“A Pack Of Gifts Now”

Do folks remember MadTV? I honestly don’t know if it’s already become a footnote, or if it’s hung on with a certain age group, or what. I will predict that the first three or four seasons will be re-discovered by a younger generation and enjoyed mightily. But for those that don’t recall, MadTV was a Saturday night sketch comedy show on Fox that was meant as direct competition to Saturday Night Live. Fox’s show started at 11, as opposed to SNL’s 11:35 time slot, so I’m guessing they were hoping folks would hang on and forget to change the channel until it was over?

In any case, it wasn’t live and only about half shot in front of an audience (the remainder be pre-taped segments). There were some fun spoofs, some characters that were run into the ground, not-great attempts at humor both topical and edgy that would probably fall flat now just because it would be about a topic that no one remembers handled in a way that’s become hack 25 years later. But again - there were multiple bright spots, especially in those early years.

Here’s one: “A Pack Of Gifts Now” is a mash-up spoof of APOCALYPSE NOW and the Rankin-Bass Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer claymation special. That luminescent freakshow buck is dispatched to take out rogue kringle Santa Claus all while making jokes about an 18-year old movie (this was before Coppola started futzing around with all the edits). But the comedy lands pretty well and the lo-fi stop-motion animation adds a lot of charm. So enjoy this helping of holiday hilarity from MadTV’s third season in December 1997.