#‘Drunk History’ Canceled at Comedy Central, Nixing Previously Announced Season 7 Renewal

It’s time for Drunk History to sober up. Despite landing a seventh season renewal last summer, the inebriated reenactments of great moments in history have come to an end. Comedy Central has pulled back their initial order of more episodes of Drunk History, and the previously aired sixth season of the series now marks the end of the series from executive producers Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner. Drunk History has been canceled.

Deadline learned the news of Drunk History canceled yesterday during their virtual screening of the series in support of their campaign for the three Emmy nominations they received this year, including one for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series. It’s been nominated in that category every year since it first launched in 2015 thanks to the hilarious dramatization of history from an incredible array of drunken comedians over the years.

Drunk History was in the middle of pre-production on season seven and had already taped some of the comedian portions of the series when the coronavirus pandemic came along and shut down all film and TV production in March. The new season ended up being axed as part of ViacomCBS Entertainment and Youth Group pulling back on their live-action spending at Comedy Central, opting to focus more in adult-oriented animation instead, including reboots of The Ren & Stimpy Show and Beavis and Butt-Head.

This reportedly doesn’t have anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic’s toll on the movie and TV industry, making live-action production more difficult. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the losses from the spread of COVID-19 have something to do with how networks and studios are spending their money now. After all, even though the drunkenly told historical reenactments of the show look cheap, producing the series is said to be an expensive endeavor. Perhaps that’s why the show also got nominated for Outstanding Costumes and Production Design for a Reality/Variety/Competition.

For what it’s worth, one of the show’s make-up artists posted on Twitter that the show isn’t that expensive to produce. However, with all the coronavirus testing and new safety protocols that must be in place for live-action productions, perhaps the cost reached a point where it wasn’t as financially viable as it normally would be. That’s a shame considering all the hard work everyone put into making an original show like this so good, but that’s why it’s show business, and sometimes it sucks.

With the cancelation of Drunk History, and the recent shift of The Other Two and South Side to HBO Max, the only original live-action comedy series currently active on Comedy Central is Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. Yes, they still have The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Tosh.0, but it’s a shame they’ve shifted away from narrative live-action comedy so much.

We’ll miss you Drunk History. Thanks for all your drunken nonsense.

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