{"id":840857,"date":"2026-09-08T18:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T18:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840857\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T18:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T18:20:09","slug":"drunk-history-new-short-form-episodes-to-debut-on-youtube-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840857\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Drunk History’: New Short-Form Episodes To Debut On YouTube This Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE:\u00a0Drunk History<\/a>\u00a0is emerging from a long, inebriated slumber: Comedy Central<\/a> has announced that its Emmy-winning educational comedy series from Derek Waters<\/a> and Jeremy Konner is set to return this fall with three brand-new short-form episodes, marking the series\u2019 first original installments in years.<\/p>\n

\n\tNew episodes are set to roll out on Comedy Central\u2019s YouTube channel beginning Tuesday, Sept. 15. The first of them chronicles Madonna\u2019s legendary performance of \u201cLike a Virgin\u201d at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, with Meghan Trainor portraying the \u201cQueen of Pop.\u201d The others take on Frances Perkins, the unsung architect of FDR\u2019s New Deal, and two men\u2019s lifelong battle to make the world\u2019s largest ball of twine.<\/p>\n

\n\tLisa Gilroy, Patton Oswalt and Marisha Ray narrate the episodes. Other featured performers include Steve Agee, Tim Baltz, Seth Green, Colin Hanks, Jack McBrayer, Chris Parnell, Johnny Pemberton, Daryl Sabara, Mae Whitman, \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic and more.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of Comedy Central\u2019s most iconic series,\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0revolves around inebriated storytellers\u2019 recollections of unforgettable moments from history and pop culture \u2014 and lip-synced reenactments of these events by all-star casts of comedians.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe series originated from a 2007 conversation, in which an inebriated Jake Johnson told Waters about R&B singer Otis Redding\u2019s 1967 death in a plane crash. Sensing a comedic format here, Waters partnered with Konner to film a five-minute short about the fatal 1804 pistol duel between U.S. political rivals Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, with Johnson and Michael Cera playing the lead roles. The video went viral, and the rest, as they say, is history:\u00a0With this proof of concept in hand, Drunk History\u00a0expanded as a web series for Funny or Die before making its way to Comedy Central, where it ran for 70 episodes from 2013-2019.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the course of its six seasons,\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0broke out as a cultural phenomenon, averaging more than 1M viewers per episode in Live+7 viewing, The show scored 17 Emmy nominations in total, with a win for its costumes in 2015, and spawned international versions in the likes of Australia, Mexico and the UK. Like\u00a0Broad City\u00a0and\u00a0Workaholics, two of Comedy Central\u2019s other defining 2010s hits, Drunk History demonstrated the network\u2019s savvy in taking internet-born, creator-driven comedy and building it into a broader television franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\tAri Pearce, EVP, Head of Comedy Central Original Content, told Deadline: \u201cWe are thrilled that\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0is back. These new episodes reflect our heritage as both the home of iconic comedy franchises and a premier launchpad for comedic talent. As we continue to expand our reach across platforms,\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0is a great example of how we\u2019re delivering Comedy Central to fans in new ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReached for comment by Deadline, Waters explained that he\u2019d been speaking with Pearce \u201cfor a while\u201d about revisiting\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0in some form and \u201ccouldn\u2019t be more excited\u201d to do so.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDrunk History has and will always be about informing the audience of History we may not have heard of but should have,\u201d Waters said. \u201cHistory used to be a thing of our past but it\u2019s slowly becoming our future. We need to learn from our history but we also need to be laughing right now. We hope these new stories do both for our long awaited audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0will return for more than a handful of episodes remains unclear. But the announcement represents another sign of life for Comedy Central, which has produced few new original series and wielded less influence in comedy in recent years, notwithstanding enduring pillars like\u00a0The Daily Show\u00a0and\u00a0South Park.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe news of Drunk History\u2018s return follows their recent announcement of\u00a0Comedy Central Stand-Up Selects, a new digital series featuring short sets from 14 comics that launches this fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s been curiosity in town as to what is afoot at Comedy Central \u2014 whether we might see a revitalization of the valued comedy brand, post-Paramount-Skydance merger. And it does now seem like that will be the case. Beyond\u00a0Stand-Up Selects\u00a0and\u00a0Drunk History, they confirm that they\u2019re now looking to build out a refreshed slate of multi-platform originals to include original podcasts, one-hour specials, and more.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe intention, they\u2019ve indicated, is to reassert Comedy Central\u2019s legacy as a champion to new comedic voices while ushering in a new generation of comedy hits.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story originated as part of Deadline\u2019s\u00a0Comedy Means Business<\/a>\u00a0newsletter, tracking the business of comedy from all angles.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE:\u00a0Drunk History\u00a0is emerging from a long, inebriated slumber: Comedy Central has announced that its Emmy-winning educational comedy series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4207,124904,355984,355985,88,92],"class_list":["post-840857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-comedy-central","tag-comedy-means-business","tag-derek-waters","tag-drunk-history","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}