Does Trevor Noah's exit signal Comedy Central's downfall?

[TMC1982]

Comedy Central at this point in time, is pretty much little more than the South Park-The Office-The Daily Show channel. With that being said, this article has said that Comedy Central in recent times, seems to be more interested in managing for margins than having a clear vision for the streaming era. They've also struggled to retain talent and have gradually been ushering themselves out of original, live-action scripted programming.

 

[the greenman]

Then you got the majority (at least 8) of SNL's cast took off. Comedy's under attack. Not many comedians are even attacking the current POTUS & vice prez. Comedy gold mine & everyone is mum. Yet they were all out for That Orange Guy. I think they're all running and hiding cause they don't want to approach that issue at all.

Most of Late Night tv is unwatchable for me cause it is political & unfunny.

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[[classic swim]]

I haven’t had much interest in Comedy Central in a long, long, long, long, LONG time.

Loved it in the 2000s when it seemed to be at its most raw form.

And even from 2010-2013 it was still pretty decent for what it was.

Every now and then I’ll check out a South Park marathon, when I could very well just pop in the old DVDs.

But that’s about it.

It’s just simple network decay, Adult Swim’s sorta succumbed to it as well.

They’re well past the point of being one of my go-to places for a great laugh, and they’re even past the point of being my go-to cheap laugh whenever I’m extremely bored and literally nothing else is on.

It’s not just rose tinted glasses for me either. I couldn’t tell you how many B movies I watched on that channel buzzed to pass the time.

I think a lot of it also is that maybe a part of me actually did grow up after all.

They brought back Crank Yankers awhile ago. I loved that show during the original run, even when my friends kept telling me how stupid and awful it was.

I got around to watching at least one of the new episodes last year, and boy could I not evoke any sense of emotion or reaction to it at all.

I can’t rag too much on Trevor Noah but yeah, I still remember Jon’s last show vividly well. Never watched Daily Show again after that.

But to be fair, I was starting to lose interest long before Noah was even part of the equation at all. It was especially kinda crappy to me when John Oliver was a temporary replacement.

 

[Silverstar]

I agree that the current Comedy Central is a dismal shadow of its' former self. It used to be one of my go-to stations, but presently The Daily Show is pretty much the only thing I watch on it now. I'm not a big sitcom fan (the last sitcom I followed regularly was 30 Rock) so I never got into The Office or Seinfeld, and South Park has just been running for too long and I simply lost interest in it, like the other 2 of the Big 3 adult comedies, The Simpsons and Family Guy; they just became zombies that refused to die for me (my personal opinion is that no scripted show should go beyond 3 or 4 seasons).

I try to catch a bit of Hell of a Week with Charlamagne Tha God, but unfortunately it runs opposite The Late Show. Speaking of Stephen Colbert, sorry Stephen, but I can't bring myself to watch Tooning Out the News; I know it's Colbert's baby, but the last thing I need to see after The Daily Show is another fake pundit show. TOTN is basically The Colbert Report except it's a cartoon and it's a whole cast of fake conservative pundit characters.

Like @the greenman pointed out, It's not just Comedy Central though; scripted comedy as a whole has been taking a huge hit lately, scripted shows on cable in general, really. A lot of it stems from the fact that Comedy Central's target audience, adults aged 18-35, would rather watch quick bites than a half-hour program; so Comedy Central's top brass are leaning more towards short segments that can easily go viral on the internet. Cable TV as a whole has been dramatically scaling back on scripted shows. Take the T-Networks (TBS, TNT, TruTV) for example. Yeah, David Zaslav makes himself an easy scapegoat, but the T-Networks have been pulling back on scripted shows before he and Discovery came into the picture. Scripted shows are expensive to produce, as they require actors, writers, props, sets, etc.; cheap trash reality shows are easy since all you have to do with those is stick a camera in somebody's face and follow them around. Everything's in a financial crunch right now; cable's in a weird place currently (one foot's in the grave but it's still making enough money to be viable and it still has enough loyalists who refuse to let go of it) and streaming is still in its' infancy and struggling to find its' legs.

