Scenes We’d Like to See

Here’s how you save network sketch comedy: You kill it. We’re halfway there. MadTV, after 13 years of surprising viewers by remaining on the air, is down to its last episodes. Perhaps it will reinvent itself on some cable channel and never be heard from again, like the Whitest Kids U’ Know. We never really understood the Mad angle, anyway -- you name yourself after the most influential publication in the world (pre-Onion) and there’s no Don Martin? No Sergio Aragonés? No Fold-Ins? But MadTV did have the incomparable Frank Caliendo for five years — his John Madden is titanic — as well as Ariel Spears for eight seasons. Spears does rap stars — DMX, LL Cool J, Snoop, Jay-Z — really well, and a pretty mean Michael Jackson to boot (mean as in supervicious and cruel).
Sun., Dec. 7, 7 p.m., 2008