Playing straight man is never easy, but to be in that position when interviewing three comedy writers is nearly impossible: it’s hard to write while laughing. Palisadians Maiya Williams, Chris Cluess and Dick Blasucci all work on “MAD TV,” a one-hour sketch comedy show which airs Saturday night at 11 on Fox. They sat down at Mort’s Deli one Wednesday morning to discuss the show’well, almost discuss the show, which is in its 11th year. After sausage jokes, caffeine references, flying barbs and witty repartee, the three stopped just long enough so that I could get some facts about them and the show. Blasucci, one of the executive producers, has been with the show for eight years. Cluess and Williams are writing supervisors and have been with the show five years and four years, respectively. All three have extensive writing credits including “Night Court,” “SCTV,” “Charlie & Company,” “Fresh Prince,” “Newhart,” “Tracy Ullman” and “Rock.” Sketches include political satires, commercial spoofs, pop culture set-ups and parodies of film and television. Although not every sketch is a winner, the show is worth watching because the writing is intelligent and has an edge. Some of the humor is scatological, but sketches and jokes are not done for shock value. At times, the variety of topics the show spoofs, the amazing ensemble cast and the inspired moments are pure brilliance. TV Guide named MAD’s parody of “Felicity” one of the 50 funniest moments in TV history. “It’s become an alternative to Saturday Night Live for many baby boomers,” Blasucci said. “We’re starting to gear it so it’s not just for teenagers.” “We write for ourselves,” Cluess said. “If it makes us laugh, it gets on.” Williams explained there’s a large group of writers for the show, with a lot of different backgrounds. “Everyone has his own type of humor,” he said, “which means the sketches reflect those types: political, gross-out, smart.” When I said I had laughed at one of the recent sketches, Cluess was quick to jump in. “What made you laugh?” he asked, and without waiting for my reply he said, “I wrote it.” Turning to Blasucci, he added, “We’ve got to do something on the NBA dress code; it was in the paper this morning.” Although “MAD TV” is compared to “Saturday Night Live,” the resemblance has to do more with the fact that they’re both sketch shows. “We’re not live, which means we can take more chances,” Blasucci said. “We also have time to edit and can take out things that don’t work. We have more time to set up scenes.” “We also don’t have to rely on a guest star,” Williams said. “The sketches aren’t written for stars.” “The shows are two different animals,” Cluess said. “‘SNL” is driven by a guest host; we feature the cast. ‘MAD TV’ has half the number of writers they do and we’re driven by ideas.” Blasucci said that the show’s 15 writers have backgrounds that include the Groundlings, Second City, and some who have sitcom experience. Many writers at “MAD TV” were actors before joining the staff. Every week the writers work on three shows simultaneously. They put the final touches on the show that’s taping that week. They write close to 25 sketches for the following week, of which approximately 10 will be chosen. They pitch new ideas that could potentially be written for sketches the week after that. All three have high praise for the cast, calling it one of the strongest they’ve seen. The actors and writers are collaborative. In a pinch the writers perform on the show. “On sitcom writing, it’s the same characters you write for over and over,” Williams said. “And the situation is realistic. On ‘MAD’ you can write about anything. If you want a scene with a chicken, you put someone in a costume.” “There was a TV show about man vs. beast,” Cluess said, “where a man might race a horse.” “Chris and I wrote a parody of that show with Reba McIntyre playing ping-pong with a toad,” Williams said. “It’s a very inventive form,” Cluess said. “I get to write things you rarely do.” Williams is married to Patric Verrone, the newly-elected president of the Writers Guild, West. They have three children: Patric,10, Marianne, 8, and Teddy, 5. She is also a published author of “The Golden Hour,” a middle grades novel that was published in 2004. Her second novel, “Hour of the Cobra,” will come out next spring. She attended Harvard, where she was editor of the Harvard Lampoon for four years. Cluess is married to Joyce and they have two children: Jessica, a junior at Northwestern University, and Meredith, a senior at Marymount. He attended Fordham University and then served four years in the Navy as a hospital corpsman. He was the editor of the National Lampoon magazine. Blasucci is married to Beth and they have two children: Maria, a sophomore at Loyola Marymount University, and Anthony, who is working on “Family Guy” on Fox. Blasucci graduated from Southern Illinois'”The Harvard of southern Illinois,” he joked. “Many people thought it was as hard as an Ivy League school.” “We all ended up in the same place on ‘MAD TV,'” Williams laughed. “It shows I spent too much money to go to school.”
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