As for The Daily Show, I do like Trevor Noah, but I can't blame him for wanting to move on; I've kind of lost my taste for political satire myself. I'll hold off on any opinion of the post-Noah Daily Show until after see who they get to replace him and what the new version of the show will be like.

It's times like this I really wish HA! had survived.

 

[kanc]

Comedy central also airs Seinfeld and Brooklyn Nine Nine as well as few movies

 

[Classic Speedy]

No idea, but I haven't watched Comedy Central on a regular basis since probably 2002 (!). From 1996 to 2000 it was easily my most watched channel on cable but it hasn't been that way for a long time.

So many good shows on during that era though: The waning days of MST3K, Dr. Katz, early South Park, The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn, Win Ben Stein's Money, Make Me Laugh, Beat the Geeks, Canned Ham, and of course all the stand-up programs (Comedy Central Presents being the most famous). Also reruns of Duckman, The Critic, The Tick, etc.

Primetime Glick was the last series I regularly followed, but sadly it only lasted 30 episodes.

 

[the greenman]

I will reiterate and make a mild correction. As @Silverstar said, I kinda watch Noah on some YT clips. Just not religiously. I find him often funny, I just don't like political comedy all that much. Who was that guy back in that day with the glasses and played piano? I think he was the beginning of my dislike for political humor. Probably because #1 I didn't understand. #2 on that notion as an uneducated young man, I could care less.

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[Yojimbo]

I dropped off a year into Noah's start and when the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore got canned. Idk, it felt like the end of the Colbert Report and Stewart leaving the Daily Show was just a good time for me to stop watching the station but I tried to stick around but it wasn't the same anymore. Some of Noah's run was funny, sometimes not. Comedy is hard. Political satire is probably even harder to do. I heard Stewart came back with a show on Apple I think. Might eventually check that out and sure, I'll give the Daily Show another shot with whoever the new host will be.

Who was that guy back in that day with the glasses and played piano? I think he was the beginning of my dislike for political humor. Probably because #1 I didn't understand. #2 on that notion as an uneducated young man, I could care less.

Hmm, sounds like Mark Russell from PBS.

 

[Fone Bone]

Mark Russell was a genuinely unfunny, talentless hack. He was awful. And he was also what passed for sophisticated political wit back in the 1980's. That entire decade was a comedy black hole.

 

[Silverstar]

I will reiterate and make a mild correction. As @Silverstar said, I kinda watch Noah on some YT clips. Just not religiously. I find him often funny, I just don't like political comedy all that much. Who was that guy back in that day with the glasses and played piano? I think he was the beginning of my dislike for political humor. Probably because #1 I didn't understand. #2 on that notion as an uneducated young man, I could care less.

Mark Russel. SNL said it best: "He sings songs that you know, but they're about politics and they're funny!"

So many good shows on during that era though: The waning days of MST3K, Dr. Katz, early South Park, The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn, Win Ben Stein's Money, Make Me Laugh, Beat the Geeks, Canned Ham, and of course all the stand-up programs (Comedy Central Presents being the most famous). Also reruns of Duckman, The Critic, The Tick, etc.

Hey, someone else remembers Beat the Geeks!

Yeah, those were good times.

 

[[classic swim]]

Comedy Central Presents & Secret Stash were both things I looked forward to every week.

Some of the specials in general...

I remember their premiere of Chris Rock:Never Scared and felt like I was gonna have a heart attack from laughter.

Back-to-back Reno 911 and Chappelle’s Show. Shames me to no end that Dave was one of those that did not mentally survive 2020 and lost his legend status being a tool.

Drawn Together and Kenny vs Spenny were 3AM gold.

I guess Jeff Dunham is still around. He always performed in my town even when he was real big on the network. I was dying from Swine Flu when they gave him his half hour.

 

[Goldstar!]

Yeah, Comedy Central is definitely not as good as it used to be. The last scripted shows on CC that I watched were Another Period and Detroiters. There was a time when I spent of my days watching CC. The channel had Saturday Night Live reruns, The Kids in the Hall, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Beat the Geeks, Reno 911! Chapelle's Show, Duckman, The Tick and The Critic. Even reruns of MAD tv had its moments.

