L-R: Jason Alexander, Derek Waters and Noah Wyle in a 2015 episode of Drunk History (Comedy Central / courtesy Everett Collection)

EXCLUSIVE: Drunk History is emerging from a long, inebriated slumber: Comedy Central has announced that its Emmy-winning educational comedy series from Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner is set to return this fall with three brand-new short-form episodes, marking the series' first original installments in years.

New episodes are set to roll out on Comedy Central's YouTube channel beginning Tuesday, Sept. 15. The first of them chronicles Madonna's legendary performance of "Like a Virgin" at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, with Meghan Trainor portraying the "Queen of Pop." The others take on Frances Perkins, the unsung architect of FDR's New Deal, and two men's lifelong battle to make the world's largest ball of twine.

Lisa 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, "Weird Al" Yankovic and more.

One of Comedy Central's most iconic series, Drunk History revolves around inebriated storytellers' recollections of unforgettable moments from history and pop culture — and lip-synced reenactments of these events by all-star casts of comedians.

Whether Drunk History will 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 The Daily Show and South Park.

The news of Drunk History's return follows their recent announcement of Comedy Central Stand-Up Selects, a new digital series featuring short sets from 14 comics that launches this fall.

There's been curiosity in town as to what is afoot at Comedy Central — 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 Stand-Up Selects and Drunk History, they confirm that they're now looking to build out a refreshed slate of multi-platform originals to include original podcasts, one-hour specials, and more.

The intention, they've indicated, is to reassert Comedy Central's legacy as a champion to new comedic voices while ushering in a new generation of comedy hits.

Read the full Deadline story here.

Kat Williams in his latest Netflix special The Last Report (Courtesy Netflix)

NEWSLETTER-ONLY EXCLUSIVE: Top comic Katt Williams is hitting the road this fall for a tour in support of his new memoir, Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines.

In the memoir, out Oct. 20, Williams offers perspective on how he survived Hollywood without losing ownership of his money, his voice or his peace. He also reflects on the experiences behind his refusal to fail, offering a rare look at the thoughtful, spiritually grounded and deeply committed father behind the comedian. 

13a, a division of Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster, is the book's publisher.

Williams' tour kicks off at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Oct. 14, followed by stops in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Atlanta. Each event will feature Williams in conversation with a special guest, followed by a live audience Q&A. Tickets are on sale on Ticketmaster now; each one purchased gets you a copy of the book.

An arena-level headliner, as well as an Emmy-winning actor and producer, Williams is coming off the release of his latest Netflix special, The Last Report, which per the streamer's most recent What We Watched report, was its most-viewed new comedy special released between January and June. Williams has featured on all past What We Watched reports with at least one special, though this one is his highest-performing out of the gate by over a million views: It landed 11.5M in the months following its February premiere.

Williams is repped by CAA.

Vanessa Gonzalez in Mamona (courtesy Emily Hicks)

EXCLUSIVE: Vanessa Gonzalez has set a Hulu launch for her debut stand-up special, Vanessa Gonzalez: Mamona, which she'll unveil September 15. 

Raised by a devout Catholic mother and a witch grandmother, Gonzalez's special brings an unfiltered look at growing up in a Texas border town and what it means to be called Mamona. It comes to Hulu via a deal with Comedy Dynamics.

A comic who was named a Just For Laughs New Face in 2017 and "Best Stand Up Comic in Austin" by the Austin Chronicle in 2017, 2022 & 2023, Gonzalez is repped by Buchwald and Myman Greenspan.

Read the full Deadline story here.

Emily Catalano in The Introvert (photo by Reyna Hope)

I'm a bit behind schedule with my declarations, but my Special of the Month for July is Emily Catalano's self-released The Introvert, which has impressively blown past half a million views in a little over a month.

Catalano is an L.A.-based comic and actress, known for her slow pace and dry humor, whose debut special, the cleverly titled Unspecial, garnered 100K viewers in its first week of release in 2024 and now sits at 1.1M views on YouTube.

Great jokes in her new special about health insurance, losing her virginity, personality quizzes and more. You can watch the full thing here.

Catalano made her late-night debut on Conan in 2019 and is featured on the latest season of Dropout's Crowd Control alongside names like Ron Funches, Atsuko, Taylor Tomlinson and Nicole Byer. She is repped by Vault Entertainment and Innovative Artists.

**One note I keep forgetting to get across**: If you're a rep/buyer who would like me to evaluate specials from subscription services like Hulu and Veeps, and/or those that are being rented on Prime Video/Apple, please send them over on email!

• AMANDA GILES (The Summer I Turned Thirty, Jul. 13)

• LIAM WITHNAIL (Big Strong Boy, Jul. 28)

•  KAZEEM RAHMAN (A Win Is A Win, Jul. 31)

• NATO GREEN (The Darkest Hour, Jul. 31)

• DEREK SHEEN (Unrelatable, Aug. 21)

N.B.: In putting together this segment, I can only draw on IMDB Pro, plus comedians' own internet presence. If I've missed reps for a comedian, I'll note the correction in the following issue of the newsletter.

