In the 1990s and early 2000s, Saturday Night Live found a competitor in Fox's sketch comedy show, Mad TV. Originally inspired by the comedy rag Mad Magazine, Mad TV aired from 1995-2008 and would broadcast 330 original episodes.
From the first season to its last, Mad TV hosted an ensemble of players with a diverse range of talents and boasted a more racially diverse cast than SNL. The show also regularly lampooned racial stereotypes and maintained an edgier, more liberal approach to comedy than SNL did. For example, unlike SNL, the showrunners of Mad TV did not have a strict “no improv” rule.
But, like SNL, through the 15 seasons of the show, cast members would graduate to distinct careers of their own thanks to their tenures as cast members. What has happened to the audience favorites of Mad TV? What did they graduate to?
10 Will Sasso
Will Sasso was one of the most popular cast members thanks to his hilarious impressions. His most famous was a drunken, deranged rendition of country music star and fried chicken connoisseur Kenny Rogers. After Mad TV, Sasso found a career as a comedy character actor, mostly on TV. He has done voice over work for shows like Harley Quinn, Robot Chicken and Family Guy. He played Curly in the 2012 remake of The Three Stooges, although the film was a flop. He has been in practically every sitcom that aired since 2002, including How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family, and in 2003 he was in a SUM41 music video. He has even had a few dramatic roles in shows like CSI and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
9 Alex Borstein
Like Sasso, Borstein was a fan favorite because of her frequent impressions and goofy characters, most famously as the frustratingly difficult to talk to Ms. Swan of the Pretty Beauty Nail Salon. Alex Borstein is arguably one of the most successful of Mad TV alumni. She is a founding executive producer of Family Guy, where she also voices one of the most popular cartoon characters in existence, Lois Griffin. She also co-stars in the hit amazon show The Marvelous Ms. Maisel. Borstein now has a net worth of $24 million dollars.
8 Michael McDonald
McDonald’s character Stuart, the deranged pale toddler who made everyone’s life miserable, was the life force of Mad TV for years. Macdonald was the longest-running cast member of the show, remaining for ten seasons. McDonald was one of the show's best impressionists and his lampoons included Ozzy Osbourne, Dr. Phil, Simon Cowell, and others. McDonald also has found work as a character actor in comedies; Austin Powers fans might have spotted him in all three films. He also does stand up and was featured on comedy central's This Is Not Happening. He is now a voice actor and works on Nickelodeon's, The Loud House.
7 Nicole Sullivan
Sullivan starred on the show for six seasons before leaving to perform on primetime sitcoms like The King of Queens, Cougar Town, and Black-ish. Sullivan is also a prominent voice actor who had recurring roles in Family Guy, Disney films like Meet the Robinsons, and most notably to millennial audiences, she played Shego on the Disney Channel classic Kim Possible.
6 Mo Collins
Collins was a source of endless celebrity parodies, playing Cher, Catherine Zeta Jones, Madonna, and too many others to count. Mo later became a fan favorite of the Parks and Recration audience as Joan, the alcoholic sex-obsessed local news talking head of Pawnee, Indiana. During the peak of the COVID pandemic lockdowns of 2020, to entertain fans and to give a pained world something to laugh about, Collins briefly had a YouTube channel where she revived one of her most popular Mad TV characters, Lorraine, the socially inept midwestern mother who constantly cleared her throat to the annoyance of anyone foolish enough to deal with her.
5 Bobby Lee
Lee was one of the last to join the cast, but he would remain with the show until it’s conclusion on Fox. Like McDonald, Lee found work outside of Mad TV on the stand up circuit. Notably, Lee was involved in the feud between Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia when Rogan revealed that Lee was one of the comics that Mencia was stealing content from. He now hosts the Tiger Belly podcast and continues to perform stand up. According to some of his stand up routines, Lee struggled with opioid addiction while filming Mad TV.
4 David Herman
Herman was one of the first castmembers. Herman would leave after season three to go on to become a prominent voice actor with recurring roles in shows like Family Guy and King of the Hill. Herman would also appear in several Mike Judge films, co-starring in one his biggest hits, Office Space. Herman currently works most with showrunner Loren Bouchald and plays the tediously annoying guidance counslor Mr. Frond on Bobs Burgers.
3 Phil LaMarr
While many from Mad TV’s cast list have gone on to become voice artists, none is more prominent than Phil LaMarr. LaMarr was an original cast member of the show and left after season five. Among his staggering list of voiceover credits are shows like Samurai Jack and Justice League, video games like Kingdom Hearts, Mortal Kombat, and Metal Gear, and one of his most famous roles was as Hermes, the bureaucrat from Futurama. Lamarr has over 400 (and counting) voice credits to his name. Fun fact, prior to Mad TV, LaMarr played Marvin, the guy John Travolta accidently shoots in the face, in Pulp Fiction.
2 Debra Wilson
Although she stepped away from the public eye recently, Wilson was one of the most popular players on Mad TV and served as one of the longest-running members of the cast second only to Michael McDonald. Her impressions of Oprah, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey became comedy classics to fans. She frequently played very sensual and sexually liberated characters, and she even went topless a few times for the show. Wilson went on to voice acting work in TV, film, and video games, making appearances in shows like The Proud Family, Family Guy, American Dad, and James Cameron’s box office hit Avatar. She also had recurring roles on Reno 911 and CSI.
1 Artie Lange
Although Lange was very popular thanks to his fearlessly crude characters, his tenure on Mad TV was short lived. Lange was fired after the second season because of his drug addiction. Lange jokes about it now, but one time he slowed down a three-day-long filming of a sketch by abandoning the set to purchase cocaine. He was in full prosthetic make up as a giant pig by the way. Lange also upset the make up crew because he frequently drilled holes in his prosthetic snout to be able to snort cocaine, forcing the make up team to constantly redo their work. Lange would later be welcomed back to the show as a guest for the anniversary specials. Lange found work on The Howard Stern Show and he would go on to have a few of his own short lived radio programs, and he would also make the cult classic film DirtyWork with Norm Macdonald in 1998. Lange’s memoir, Too Fat To Fish, would become a best seller in 2009. Unfortunately, Lange continues to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.
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