Country of origin United States Original network Fox | No. of episodes 17 | |
Original release September 13, 2008 (2008-09-13) – May 16, 2009 (2009-05-16) | ||
The fourteenth season of Mad TV, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on the Fox Network between September 13, 2008, and May 16, 2009.
In November 2008, it was announced that after 14 years on FOX, Mad TV would be cancelled at the end of the 2008-2009 season. Despite this, producer David Salzman promised that Mad TV would be revived and put on cable television. Though plans for this did not come to fruition, Cartoon Network's MAD series and Comedy Central's Key & Peele are considered by some to be unofficial spin-offs, and the show would briefly return for an eight-episode fifteenth season nearly seven years after the series finale on FOX. Mad TV's final episode aired on May 16, 2009, featuring guest appearances from Fred Willard and a select few former cast members. 22 episodes were scheduled to air this season, though only 17 actually aired, and averaged 2.6 million viewers.
Between January 17, 2009 and February 21, 2009, Mad TV was moved from its 11:00pm time slot to midnight on FOX affiliates and aired 30-minute reruns of their episodes that have previously aired from September to December 2008. Meanwhile, the show that preceded Mad TV (Talkshow with Spike Feresten) was moved to Mad TV's 11pm time slot and expanded to an hour.
Of the season thirteen cast, feature players Daheli Hall, Dan Oster, and Anjelah Johnson did not return, while longtime cast members Jordan Peele and Michael McDonald left (though McDonald acted as a contributing writer and director for the show). New feature players for this season included comedian Matt Braunger, Erica Ash (from Logo's The Big Gay Sketch Show), stage actress Lauren Pritchard, and Eric Price.
This season was also the last of two seasons that aired Saturday Night Live-style clip show episodes: Mad TV's Sexy, Dirty Politics (a collection of the show's most outrageous past and present political sketches), Mad TV's Best of Holiday Sketches Spectacularly Special Spectacular (a collection of Christmas-themed sketches), and Mad TV: The Best of Michael McDonald (a collection of sketches featuring Michael McDonald's greatest celebrity impersonations and recurring characters).
Opening montage
The visuals of the opening montage are essentially the same as season thirteen (except Bobby Lee's footage), but the theme song is new. This version hints back to the original theme song of seasons 1-12, using the vocals of "MAD!" and "You are now watching..."