MADtv Quotes

I was 18 when I did 'The Amanda Show,' and I was 19 when I did 'MadTV,' and I was in way over my head. I was just sort of a goof who could do impressions of WB stars - speaking of the Dawson Van Der Beek era - and it was overwhelming. I don't think I've learned more faster in my life than when I worked on 'MadTV.'

Before my big break in 'MADtv,' I was doing a lot of commercial work.

In my experience, 'SNL' has Lorne Michaels, who is, you know, the captain of the ship and gives the show direction and a singular focus, whereas 'MadTV' - even in my 13 episodes there - had maybe one too many cooks and was a bit more chaotic creatively.

When you did impressions on 'MADtv,' the producers gave you a Walkman that played huge sections of whatever movie was being parodied, with your character's catchphrases recorded on a loop. You'd wear this thing around during rehearsals and for a week listen to the voice you had to impersonate over and over again. It drove all of us crazy.

I'm hoping that, over the years, people will come back to 'MADtv' and think it isn't that bad. We had some really talented people on there.

The only reason I wanted to do 'MADtv' was because I grew up reading 'Mad Magazine' because I'm a comic-book nerd.

I wanted to come to Chicago. I also wanted to do "Saturday Night Live." And then I got to a place where I didn't want to do those things anymore.For the sketch comedy thing, I got cast on "MADtv," and that will kill any man's desire to do comedy.

The first two years I was on 'MADtv' were really, really fun. We always thought it was 'Saturday Night Live's very nice, slightly asthmatic, shorter cousin.

I wanted to move on. I wanted to do acting. The next thing I did after [MADtv] was a good hybrid of that. I did this show with Bob Odenkirk and Derek Waters (creator of Comedy Central's "Drunk History") and it was a little homegrown thing that we shot and then we sold it to HBO. We made a pilot and HBO didn't pick it up, but then we made all these webisodes. This was before streaming stuff online made any sense. (The episodes are available on YouTube). Nobody even knew how to watch things on the internet.

On 'MADtv,' I discovered I could do Billy Crystal. 'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 68th Annual Academy Awards!' Surprisingly, there's more call for that one than you'd think.