August 10, 2003 (2003-08-10) – September 15, 2019 (2019-09-15)
Comedy Central Roast is a series of celebrityroastspecials that air on the American television channel Comedy Central. The first official Comedy Central Roast premiered on August 10, 2003. On average one or two roasts air every year. There are eight to ten people invited who roast each other before finally roasting the title subject of each show. As of 2019, seventeen roasts have aired. Targets of roasts have included musicians, actors and comedians. Since 2010, Comedy Central affiliates outside the United States have occasionally produced their own roasts; twelve such roasts have aired so far, in five countries.
History
Between 1998 and 2002, the American television channel Comedy Central produced and televised the annual roasts of the New York Friars Club, which have been conducted since 1950.
After the original five-year agreement expired, the network began producing its own roasts in the same spirit.[1] The first, featuring roastee Denis Leary (and produced by Leary's production company, Apostle), aired on August 10, 2003, and was the most watched program in the channel's history, excluding episodes of South Park.[2]
Some roastees have stated that certain topics are off limits. Pamela Anderson, for example, prohibited jokes about her Hepatitis C infection. Joan Rivers disallowed jokes about her daughter Melissa, William Shatner asked that the death of his wife not be mentioned, and Donald Trump prohibited jokes about him not being as wealthy as he claims he is.[3] Others, like David Hasselhoff, have imposed no limits on the topics.[4] Although Charlie Sheen initially agreed to no restrictions on his roast, he later said during an interview with Jay Leno that he requested jokes about his mother be edited out of the broadcast.[5]
During Sheen's roast, Steve-O made the joke "The last time this many nobodies were at a roast, at least Great White was playing". This was a reference to The Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island that killed 100 people on February 20, 2003. It was removed from broadcast on Steve-O's request.[6]
During Denis Leary's roast, Lenny Clarke, a friend of Leary's, said there was a carton of cigarettes backstage from Bill Hicks with the message, "Wish I had gotten these to you sooner." This joke was cut from the final broadcast.[7] During Roseanne Barr's roast, Jeff Ross compared fellow roaster Seth Green to James Holmes, the mass murderer responsible for the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting. The joke was not in the broadcast program.[8] During the roast of Justin Bieber, multiple jokes about the passing of Paul Walker, a co-star and close friend of fellow roaster Ludacris, were cut from the official broadcast.[9]
Dennis Rodman was amongst the crowd on the stage. This roast featured a large amount of jokes and satire regarding sex directed from roasters toward fellow roasters, complete with Andy Dick appearing as Pamela's plastic surgeon and groping her breasts as part of his skit. Many of the jokes were also directed at Courtney Love for appearing to be inebriated (but claiming to have been sober for a year), Bea Arthur's masculinity, Andy Dick's ambiguous sexuality and Lisa Lampanelli's full figured body as well as her attraction towards black people.
Executive Produced by Joel Gallen, with Aaron Matthew Lee serving as Head Writer. The Leonard Nimoy sequence which originally opened the broadcast on Comedy Central (Nimoy and Shatner were shown having an argument over the phone) was omitted from the DVD release, while many pre-taped sequences and jokes told during the roast itself were added back in after originally being cut. The tagline for this roast was "The Shat hits the fan." The Roast was nominated for a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special.[14] The background music for the montage of Shatner was "Everything I Do, I Do with William Shatner" by the Star Trek-influenced rock band, Warp 11. Women dressed as green Orion slave girls can be clearly seen tending bar.
Norm Macdonald's set was notable in that it avoided racy content and featured intentionally cheesy and antiquated jokes.[18] He later revealed that the material was taken from a book given to him by his father that contains jokes meant to be told at retirement parties circa 1950, and that when the roast's showrunner asked him to be "shocking," he decided to go in the opposite direction of the usual roast humor.[19]Artie Lange was scheduled but did not show at the roast because he had entered a rehabilitation center. It was later revealed that Saget was highly upset by the jokes aimed at Candace Cameron and the Olsen twins.[20] The DVD was released on December 30, 2008.
The DVD version did not include the Full House theme song as Saget comes out at the end to roast everyone who roasted him. It was replaced by instrumental music. The TV version has the theme song only.
Originally taped on March 1, 2009. This marks the first time that a previous roastmaster has become a roastee, and the first time that a roast was broadcast in 16:9high-definition.
Originally taped on July 26, 2009.[23] It was released on the Comedy Central Emmy Consideration DVD sent only to members of the Consideration program. At the time aged 76, Joan Rivers is the oldest honoree to date.
To close the show, Hasselhoff sang "This Is The Moment" from the musical Jekyll & Hyde, which he formerly starred in.[26] The DVD was released in January 2011.
This is also the final roast in which Greg Giraldo participated. Giraldo died on September 29, 2010.
Originally taped on March 9, 2011.[30] The roast consisted of jokes toward Trump's hairstyle, his show The Apprentice, and his family. Jokes were also made about Jeselnik's fame (or lack thereof), Matlin's deafness, King's age, and Jersey Shore. Several roasters paid respect to Greg Giraldo, a Comedy Central Roast regular, who died on September 29, 2010. The roast was dedicated in his memory. Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino's performance was widely panned by critics and viewers alike; as a result, Comedy Central pulled several of his jokes from the television airing of the roast.[31] This was also the first time someone served as roastmaster more than once, as Seth MacFarlane also roasted David Hasselhoff.
