Deadline reports that he will host a late-night talk show on Comedy Central produced by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, who return to the network that produced six seasons of Reno 911! The as-yet-unnamed show will launch in the fall and air four nights a week following The Colbert Report, reinforcing Comedy Central’s status as a legitimate player in the world of late-night television.
Rumors have circulated for some time that the network wanted to stake more of a claim in late night; Bill Carter’s book The War For Late Night (about another NBC debacle, the Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno fight for The Tonight Show) noted that Comedy Central commissioned a study in 2008 that showed “the degree of passion and loyalty expressed toward Stewart and Colbert dwarfed anything else in late-night television.”
Now it looks to Hardwick to extend that in his show, which Deadline ominously notes “will have a heavy social-media presence integrated throughout.” (“Two words,” went the pitch meeting. “Live Pinterest-ing.”) And just because it has to be involved in all things comedy these days, Funny Or Die is producing the show.
An interesting tidbit for comedy nerds: Hardwick’s show will go up against Pete Holmes’ Conan O’Brien-produced talk show, which will follow Conan on TBS for a four-week tryout. The victor will be determined by a round of the Leonard Maltin Game with Jeff Garlin and T.J. Miller on Doug Loves Movies.