What's even worse is that CC is pretty much the only comedy themed channel on TV right now. Both IFC and TruTV had some comedy shows, but Portlandia ended, Comedy Bang-Bang (the TV show) ended, The Birthday Boys was canceled and Friends of the People and Adam Ruins Everything were also canceled. TBS tried to become a comedy channel at one stage, when they're tagline was "Very Funny", but they seem to have abandoned that in favor of specializing in non-scripted entertainment, which would be fine if any of it were funny. Now, it's just Comedy Central and FXX. That's it. With TV Land, it was kind of fun revisiting those old TV shows (at least at first), but now that channel is just a clone of every other channel on the tube. There are dozens of sports themed channels and movie channels, but only 2 comedy channels. Likewise, the performing arts channels are extinct. All of the channels like A&E, Bravo and Ovation have abandoned their themes in favor of Reality TV trash and edgy dramas hoping to be the next Breaking Bad or Mad Men, but that's a whole other tangent.

It stinks how there are so few cable/satellite channels that are devoted to showing comedies now during a time when I could really use a good laugh. I get it. Young people (aka, the 18-35-year-old demographic) no longer watches TV; they watch the internet, play video games and hang out on social media. Fine, but what about fossils like me who like to enjoy a good comedy program? It's bad enough that the kids and family channels seem to be dialing back on the cartoons. I'm running out of go-to channels. I don't like reality TV, too much news about politics makes me angry and depressed and there are only so many shows about food that I can watch before that gets repetitive. Canada at least has CTV Comedy (formerly Comedy Network). Maybe I should move there.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Reno 911 was a little after my time. Same with Chappelle's Show and Insomniac With Dave Attell. I watched a handful of episodes of them but was never a regular viewer.

Totally forgot about Saturday Night Live and Whose Line UK reruns- those were other reasons I watched the channel a lot back in the day.

EDIT: I think one of the reasons CC lost its identity was because most of the stand-up went to Netflix. That's where I've gotten my stand-up fix in the last few years.

 

[Goldstar!]

I've only seen 1 or 2 episodes of Insomniac with Dave Atell. I watched Reno 911! mainly because many members of The State were on it, and I was already fan of The State when that show was on MTV. I liked Reno 911 OK, but I personally thought that The State was funnier.

Unfortunately, we'll probably never get another animated show on Comedy Central that's not a South Park or Family Guy clone. I never watched Brickleberry and I don't feel like I missed anything great. CC did air Futurama for a time, though. The new episodes weren't as good as the earlier seasons, but it was still good.

 

[Classic Speedy]

I've only seen 1 or 2 episodes of Insomniac with Dave Atell. I watched Reno 911! mainly because many members of The State were on it, and I was already fan of The State when that show was on MTV. I liked Reno 911 OK, but I personally thought that The State was funnier.

Unfortunately, we'll probably never get another animated show on Comedy Central that's not a South Park or Family Guy clone. I never watched Brickleberry and I don't feel like I missed anything great. CC did air Futurama for a time, though. The new episodes weren't as good as the earlier seasons, but it was still good.

I watched Brickleberry, but not on Comedy Central itself, on streaming years after the fact. It had its moments but overall you're not missing much. It relied way too heavily on shock and insult humor.

 

[Zorak Masaki]

I said it elsewhere, but if TDS wanted to go back to the original news parody format, Kevin Nealon would be a good fit (shame Joe Flaherty is too old as he would have worked too).

 

[Ghoster1987]

3 years since the last post in this forum and yep cable tv and TV in general is truly a dying carcass. Stop expecting to see a comeback with these channels

Streaming killed it and and it’s just “series” on a platform for a bunch of filler to watch or leave in the background and don’t pay attention to for 6-8 episodes that the average person will forget about it in a week. Doesn’t help that series was probably hastily marketed within a week


Oh the show you didn't pay attention to in the background didn't get renewed for some reason

Gee i wonder i why

So glad that an almost 80-year old medium is on its last legs and begging to be put out of its misery

 

[harry580]

well, better play rem's most famous song in honour of the dark ages of cable television