Television series
Shaun Micallef's MAD AS HELL
- Absurdist comedy
- Fantasy
- Light-hearted
- Strange
A Australian absurdist comedy where a TV comedian buys a 1928 car that's actually his dead mother reincarnated, voiced by a woman. It's surreal, silly, and deadpan—imagine if your mom came back as a cantankerous automobile and wouldn't stop criticizing your life choices. For people who love their comedy weird and their logic cheerfully abandoned.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy dry, silly Australian satire that runs on absurd premises, and you like a host who plays a vain version of himself, with each sketch aimed at the media and celebrity circus around him.
Skip it if you want a tight, continuous story, since this is loose episodic sketching that can feel scattershot, and fifteen seasons means plenty of gags that simply don't land.
What it asks of you: Each half-hour is a self-contained burst, so you can dip in anywhere, though the hit-and-miss rhythm of a show throwing ideas at the wall takes patience.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
30 Rock2006
Sharp, rapid-fire comedy about a TV show within a TV show, with a similar energy of workplace absurdism and characters orbiting a comedy industry insider struggling to keep things together.
But Seven seasons is a commitment, and the humor relies heavily on New York in-jokes and pop culture references that age unevenly.
Arrested Development2003
Surreal family dysfunction played completely straight, with running gags that build across episodes. The same deadpan commitment to bizarre premises that makes MAD AS HELL sing.
But The later seasons lost focus, and the dense plotting means rewatching is almost required to catch everything.
The Mighty Boosh2004
British comedy that embraces absurdism and fantasy without apologizing—talking animals, dream logic, and characters treating impossible situations as mundane. Pure imaginative chaos.
But The humor is very British and very of its era. Some sketches drag, and it won't appeal if you prefer grounded comedy.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Shaun Micallef's MAD AS HELL
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Christine1983
Both center on a car as a character with its own will and voice. MAD AS HELL treats it as absurdist family comedy; Christine treats it as genuine threat. Same premise, opposite register.
John Carpenter's film about a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury that kills its owner's enemies. A car with agency, murderous intent, and a relationship with a human—taking the living-car-as-character concept and playing it straight as horror.
But It's a slasher film with extended sequences of teenage drama and 1980s pacing that some will find tedious between the killing scenes.
More like this (8)
Community2009
Meta, genre-bending, joyfully ridiculous. Episodes that reinvent themselves—a clip show that's a real adventure, a Western, a claymation segment. Loves to break its own rules.
But Wildly uneven across seasons, and often tries too hard to be clever rather than funny.
The League of Gentlemen1999
Sketches that build impossible character-driven worlds with complete commitment. Characters drop into surreal situations and treat them as perfectly normal, which is exactly MAD AS HELL's trick.
But Very British, very dark, and some sketches are genuinely unsettling rather than funny.
Moral Orel2005
Stop-motion comedy that starts silly then quietly becomes genuinely moving, with a deadpan narrator and a deeply weird small town. Proves animation can do weird sitcom premises better than live-action.
But Only three seasons, and it shifts tone dramatically—what starts as irreverent becomes heavy and sad.
Review2014
A man reviews experiences by doing them—a terrible idea executed with commitment to the premise. Similar energy of watching someone fully invested in an absurd setup that generates comedy through discipline.
But The American version struggles to find consistent laughs. Some segments feel padded to hit runtime requirements.
Nathan for You2013
Nathan Fielding pitches increasingly deranged business ideas to real companies and follows through completely. Comedy born from treating absurdity seriously, with a similar deadpan Australian sensibility.
But Can feel cruel toward the business owners, and the jokes sometimes depend on cringe rather than cleverness.
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace2004
A fake 1980s horror show about a hospital where supernatural chaos unfolds, hosted by the pompous author. Deadpan, confidently weird, and utterly committed to its own logic.
But Only six episodes, and the joke wears thin quickly if you're not already charmed by the premise.
Das Boot1981
Both use a vehicle (submarine, car) as a claustrophobic stage where relationships unfold and absurdity thrives. Both find humor and humanity in tight spaces and impossible situations, though MAD AS HELL is playful where Das Boot is tragic.
A German war film shot almost entirely inside a U-boat, where the confined space becomes a character itself. The submarine crew treats impossible circumstances as routine, and the film finds dark humor in disaster with deadpan commitment.
But It's three hours, in German, and deeply pessimistic. Not a comedy, and the ending is bleak.
Rubber2010
Both give inanimate objects agency and personality while keeping a perfectly straight face. Both ask the audience to accept the absurd and find the comedy in commitment rather than jokes. Rubber is arthouse provocation; MAD AS HELL is a sitcom. Same DNA, completely different execution.
A sentient tire rolls across the desert murdering people. French surrealist horror-comedy that asks why and then answers 'no reason.' Commits entirely to an impossible premise with complete confidence and dry wit.
But Deliberately obtuse, aggressively strange, and the joke might be at your expense for watching it. Long stretches with no dialogue or clear narrative momentum.
