Comedian Chris Gethard announced on Tumblr today that Comedy Central has decided not to order his pilot for The Chris Gethard Show to series. “Apparently at the end of the day, their marketing department thought we were too weird,” Gethard writes. “We knew we were too weird. It happens.”
Gethard taped the pilot, a continuation of his public access show of the same name, in New York City in January. The pilot was produced by Zach Galifianakis, Will Ferrell, and Adam McKay and featured Michael Cera as a guest. “I want to be very clear on something,” Gethard wrote on Tumblr. “It would completely break my heart if I saw TCGS fans lashing out at Comedy Central online. I don’t want to see any tweets or Tumblr posts or whatever bashing them. Because we as a community should be THANKING them for helping us take it this far.”
We will not go away now. TCGS will end not when someone drops an axe on us, but when we want it to end. We will bring it to its conclusion on our own terms, the same way we’ve done every other step of this process.And the REALLY cool thing is that the dream of TCGS being on a bigger platform is still alive to an amazing degree. There are a number of networks who have already heard we’re back to being a free agent who have contacted us through back channels. It’s really cool to feel – there is life to this thing and there are options presenting themselves and that’s awesome … My guess is that a few networks already want to have a conversation about working with us. And a few more networks would love to be in business with those guys. I still feel in my gut like we are going to find a new home.
Gethard, who is still hosting the show weekly on public access via the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, has said that he would end the public access version of TCGS if it doesn’t make it to regular TV, but it looks like the show still has hopes of pulling that off elsewhere. And if all else fails, Gethard has promised to return to MNN to host the show’s annual pre-Thanksgiving special “Sandwich Night” every year for the rest of his life.
