Alien Force is indeed present, it quickly falls by the wayside in favor of a bizarre mash-up of references to Finding Nemo, Mr. Men, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Jon Favreau's career, MAD itself...by skit's end, even the characters are baffled.
    "It's a mash-up of two genres, they do it on MAD all the time!"
  • Criminal Minecraft: Criminal Minds and Minecraft.
  • Jersey Thor: Thor and Jersey Shore.
  • S'Up: Up and Jersey Shore.
  • Mouse: Mickey Mouse and House
  • Dances With Wolverine (A Footloose Parody): Wolverine and Footloose.
  • Money Ball Z: Dragon Ball Z and Money Ball
  • Green Care Bear: Green Lantern (2011) and the Care Bears.
  • My Little War Horse: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (again) and War Horse...and then The Adventures of Tintin (2011) as well.
  • Teen Titanic: Titanic (1997) and Teen Titans (2003), with Young Justice (2010) to keep things current.
  • Everybody Loves Rayman: Everybody Loves Raymond and Rayman.
  • The Iron Giant Lady: The Iron Giant and The Iron Lady... with a quick therapy scene that's a reference to The King's Speech.
  • Conan the Kardashian: Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Conan the Barbarian.
  • Optimus Prime Suspect: Transformers and Prime Suspect.
  • I Am Lorax: I Am Legend and The Lorax (2012).
  • My Supernatural Sweet Sixteen: Supernatural and My Super Sweet Sixteen
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid Icarus: Diary of a Wimpy Kid and not only Kid Icarus, but other video game franchises as well as the Super Smash Bros. series
  • Here Comes Yogi Boo Boo - Yogi Bear and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo
• X-Ray Sparks: In one sketch based on Star Wars, C-3PO shocked Chewbacca and Chewy's skeleton showed through his skin.

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