The roast was taped in Los Angeles on September 10, 2011, and was broadcast nine days later, exactly one hour after the premiere of Ashton Kutcher's first episode on Two and a Half Men where he replaced Sheen.[34][dead link]Slash made an appearance playing his guitar during Sheen's entrance.[35]Harvey Levin from TMZ.com was scheduled to appear but ended up not doing so. During an interview on The View, Sheen's ex-wife, Denise Richards stated that she hadn't been invited to appear and, while she thought roasting her ex-husband could be humorous and that he would be able to take it, she feared it would have a negative impact on their daughters.[36] Sheen's famous family members, Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen, were unable to attend as they were promoting their film The Way,[37] although Sheen appeared in a commercial for the roast, spoofing his film Apocalypse Now.
A montage of Sheen's film and television work were featured, though due to legal reasons, clips of his tenure on Two and a Half Men were never used. In reference to how his Two and a Half Men character Charlie Harper was killed off the series (hit by a train), Sheen arrived on stage riding on a replica locomotive. In the UK and Turkey, on the network which Two and a Half Men airs, the roast aired directly after Kutcher's first Two and a Half Men episode. This was O'Neal's final television appearance before his death on November 29, 2011.
With 6.4 million viewers in its original debut, this roast was the highest rated Comedy Central Roast to date.[38]
The roast was taped in Los Angeles on August 4, 2012.[39]Sharon Stone had been announced as one of the roasters,[40] but dropped out for unknown reasons prior to the event. The final surprise of the night was Barr's choice to close out the show by legitimately singing the last two lines of "The Star-Spangled Banner", in an effort to finally redeem herself for her infamous and controversial rendition of the American anthem at a nationally broadcast baseball game in 1990.[41] This is Gilbert Gottfried's last roast appearance, as he died on April 12, 2022.
In an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ellen DeGeneres revealed that she was approached by Braun, Bieber's manager, to participate in the roast, but refused because she did not want to be mean to Bieber. Jokes referencing the death of Ludacris' Fast & Furious co-star Paul Walker were cut out of the television broadcast.[47] Additionally, a joke by Hannibal Buress which called the roast an "extremely transparent attempt to be more likable in the public eye" was cut.[48]
Being age 21 at the time of filming, Bieber is the youngest roastee to be roasted by Comedy Central to date.
Originally taped on August 27, 2016. The Roast was simulcast on Spike and TV Land. Bo Derek was originally announced as a roaster, but was replaced by Jewel due to a scheduling conflict. A majority of the jokes referenced Rob Lowe's infamous sex tapes, and Jewel even sang a parody of her song You Were Meant for Me as a reference to it. According to Tony Hinchcliffe, who was assigned by Comedy Central to write the first draft of Ann Coulter's set, Coulter was unaware of the nature of roasts when she agreed to participate.[52] Many of the other roasters harshly targeted Coulter. She was criticised for her strong conservative political views, called a "cunt" by Davidson, told to commit suicide by Carr, compared to members of the Ku Klux Klan, and even likened to Adolf Hitler.[53] The crowd reacted to much of Coulter's set with indifference or booing. Coulter claims that her set "killed" live and that her apparent bombing in the aired version of the roast was the result of unflattering editing. Ross refuted Coulter's claim, stating "We edited it to make her look as best we could".[54] Her set centered around a plug for her book In Trump We Trust, which was met with loud sustained booing from the audience.
Debra Messing was initially announced as a roaster, but pulled out due to a schedule conflict. Joel McHale also had been announced but dropped out. The roast was also meant to promote Exploring the Arts, a charity that Baldwin supported. Paul Anka, the lyricist of "My Way", appeared at the end to sing the song with Baldwin. This was notably the first roast since the Jeff Foxworthy roast where the roastee did not make any kind of grand entrance. Jeff Ross was an executive producer of this roast.
Recurring roasters
The table below features any roasters who have appeared on multiple Comedy Central Roasts. As of the Alec Baldwin roast, the most frequent roaster has been Jeff Ross, who has appeared in all but the first two roasts, for a total of 15, and has yet to be a roastmaster.[a]Greg Giraldo has the second-most appearances, with a total of eight roasts from 2005 until his death in 2010 (nine including the 2002 New York Friars Club roast of Chevy Chase). As of 2019[update], Seth MacFarlane has served as roastmaster three times, making him the most used roastmaster.
The following table features the venues where multiple Comedy Central Roasts were filmed. As of the Alec Baldwin roast, the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California has hosted the most roasts, namely the roasts of Pamela Anderson, David Hasselhoff, Charlie Sheen, Justin Bieber, and Rob Lowe.
In 2008, a roast for the musician Willie Nelson was planned to coincide with the release of his box set, One Hell of a Ride, but was ultimately cancelled, according to Jeff Ross.[62][63][64]
A roast for the musician Kid Rock was announced in November 2010 and scheduled for January 2011, but was later replaced by the Donald Trump roast.[65] Rock's roast was rescheduled for August 2011,[66] but was replaced again, this time by Charlie Sheen's roast.[34] Kid Rock agreed to doing the roast if it were filmed in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan, a condition that Comedy Central refused.[67]
International
The following roasts aired on international Comedy Central channels:
