“Saturday Night Live” has dominated sketch comedy on network TV for the past 40 years, brushing off all upstarts who tried to make a go of it.
Of all those would-be rivals, Fox’s “MADtv” had the healthiest lifespan — 14 years — and on a good night really gave “SNL” a run for its money. Now, The CW is paying tribute to the series with “MADtv’s 20th Anniversary Reunion” special, airing Tuesday at 8 p.m.
And, at one hour, the show is way too short.
With alums including Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key (“Key & Peele”) and Ike Barinholtz (“The Mindy Project”), “MADtv” spawned its share of talent. But rewatching it now, you’re stuck by how much the show — which always was balanced along racial and gender lines — pushed the politically correct envelope.
“It was known for getting away with things that no one else would get away with,” says former cast member Nicole Parker, 37, who joined in 2003 and left six years later, in the middle of what would turn out to be the show’s last season. She might be referring to such popular characters as Miss Swan, an Asian manicurist portrayed by the very un-Asian Alex Borstein (who’d go on to voice Lois Griffin on “Family Guy”).
“I think Bobby Lee dressed as Connie Chung is more offensive than Miss Swan, and that’s because I had to help him into his pantyhose,” adds Parker — who didn’t participate in the LA reunion because she was doing a play in New York at the time.
Parker herself suffered for her art when she transformed into a topless James Blunt — after overcoming objections from the powers-that-be.
“They were upset that I would be in a male prosthetic chest,” she recalls. “I told them they’d just put Jordan [Peele] in fake lady boobs for a ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ sketch. So they got an old LL Cool J mold and dyed it white. It took like three hours for me to get into it. That sketch creeped people out the most.”
Parker and Peele actually had a close working relationship, and the interracial couple they created, the La Montroses, remains a show favorite.
“They clearly loved each other, but [as Pat-Beth La Montrose] I would say, by accident, incredibly inappropriate, racist-sounding things,” Parker says. “So anything that would gross Jordan out the most, that’s what I would write.”
Parker created some memorable spoofs, including “Laguna Bi-otch,” a take on MTV’s reality series “Laguna Beach” that has such a cult following that people recreate it on YouTube.
“I used to have people yell ‘Jessica!’ at me,” Parker says. “I never thought my catchphrase would be the way I yelled that girl’s name.”
But where Parker shone was with her impersonations. While she nailed Ellen DeGeneres years before Kate McKinnon did, her specialty was pop stars — Parker was a musical-theater geek and would go on to star in “Wicked” on Broadway.
Does she have any regrets?
“It kills to watch all these ‘Real Housewives’ go by,” Parker says. “And Lady Gaga and Katy Perry — I would have been all over them.” She laughs. “It’s painful!”