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Aeka 2.0 posted:How much coke was Artie Lang on at any given time? I didn't get to meet Artie Lang, but I did once eat "The Artie Lange Cupcake." It was a gourmet cupcake he had commissioned. It was the size of a grapefruit, and was modeled after chocolate Hostess Cupcakes. Essentially, it was a giant hunk of chocolate cake and frosting and cream. I ate half, my friend ate half, and we both felt sick for the rest of the day. But if you're Artie Lang, that's the kind of poo poo you need to eat to keep your rush on. A regular Hostess Cupcake would be like eating an apple to Artie Lange. Millions of Crows posted:Is saltzman to blame for all the Mrs Swann sketches? Yup. The sad thing about all the Mrs. Swann and Stuart sketches: they're literally the only recurring characters any average person could reference in 14 seasons. I mean, I know most of you reading this could probably name other characters, but for the average person that was it. What a crazy failure. Imagine if after SNL's 14th season you could only name two characters from it. Asterios fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Aug 26, 2015 |
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Aug 26, 2015 22:46
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I am astounded it lasted for more than 11 seasons. I stopped watching after the first few. How many did it actually rack up?
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Aug 26, 2015 22:48
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Thanks for the insights Asterios thats pretty cool stuff
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Aug 27, 2015 08:21
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tell us saltzman stories
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Aug 27, 2015 08:46
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How were there not constant murders and suicides and disappearances on the set of mad tv
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Aug 27, 2015 09:04
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gigawhite posted:How were there not constant murders and suicides and disappearances on the set of mad tv Everyone got paid to do something that approximated comedy, which in Los Angeles, is really hard. If you were a writer or cast member for a few years, the show absolutely made you enough to buy a nice little house or condo. And a lot of the writers were older -- all big Groundlings from the 80's and 90's -- so they had kids to feed. Still, there was always a really depressed feeling on the writer's floor. When I got there, it'd been my dream to be a TV comedy writer for like 8 years -- since I started high school. Then I met all these writers and was like, "holy poo poo, these people are so, so sad." Sometimes it was like walking around on the hospital floor the put all the dying people on. I don't have a ton of stories about cast interaction or crazy poo poo happening on set, because the seasons I was there (11-14), everyone was pretty mellow & middle aged. The nicest guy on set was Keegan Michael Key, who was this interesting puzzle. A brilliant improviser, super cool to everyone, but also deeply religious and very conservative. I would pass him and the head writer Dick Blasucci (from SCTV) talking a blue streak of poo poo about John Kerry all the time, and I always thought it was really funny. Jordan Peele was also a cool guy -- between the years he did MADtv and K&P, he did a stand-up show I was running, and hung out with us all after at In & Out. He even tried to set up a thing where we'd all go to see the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot (as he is a huge horror nerd). I was blown away by how cool he was -- he wasn't famous at the time, but I respected his talent a crazy amount, and my friends were all so nervous about hanging out with him that we never took him up on it. Pretty goony poo poo! I sperged and I lost, and now he's loving famous! Jordan came from this outfit called Boom Chicago. If you've never heard of them, they're this improv troupe in Amsterdam that every improviser in the country tries to get into. If you're accepted, they pay for you to live in Amsterdam for a year, pay you a salary, and you do 8 shows a week for stoned tourists and super hot locals. It's essentially a dream come true for a schlubby, nerdy improviser -- you become incredibly good incredibly fast, and they only accept one or two people a year. Key & Peele were always hysterical on the show, but I don't think anyone assumed they'd become super famous, just because nobody who left MADtv became super famous. They're like it. Out of over a hundred cast members, some of the most talented comedians on the planet, I am almost positive it's just those two (but it's 4:30am where I am.) And nobody even associates them with MADtv. It's this weird old relic of a show -- like, the fact that the show itself existed is such a puzzle. So I was the show's researcher, and I was really lucky because back in 2004, everything