"Get me Kaputnik and Fonebone!"

So, the other night, I watched Cartoon Network's newest program, Mad. Now, like many a young man, I read Mad Magazine a time or two in my youth. I read Cracked Magazine first, mind you, but that's irrelevant as they've REALLY differentiated themselves from Mad over the years.

And in high school, I watched Mad TV, a sketch comedy show that was AWESOME in it's first few seasons, though it turned to crap in later years. (Personally, I blame a decided lack of That's My White Mama sketches for the decline.)

So, I decided to catch the new animated version of the venerable comic humor magazine.

It's like Robot Chicken in that it's a fifteen minute animated program with a variety of short sketches. It differs from RC in two main regards. First, it does not feature one Leah Cevoli, who is one of my favorite voice actresses and a really nice person besides, so go check out her IMDB page, why don't you? Second, unlike Robot Chicken, it's AWFUL.

Perhaps that's a rash judgment, as I've only seen one episode. However, I feel justified, as that episode damaged me badly. Not nearly as badly as the WWE's Katie Vick fiasco, which is quite possibly the worst thing to have ever aired on television EVER, but Mad the animated series was unpleasant nonetheless.

There was a bad Transformers parody, a Facebook joke, a iPhone parody (instead of "app", they say "crap"! Ha-ha-haa! Kill me.), and a parody of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. While I'm no fan of George Lucas's megolamaniacal raping of his once beloved creation, I question the wisdom of a Cartoon Network series making fun of a series ON THE SAME NETWORK.

Overall, the show was tiresome and loaded with lame pop culture jokes. Even a Spy vs. Spy cartoon did little to provide solace in the face of such tripe. Only watch Mad if you are contemplating driving rusty nails in your eyes and need a strong incentive to do so.