Chris Hardwick’s @midnight Will Conclude After Four Seasons
Photos by Ali Goldstein/Comedy CentralChris Hardwick has really made a career of hosting things and asking questions. From Talking Dead (and its various Talking spinoffs for other shows) to his Nerdist podcast to his own Talking With Chris Hardwick show, the man’s voice must be getting tired by now. How many questions do you have to ask celebrities about themselves before you start to question your own sanity?
Well, Hollywood’s busiest man is about to finally find some rest time in his schedule due to the surprising cancelation of his Emmy-winning late-night show, @midnight, per THR. After four seasons and a whopping 600 episodes, the unconventional Comedy Central game show will conclude with a final episode on Aug. 4.
@midnight has grown in prominence since its 2013 debut largely due to its unconventionality. Unlike most other late-night shows, @midnight was in no way a talk show. Instead, it was a highly improvised showcase for lesser-known comedians, giving them the opportunity to mess around and have fun. Its presence on late-night TV will be sorely missed.
A Comedy Central rep told Paste of the show’s concluson:
Comedy Central and Chris Hardwick have mutually agreed the August 4th episode of @midnight will be the series finale. We thank Chris, Tom Lennon, Ben Garant, and our partners at Funny Or Die, Serious Business and Brillstein Entertainment Partners for an incredible four seasons and 600 episodes of one of the best showcases for comedians on TV.
Hardwick thanked Comedy Central in a statement:
@midnight has meant the world to me these last four years. It has been a dream to come to work 600 times to make inappropriate jokes about the Internet with my fellow comedian friends. I could not be more proud of this show, staff and crew and at the end of the day, I think we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish. Spiritually it just feels like it ran its course — I’m not sure we had many more hashtag games in us (which may actually be a relief to anyone whose twitter feed gets overrun every night).
I owe such a huge debt of gratitude to Comedy Central and [president] Kent [Alterman] for taking a chance on the show, always being great partners and allowing us to exit mutually, which is rarely a gift you are given in this business. I will certainly miss awarding POINTS! to people nightly, so please understand if you see me randomly shouting it at strangers in public after August 4th.
Check out our list of reasons why we love @midnight.