was still analog. MADtv had a huge library of VHS cassettes -- enough to fill three and a half entire walls -- with old TV specials and music videos and movies and anything that could be parodied. So the researcher got an office. It was, again, mostly filled with VHS cassettes -- but it was cool to be 21 years old and have an office. I snuck in a big foam pad and would lock the door and take naps behind the desk Costanza style. My friends and I turned MADtv's offices into a little clubhouse at night. We were all poor comedians, but the offices had everything -- unlimited soda, candy, and deli meat for sandwiches. So I'd stay behind in the office and pretend to be working late, then around 8pm they'd roll in, and we'd all eat and drink and smoke out on the balcony. We were all huge TV nerds, so we'd pull weird shows from the library like "Inside Schwartz" (which was a sitcom where a man imagined various sports characters advising him about love), or "Oops!" (a post apocalyptic sitcom from FOX's early years.) Our favorite thing to watch was this Wednesday night poo poo block of ABC's Cavemen, ABC's Carpoolers & Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Just two hours of trash. We'd watch Studio 60, which was this crazy show where sketch comedy was the most high stakes thing ever, and we'd be watching it stoned from the empty office of a sketch comedy show, eating sandwiches and miniature kit kat bars. It was such a hilarious disconnect to us. I actually need to get back to work, but I guess the only drama I can think of is this: they hired on a writer, and I genuinely forget his name, but he had all these amazing credits. South Park, the Borat Movie, a bunch of other stuff. He was a super nice guy, and when he wasn't at work he took care of his sick mother. A lot of writers pitched in to help pay for her medical care. Well, long story short, everything he said was a complete lie. He was a con artist. No sick mom, never worked on the things he said he did, none of it. The funny thing is: I had actually met the guys who wrote the Borat movie and he was not one of them. He wasn't even British. But this guy was so nice and sweet and charming, I just assumed he did an uncredited punch up or something. He rooked people for thousands of dollars, got this cushy staff job, all of it, just because he was sweet and polite and unassuming. It was crazy -- he tricked every single person on the show. It was a real life Talented Mr. Ripley or Catch Me If You Can. Eventually everyone found out, because one of our writers met Trey Parker at a party, and Trey had no idea who the guy was. But there was some problem where the producers couldn't fire him because he had this crazy good contract. And he wasn't gonna quit because, gently caress, he was making TV money. But I, a dumb kid in his early 20's who was stealing food and napping through meetings, found a loophole to get him fired. Before all this drama went down, I noticed that a sketch he read at the table read had a bunch of jokes from The Onion in it. But I assumed he was spending so much time taking care of his sick mom that he probably just put the jokes in as a placeholder, and intended to replace them with his own jokes later. I don't know why I thought that -- again, he was just really charming and nice, and I was stupid. So I found the old sketch he wrote, the Onion article he stole them from, and turned them both into the producers. Because he'd sold plagiarized material to the show, it invalidated his contract somehow, and they fired him that day. I was a staff hero (for like a week.) I'd gone from this nobody everyone ignored to this kid people would give noogies too, or high fives, or hugs or whatever. Because everyone in hollywood is insanely self centered, eventually everyone moved on, and I faded into the background again. But it was nice to help nail this creepy lying dude.
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Aug 27, 2015 10:08
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you know how you get lovely russian and chinese knockoffs of good american stuff? well mad tv is like the even worse knockoff from fuckin central asia
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Aug 27, 2015 11:14
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Asterios posted:But I, a dumb kid in his early 20's who was stealing food and napping through meetings, found a loophole to get him fired. This sounds like an origins story. "And that's how I found out my super power. I am really good at finding strange and obscure loop holes in contracts that can get people fired. I went on to stop 13 dictators due to my loophole finding abilities. Some people call me a hero. Me? I'm just doing what God put me on this earth to do." edit: "I have come here to nap and find loopholes. And I am all out of ZzzQuil." Jukeboxblues fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Aug 27, 2015 |
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Aug 27, 2015 11:43
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