With Fox ordering up a second season, the half-hour Spike will return to Saturday nights at midnight in the fall and continue to be swamped by the second half hour of Saturday Night Live.
Spike's renewal was never a certainty because of its low ratings. There was even talk in January that former MADtv trainwreck Artie Lange would take over. But the execs at Fox think Spike Feresten is the bee's knees, and the show rates better among young men than ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live, CBS' The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly.
So Fox probably sees Spike, the former Seinfeld and Letterman writer who looks like Ellen with glasses, as headed to greater things and timeslots.
But that complicates things for MADtv...
... the show that provides Spike with many of its guests (see the webpage), and for one brief shining moment seemed to have the potential to stand up to SNL on its own terms
Fox and the show's producers are still negotiating a thirteenth season. Earlier this year, people outside and inside the show were saying that this season would be its last-- but Fox had nothing to fill its timeslot.
Now they have Spike.
Comments (2)
NO!!!!!! Fox can't replace madtv w/ that unfunny spike!!! i LOVE madtv and usually watch it until snl comes on and then i flip back and forth until midnight. If madtv is cancelled and replaced then i will just keep my tv set on nbc the whole time!!!
1 of 2 | Posted by jim | Posted on May 8, 2007 9:24 AM
Wow, if FOX does this I will be so pissed. First of all, MADtv's ratings and leaps and bounds better then Spike's, so doing that will be a shot in the foot to a late-night line-up. Second of all, Spike's Talkshow has to be one of the most unfunny and poorly-put together "comedy" shows in the history of television, whereas MADtv is one of the funniest.
This is the only article I've read where it says things are looking down for MADtv though?
2 of 2 | Posted by Ned | Posted on May 12, 2007 7:39 AM