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Saying an Exclusive Goodbye to MADtv on Fox with Producer David Salzman
by Troy Rogers
 After
14 years on the air the pop-culture sketch comedy
series, MADtv, is saying goodbye to the network
airwaves on Fox on May 16 at 11pm. Originally
debuting in 1995 when the primetime sketch comedy
world had already expanded with shows like In
Living Color, MADtv took the offbeat humor within
the pages of the long popular MAD Magazine and
gave it a comedic face on television. Although
MADtv dropped much of the overtly identifiable
imagery from the magazine after the first couple
of seasons, the series formed its own hilarious
identity while introducing the world to its colorful
cast, which included such names as Orlando Jones,
Phil LaMarr, Debra Wilson, Artie Lange, Nicole
Sullivan, Wil Sasso, Alex Borstein, Aries Spears,
Bobby Lee, Frank Caliendo, Crista Flanagan, Mo
Collins, and of course, Michael McDonald who has
been with MADtv for an entire decade.
The driving force behind bringing MADtv to the airwaves in 1995 and making the series work for 14 years is producer David Salzman, who believed in a TV translation of MAD magazine from day one. All good things eventually come to an end, especially on TV, but, as David Salzman recently told us, we may see MADtv live on in the future if another network picks up the series. 14 years is a long time on the air, but when shows still have a huge and loyal fan base when they leave the air, it's great to know there are producers like David Salzman who look at all options on the horizon before calling it quits forever.
With MADtv about to say goodbye to the Fox airwaves on May 16 at 11pm, we caught up with former network executive and MADtv producer, David Salzman, for an exclusive one-on-one chat to look back in time and ahead to the future for MADtv.
THE DEADBOLT: So what was the initial idea for the show? Was it set up
as competition for SNL?  DAVID
SALZMAN: Not really. I mean the initial
idea came to me. Believe it or not, shows you
what a slow worker I can be. In the 80s I could
never get the rights to MAD Magazine, which
was still kind of a big deal, until I was finally
able to sit down with the founder, William Gaines,
and convinced him this should be on television.
Then fast-forward to the mid-90s. I had run,
between 1985 and the early '90s, the number
one TV studio in America for a number of years.
And the reason why we were number one is we
had great people. One of the people who actually
worked in our company at the time was a guy
named Peter Chernin who went on to be very successful
at a company called Newscorp. So I called Peter
up about this in the mid-90s and said, "I want
to come over. I think I got a great idea for
late night." And he said, "We’re not in the
late night business." And there was a guy there
named, Sandy Grushow, who then president of
the network and was kind of Peter’s second as
Peter rose to run the company, Sandy rose too.
So we went over there and we pitched them on the show. When I say we, I guess I should say me. It was me. And I remember Peter saying, "Great pitch, love the show, no place to put it. Why are we even talking about it?" Sandy said, "Look, maybe it could play on another night, and maybe if - David, is it possible to produce a pilot for primetime that could also air on late night, knowing that we’re not in the late night business and you heard it from Peter himself that we might not do it?" So being the fool that I am, I said, "Sure, we can." And we did, it was a great pilot. I remember Fox saying it was the highest comedy pilot they had that year, maybe in a few years. As a result of that we were able to help Fox decide to try late night again, and Peter said, "You realize the odds are that even if the show is good it’s going to die because you’re just going to be out there by yourself." Somehow it worked for fourteen years. So that’s how it started. It sort of had nothing to do with SNL.
 The pitch
to Fox was, "Look, we live in a pop culture
universe. We got a wall-to-wall pop culture
show. Everybody grew up with MAD at certain
age groups. MAD Magazine is in their DNA, they
should grow up with MADtv in their DNA." I think
we succeeded in that. And how could the show
fail? I mean, we got the subject matter, we
know how to do this, let’s go out there and
do it. And the question did come up of SNL,
and we said, "Here’s our take: They’re rock
n’ roll, we’re hip-hop. They’re East coast,
we’re West coast. They’re sort of Ivy league,
we’re very straight. They’re a fairly white
show, we’re a multi-cultural show, and we’re
not going to do it live. The cast is going to
be front and center, we’re not going to feature
superstars. We’re not going to try and play
their game, we got to play a different brand
of ball to be able to survive and reach our
audience, because their audience is very loyal
and we’re not going to try and steal them away."
