Awesome / MAD

The magazine:

He's finally zipped.^note "Poor Moron!... Hey, who's that cheering?" "I'm not sure, but I think it's God!"

• MAD's parody of The Morton Downey Jr. Show (Issue #286, April 1989), called "The Moron Downer Jr. Show" deserves a mention. In the end of the parody, the Pope himself visits the show to deliver a message. The comic ended with a full page splash of the Pope punching Morton in the teeth. Damn!
• Issue #533, edited by "Weird Al" Yankovic, with several articles written by him. Two of the biggest names in satire, together at last.
• During a company-wide vacation to the Dominican Republic, Bill Gaines discovered that there was only one subscriber in the entire country, and his subscription was going to expire that month. The entire Mad staff - artists, writers, editors, and Gaines himself piled into a bus and drove out to his house. Gaines knocked on the subscriber's door, and with the entire staff of the magazine looking on, presented him with a renewal notice.

The cartoon:

• Bob the Builder OWNING Andrew W.K. in Destroy, Bob The Builder, Destroy is a good example.
  • For a bonus, Andrew W.K is Adam Westing as himself.
• "Once Upon A Toon", no question. How does MAD celebrate Cartoon Network's 20th birthday? With a character from pretty much every classic show uniting once again! Including Johnny Bravo, Dexter, Samurai Jack, Blossom, even Numbuh 1, and most of the time Cartoon Network just pretended KND didn't exist!
  • And why did they unite? To see who's behind Cartoon Network's downfall. Not to mention that Stu Sny-err...Dee Dee claimed that it was because they needed to make room for all new shows. And this aired the week of their 20th birthday. Biting-the-Hand Humor doesn't even BEGIN to describe this.
  • Even better, Dee Dee's Overly Long Gag about showing a "sample" of MAD on a TV, in a recursive, matrioska-esque way further hammers down the point about how MAD's pop-cultural nature is the only way the characters could possibly have been acknowledged and gathered. As a Youtube commenter pointed out, this is 50% Biting-the-Hand Humor, and (much more subtly) 50% fan-trolling. And 100% awesome.
• Rio-A: Blu gains Green Lantern powers, and gives rings to other flightless birds (Mordecai, Big Bird, etc.) to save Jewel. Awesome way to kick off Season 2.
  • When the Big Bad tries to point out that Green Lantern rings don't work on yellow, Mordecai just punches him in the face. Awesome.
• The Fandom Nod in "My Little War Horse" with the cake that has "Go Bronies" on it, as well as getting Tara Strong to reprise her role as Twilight Sparkle.
• LinKong vs MechaThatcher. Heck of a way to start off season 4. Made even better with Linkong being voiced by Gilbert Gottfried.
• Speaking of starting off season four with a boom (or should we say, a sonic rainboom?), MAD co-aired that sketch with "Rainbow Dash and Bernstein", a definite CMOA for the brony community. While the Fandom Nod in "My Little War Horse" was awesome and the other sketches never made fun of it, this sketch centered around MLP's male community in a positive light. But this line shows MAD has done their research:
  Rainbow Dash: ...I can show you how to be 20% cooler by being a brony!
• There's also the part where he was fighting dinosaurs.
  President Linkong: Anybody ELSE have any "differing opinions"?

Let's just say Linkong in general was an awesome sketch.

• Even in a MAD sketch (I Am Lorax, to be specific) Will Smith is still badass
  Zombie Lorax: The creatures of the forest seek revenge!
  Will Smith: Well they can revenge on this!
  [takes a shotgun and blasts zombie versions of Mordecai and Rigby, Bugs and Daffy, and Mojo Jojo]
• G.I.E.I. Joe. They actually train farm animals to fight KOBRA.
• George Washington with Dual Wield axes fighting cherry trees. Yes.
• "Animal vs Appliance" Especially when animal wins
• Lex Luthor brought his own cheering squad.
• ArThor rescuing Jane Donkey Kong style.
• In the X-Mentalist sketch, Wolverine get a nice Bait-and-Switch interrogation.
  Wolverine: Look, bub... in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. (SNIKT!) Right claws, (SNIKT!) and left claws.