Country of origin United States Original network Fox | No. of episodes 22 | |
Original release September 16, 2006 (2006-09-16) – May 19, 2007 (2007-05-19) | ||
The twelfth season of Mad TV, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on the Fox Network between September 16, 2006, and May 19, 2007.
Contents
Summary
Stephnie Weir and Frank Caliendo left the show while Daniele Gaither was fired by Fox executives. In their places were Frank Caeti, Nicole Randall Johnson (who were now repertory players after a season of being feature players), and Lisa Donovan (who did not appear until the 14th episode of this season). The cold opening sketch was replaced by an announcer, Brian Fairlee, giving a preview of the sketches and guest stars that would appear in the episode. The sketches themselves became shorter and were shown in several parts so as to preserve the humor.
Due to Frank Caliendo's departure, political sketches centered around George W. Bush and his administration were nearly non-existent, barring the showing of a claymation short where Bush threatens to blackmail Santa Claus if Santa does not help him defeat his enemies. There were, however, sketches that contained slight political innuendo (such as "Steve Jobs' The iRack", where Steve Jobs' mismanagement of his latest invention is compared to America's invasion of Iraq in 2003) and some sketches centered on the then-upcoming 2008 Presidential Election with Nicole Parker as Hillary Clinton and Keegan-Michael Key as Barack Obama. More TV and movie parodies, celebrity-based sketches, music video parodies, one-shot situational comedy sketches, and recurring character sketches were shown to fill the void the political sketches had left behind.
Clay-animated sketches made a comeback after being absent since season five, with the appearance of the recurring sketch, "Celebrity Pets", and a glut of non-sequitur pieces. The only non-claymation animated sketches to appear in this season were "Weekly News with Toby" (featuring Frank Caeti giving a first grader's point of view of current events) and a three-part sketch about Cartoon Network's rejected superhero shows.
Opening montage
The 12th season had a new title sequence with shots of the performers as they prepared for the show. The screen divides into three different live-action shots. When the theme music starts, the announcer introduces each cast member alphabetically. After the last cast member is introduced, the whole cast is shown in a live-action shot. The music stops and the title sequence ends with the phrase "You are now watching Mad TV". The sequence also has a new announcer, Brian Fairlee.