At the recommendation of my co-worker Mary Reeves, I set my DVR to catch “Mad” on Cartoon Network, and watched an episode this morning while getting ready for work. CN apparently ran two 15-minute episodes in a row, but my DVR only decided to get the first one — and just enough of the second one to make me angry when the recording stopped in mid-sketch.

“Mad” is not to be confused with “MadTV,” the late night sketch comedy show which used to run on the Fox network and was rerun on Comedy Central. Both shows are named after Mad magazine, but the Cartoon Network version is animated (that sounds like a “duh” moment, but these days not everything on Cartoon Network can make that claim). Also, the Cartoon Network version has much more of a connection with the magazine than the late-night version ever did. For example, a parody of the 2009 “Star Trek” reboot was called “Star Blecch,” the title the magazine’s traditionally used for any sort of “Trek” parody. (It was the “Star Trek” sketch that I didn’t get to see the end of.) Another sketch I saw was in the style of Mad stalwart Don Martin. There was also a “Spy vs. Spy” cartoon; back when “MadTV” first went on the air, it too had “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons, which were just about its only connection to the magazine. They were eventually dropped, as was the face of Alfred E. Neuman in the opening credits.

The animated show is clever, in the way that the magazine is clever. One animated sketch had Captain Jack Sparrow bringing Captain Hook from the “Peter Pan” cartoon up to speed about the changing roles and expectations of modern-day pirates. Another had Batman and his inner circle appearing on “Family Feud” because of a tip that the Riddler would show up, but then getting caught up in the game and forgetting about the crime-fighting.

“Mad” is, in some ways, a younger-skewing, tween-friendly cousin to “Robot Chicken,” which airs in Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block. It’s worth setting the DVR.