Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn
A round-table comedy panel show on politics and current events.
Colin Quinn hosted Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, a comedy talk show on Comedy Central. Airing from December 2002 to November 2004, it brought together a rotating panel of comedians to debate politics, current events, and social issues.
Quick Facts
- Runtime
- 21 minutes
- Genre
- Comedy, talk show
- Creator
- Colin Quinn
- Executive producers
- Colin Quinn
- Liz Stanton
- Ken Ober
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Network
- Comedy Central
- First aired
- 9 December 2002
Facts from the source article.
Show history and format
Colin Quinn first hosted a live NBC show from the Saturday Night Live stage in 2002. That program, The Colin Quinn Show, ran for just three episodes on consecutive Mondays in March. After NBC dropped it, Quinn moved a similar concept to Comedy Central. Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn premiered on December 9, 2002, as an eight-episode test airing Monday through Thursday until December 19. Comedy Central picked it up in January 2003, and the regular series started on March 10, 2003, running for 21 weeks. It aired weeknights at 11:30 p.m. Eastern, right after The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The show was meant to be a rougher, more casual alternative to political debate programs like CNN's Crossfire, taking inspiration from Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect. Panelists were mostly comedians who received topics ahead of time to prepare material. Regular guests often came from New York's Comedy Cellar, whose post-show roundtable discussions inspired the format. Each episode began with a monologue from Quinn. He then stood by or sat on a pool table, frequently drinking coffee, eating, or flipping through a newspaper. Usually four comedians joined him, though sometimes three or five. Quinn introduced current events and guided the discussion for most of the show. Near the end, a sketch typically aired, followed by each guest delivering a short monologue on a topic from earlier in the episode.
Regular guests
The show featured many comedians, including George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, and Kevin Hart. A core group regularly rotated onto panels included Jim David, Nick DiPaolo, Greg Giraldo, Judy Gold, Jim Norton, Patrice O'Neal, Keith Robinson, and Rich Vos. On September 26, 2003, Comedy Central aired an hour-long special called Tough Crowd Stands Up, hosted by Quinn, with stand-up sets from DiPaolo, Giraldo, Norton, O'Neal, and Vos.
Series finale and epilogue
Jim Norton wrote on his blog that Comedy Central sent notes discouraging the show's focus on political topics and discussions about race and ethnic issues. The network said it already had scripted and talk programming addressing those issues, referring to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Chappelle's Show, and warned that some views expressed on Tough Crowd did not appeal to the demographics at which Comedy Central's business model was aimed. The last show featured emotional monologues by Quinn, who attacked detractors such as The New York Times as hypocritical and elitist for their negative reviews. He defined 'comedic integrity' as the ability to critique society's hypocrisy while honestly admitting one is equally guilty.
More in 2000s American Late-night Television Series
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