The Lillian Verner Game Show

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The Lillian Verner Game Show is a popular recurring skit on MADtv and is considered to be a show-within-a-show, which is probably the reason for its popularity. The sketches spoof television game shows as well as the Lillian Vernon catalog.

Every show begins with the Lillian Verner theme music. The show's setup has a host, announcer and three contestants behind podiums. The show is "sponsored" by the fake Lillian Verner Catalogue, a catalog full of cheap, useless items and trinkets. The contestants must answer ridiculously mundane questions regarding items out of the catalog, as well as ring in their answers with various Lillian Verner products, such as the Lillian Verner Talking Cheech and Chong Salt and Pepper Shakers, that spurt such phrases as, "I'm high as the clouds", and, "You kids ever see a dead body".

[edit] Hosts and Announcers

For all Lillian Verner sketches, MADtv writer Michael Hitchcock plays the uncredited announcer Simeon Dyson. Simeon, who closely resembles Richard Simmons, is admittedly on several potent drugs, such as Zoloft, NyQuil, and Vicodin, but it is also implied that he is also on illegal drugs, such as ecstasy and cocaine. Most likely due to this fact, Simeon has a very bipolar personality. He is usually seen as overly energetic and enthusiastic, but can switch to an angry, potentially violent mood in an instant. Simeon, whose eyes never blink, usually wears out-of-style clothes (specifically, sweaters), and could be considered somewhat spastic, attributed to certain sudden movements, facial expressions and comments.

For most of the shows, Paul Vogt plays the host, Dale Briskett. Also observed as enthusiastic, he is much more normal and calm than Simeon. He is known to greet and interject with old-fashioned cliches, such as "Holy cannoli, let's do it!", "Fiddlesticks, no," and "Bibbity-bobbity-bop...no!" He wears Lillan Verner t-shirts with such sayings as "If a cow laughed real hard, would milk come out of its nose?" and "My wife doesn't do mornings", and sometimes finds a way to insult his wife with the sayings. Simeon usually disagrees, angrily. Sometimes in conjunction, Simeon will angrily insult Dale by implying that he's gay. For example, when Dale Briskett wore the "My wife doesn't do mornings" T-shirt, Simeon replied, "And you [Dale Briskett] don't do women!"

Since Vogt's departure from MADtv, there have been four "guest" hosts on the show, including America's Funniest Home Videos Tom Bergeron, Breaking Bonaduce's Danny Bonaduce, Survivor's Jeff Probst and Curb Your Enthusiasm's Jeff Garlin as new host "Hank Whitley," whom Simeon introduces as "Muddy Buttcrack." Jeff was seen as somewhat enthusiastic compared to Simeon and Dale, but Hank was completely calm and relaxed (tongue-in-cheek joke to the title of the show where the actor who played Hank came from). Like Dale, Hank wore a Lillian Verner t-shirt, and it read "New host, same crap."

[edit] Characters

There are also several recurring contestants. The most often recurring character is Gail Cinder, played by Stephnie Weir. Gail is a homemaker from Odessa, Texas, and always wears a shirt with a pun regarding cats, such as "Cat-itude" or "Pussy Lover." She also usually mentions her many cats at home, each one named after a celebrity or pop culture title, such as "Kitty Kitty Bang Bang" or "Cat-erine Hepburn", and even "Kitty Couric." She is apparently single and lonely, and at times seems to annoy Dale or even be stalking him.

Other recurring characters include Dominic Sandy (a giant played by Michael McDonald, including other non-Lillian Verner skits), Annetta Bussley (a bad ventriloquist with a vulgar dummy named Miss Tickles that looks like her; played by Nicole Parker), Rudolph Poozer (a Smurf lover who was initially thought to speak too close to the microphone, but actually speaks unclearly; played by Keegan-Michael Key) and Carol Finney (A chinless woman who loves to roll nickels; played by Mo Collins).