As more teens and tech-savvy young people move away from traditional TV distribution models in favor of things that are both free and available on their phones, the networks are being forced to break out of their old habits and see things the way teens do. In other words, it’s all about Snapchat now, and Comedy Central is one of the networks that realizes this. According to Deadline, it has embraced the ephemeral messaging app/social media service as hard as it possibly can, renewing four existing Snapchat shows today and announcing nine brand new ones that will be featured on its Discover channel within the Snapchat app.
The biggest name in the renewals is Quickie With Nikki, which stars Not Safe’s Nikki Glaser and is apparently Comedy Central’s most popular Snapchat show. Then there’s Swag-A-Saurus With James Davis, which is about explaining the hottest slang terms, as well as Like It With Liza and Hot Takes With Brandon Wardell.
Most of the new shows are a little more high concept than just “an up-and-coming comedian talks about stuff,” though. There’s Messages From The Future, which is about a guy from the future warning us about some terrible apocalypse while also trying to find his lost umbrella. There’s also 7 Minutes In Purgatory (a show that was part of our 26th Annual Comedy Fest last year), which puts five comedians in an empty room and has them perform their acts without an audience. Then there’s a show called Deadliest Chef, which features comedian Caleb Synan “failing upward in the world of reality TV cooking shows,” and an animated series called The Lounge about three “assholes” who work in a middle school but are not teachers.
Representing the “up-and-coming comedian talks about stuff” genre are Animal-Lolz (a guy talks about animals), Bert’s Dreams (a guy talks about his dreams), and You’re Wrong (a guy talks about his nerdy opinions). Filling out the list are Guber Pool, which is a sketch show about awkward interactions with ride-sharing apps, and an untitled comedy that “exposes exactly what goes on during the commercial breaks” in between the interview segments on late-night shows.
No premiere dates for any of these shows have been announced yet.