So that’s what we tried to do through the years. Put our cast and characters up front, stay disciplined and focus everything on pop culture, make it very accessible to the masses, and skew much younger. You know, teens, some tweens, African Americans, people of color, Latinos, a much more urban show, and have faster moving sketches with all of the different looks so our commercial spoofs really look like commercials and the music video parodies look like real music videos. The same with movies and television and just everything in pop culture, dating and the web, and all of those other things. There wasn’t much consciousness of SNL, only to sort of create something that’s very different and hopefully succeed.
THE DEADBOLT: Since it came from the magazine, was it a conscious decision not to use Alfred E. Neuman very much?
 SALZMAN:
Well, at the very beginning, in the pilot we
used Alfred as the cipher-like character that
he always appeared as on the covers. And in
the first two years we had Spy vs. Spy and we
had Don Martin animations and we had Sergio
Aragones and Sergio Prohias who were alive,
still, at that time doing the unbelievable cartoon
art that we would use for our bumpers and for
our open. When Fox did some research after a
couple of years and then we did some research
that was cooperative to what Fox had come up
with, the thing that we discovered was that
MADtv as a brand was even bigger than MAD Magazine
after just two years and that we should sort
of de-emphasize that. We kept the Kaliope type,
we kept the true principles of MAD Magazine,
which is sending up authority, the underdog
winning, scenes you’d like to see, those kinds
of things. But we really weaned the show away
from the visual imagery of the magazine beyond
the MAD Kaliope type.
THE DEADBOLT: Fourteen years is a really good run. So why is it ending now?
 SALZMAN:
[laughs] A question we ask ourselves. I think
really what’s happening; obviously we have to
be very appreciative of having done 326 hours
for Fox and Fox sticking with us as sort of
the lone example of success in late night. It’s
very tough, because you can’t get promotion
in that time period to a like audience. You
pretty much have to bring people to the tent
yourself. And it’s not an inexpensive show and
there’s still people at Fox who love the show
and wanted to stay with the show, but the economics
of late night have just changed radically in
the last five years. I don’t have to tell you
in all of the advertiser based media, look how
many magazines and television shows and networks
and radio stations, stuff is going away. One
hundred year old newspapers are disappearing.
So I think the economics changed and we’re
a certain kind of show and there’s a price point
associated with it. Fox just came to the decision
they wanted to come up with something where
the economics made more sense and that was significantly
different from MADtv, because they knew they
couldn’t do a better show of this type or do
a show of this type for less. And we still have
a great relationship with them, so they gave
us early notification so we have a chance to
talk to other networks, which we’re doing. You
know, the economic crisis that exists across
the whole media landscape has made it tougher
than it would otherwise be. But we are in serious
discussions with others. So that’s why we view
this upcoming finale as the Fox finale. And
hopefully we will continue, because certainly
pop culture is still around and one needs a
sense of humor and a sense of reverence perhaps
more than ever. So the market place is still
there.
THE DEADBOLT: Some of my favorite characters are Kenny Rogers and Steven Seagal. I also like Bobby Lee’s Kim Jong-il. Do you have any favorites?
 SALZMAN:
[laughs] You know, it’s kind of like being the
father of a brood of twelve kids and your wife
kicks you under the table if you tell anybody
who your favorite kid is. But since my wife
is not here, I guess the one that resonates
the most for me is probably Coach Hines because
I had that coach when I was a jock in high school.
And there’s a part of MADtv, which is based
on the fact that none of us really ever fully
graduate from high school, the crazy humor and
the physical humor and the stuff like that,
so the Coach is one of my all time favorites.
I obviously love Stewart, how dark and festered
that character is. There’s no one quite like
Stewart and there’s the big audience leap of
faith. But there’s really just so many others
as well. Miss Swan is one.
We love the Kenny Rogers kind of thing, because
what we decided to do was - You know, I found
[Frank] Caliendo in a club in Milwaukee, which
was his hometown like twelve or thirteen years
ago, and then we got him on to the show and
he was great. He’s probably the best dead-on
impressionist, I think, working in the business
today. But with MADtv, what we decided to do
is our own takes on these people. So with Kenny
Rogers, when we ran into Kenny Rogers, whom
I’ve known for a long time, he said, "Why do
you call him Kenny Rogers? I’m not like that
at all." And it’s just that’s what MADtv does.
As you know, we’ve done that with a lot of characters.
We do these crazy things that bare only a shade
of resemblance to the original character and
we just make them our own. Anything that Will
[Sasso] did was hilarious. He’s one of the funniest
people we ever had on the show.
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