By Danny Frenkel

Last month, YouTube changed what counts as a view. As of late August, a view starts at the first frame: Hover over a thumbnail on the home page and let it autoplay, that's a view. Scroll a Short into the feed, that's a view.

It's a way to have the number of views go up while any clear value of a view goes down. You can read their announcement here: https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/engaged-views-youtube-explained/

So we're announcing something too.

Punchup Live Introduces the Thought View

Starting September 1, 2026, Punchup will count a view every time someone thinks about a video that could be on our platform. This is our new, standardized, consistent definition of a view. The previous definition, in which a human being actually watched something, will now be called a "watched view."

What's the difference between a thought view and a watched view?

A thought view is counted from the very first neuron. A watched view requires that you actually watch the video. This tier has been quietly retired industry-wide.

What's the difference between a thought view and a synaptic impression?

If a comedian's name drifts through your mind and you do not linger, that remains a synaptic impression and is not counted.

If you linger, or think, "Oh, that guy," that is now counted as a view from the very first neuron. If you keep thinking about it for some amount of seconds after that, it's an engaged thought view.

Are dreams counted?

Yes. REM is our highest-converting surface.

Do thought views affect payouts?

No. Payouts are still based on tickets sold, which is the only number in this business that has ever meant anything.

Do thought views affect the algorithm?

No. Nothing about thought views affects anything. That is what makes them so exciting.

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I'm joking and this is silly. But so is intentionally inflating metrics.

A video with "5 million views" may now mean 5 million cursors wandered across a rectangle on a home page. Nobody chose anything; nobody watched anything. The mouse moved.

Oddly, the number under the video did not get renamed. It's still called "views." Brands still buy against it. Venues still ask for it before they book talent. A comedian who spent three years earning an audience now shares a unit of measurement with a comedian whose thumbnail got shuffled into a lot of autoplay slots.

You can't have it both ways. Either the number means something, in which case don't inflate it. Or it means nothing, in which case stop displaying it in giant type under every video and stop letting the entire creator economy price itself off of it.

Punchup's metric is tickets sold. Unfortunately for us, it's harder to fake or hover into existence. The only view we count is someone laughing in a room.

Founded by former Meta employees Frenkel and Alex Dajani, Punchup Live is a technology platform empowering comedians and live entertainers to convert digital audiences into customers. For Punchup, what began as a request for ticket pricing guidance from an arena-level comedian quickly revealed a systemic issue across live entertainment. The company now aims to partner with promoters, agencies and performers to provide a new level of visibility into their unique audience, pricing dynamics, and conversion performance, replacing intuition and guesswork with actionable intelligence. As first reported by Deadline, Punchup secured a new round of strategic funding in a round led by Marquee Ventures, an early-stage fund spun out of the ownership group of the Chicago Cubs and other global sports assets, earlier this year.

Matt Ruby (courtesy Sam Cashell)

• Comedy now is choosing between performing in Riyadh or Brooklyn. Either way, you’re performing for wealthy elites who’ll punish you if you question the local religion. The difference is Riyadh has official morality police. In Brooklyn, they’re just volunteers.

• Comedians have wildly different views on how much you should hone material vs. doing new. It’s a spectrum that goes from Seinfeld to Scovel.

• I get the feeling a lotta new comedians don’t actually have a favorite comedian. Not even sure they actually like comedy for that matter.

• “We pay in exposure” is the bane of every artist ever. Try telling your landlord you’re gonna pay rent with exposure.

•  Comedy is always teaching me how much my mind wants to skew negative:
-- The one person with arms folded is the only one I can see.

-- The 20 nice comments don’t register, but the one cruel one sticks.

-- That pause seemed endless onstage, but listening back it was barely noticeable.

• A fun thing about “working in show biz” is sometimes you’ll learn the reason why a celeb is in so many TV commercials is because their ex took everything in the divorce. Anyway, Skyrizi should get on the phone with [redacted] pronto.

• It’s amazing how much dumb people think the only thing stopping comedians from getting on SNL or Netflix is that they haven’t considered it. “Oh, should I audition for SNL? And you think I oughta try to get a Netflix special? Interesting ideas! Have you considered working in management?”

• Dunno why every club doesn’t send out the lineup to the audience post-show. People wanna know and it's an easy win. (Don’t Tell is the exception.)

• Congressional hearings are where politicians go to get their crowdwork clips.

• Every day people online tell me something is not funny and then I go onstage and say it and a roomful of people keel over laughing. Feels like a daily reminder of how much everything that happens online is a lie.

•  In my experience, the best way to get a joke to go viral is to have a bunch of people in the comments arguing about whether or not the joke is racist. So welcome to the grossest of incentives!

•  A great joke tells people something they already know, but they didn’t realize they knew it until you said it.

Back of the Room is a collection of thoughts on comedy from Matt Ruby, NYC comedian, writer, and the author of Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian (a newsletter about the craft of standup for comedians, industry types, and anyone else who’s a comedy nerd).