Tosh.0, Drunk History Cancelled as Comedy Central Continues to Rebrand with Adult Animation

The live-action purge continues at Comedy Central, with Drunk History and Tosh.0 the latest shows to get the ax from the network. Drunk History ends effectively immediately, with a seventh season that was picked up by the channel’s previous leadership no longer happening. Tosh.0’s 12th season will still air on Comedy Central this fall, but the network won’t be airing anymore seasons of the long-running show, despite renewing it for four more seasons earlier this year. This comes a week after Comedy Central sold two other shows renewed by its previous regime, South Side and The Other Two, off to HBO Max.

At this point the only live-action shows still alive at Comedy Central are Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, which debuted earlier this year, and one of its two signature hits, The Daily Show.

Since Chris McCarthy, Viacom’s “President of Entertainment and Youth Brands,” took over Comedy Central last November, the channel has moved to swap out its live-action heavy lineup with one based around animation. They’ve commissioned reboots of Beavis and Butt-Head, Clone High and The Ren & Stimpy Show, and picked up the Daria spinoff Jodie, which had been floating around the Viacom ecosystem for a few years now. It was still surprising when Comedy Central sold two critically acclaimed shows that predated McCarthy’s tenure to a streaming service outside of the Viacom family—you’d think South Side and The Other Two would be a great fit for Viacom’s upcoming relaunch of the CBS All Access service. The Tosh.0 and Drunk History cancellations are much more shocking, despite the well-publicized push for animation. They’ve both been defining shows for the network, for better and worse, and their departure shows the channel is in store for a much more thorough rebrand than expected.

Tosh.0’s producers hope to sell it to another network. That’s not the one of these two shows I would save, but then I’m not a network exec. If I was Detroiters would’ve gotten one of those SNL “you’ll be on TV until you die” type of extensions.