R.I.P. Last Comic Standing

It was speculated about a month back that “Last Comic Standing” would not be returning to NBC for it’s 7th season this summer. No auditions and no mention anywhere on the NBC lineup or website were pretty strong indicators. But now that the summer tv season is almost upon us and there is still no word, I think it’s truly safe to declare that Last Comic Standing is dead. Well, for now at least. After all, it did get canceled after season 3, only to return 2 years later.

Although the funniest segment of the show came during season 5 when Doug Benson mercilessly ripped Dante and his act apart in the heckler challenge, I could not find a clip of that anywhere. So instead, enjoy Doug performing his fantastic “seque” routine on the show. So good that it got him in the top 10 a whole season later!

Of course I do not truly mourn “Last Comic Standing.” For a comedy nerd, the majority of the time it was something akin to a liberal watching Sean Hannity. Frustrating, annoying, and depressing, yet somehow addictive. The editing killed much of the possible comedy and the challenges regularly had nothing to do with being a successful stand up comedian. And although Jay Mohr was an adequate host, Anthony Clark and Bill Belamy were never strong enough improvisers to pull that kind of gig off. Not to mention that the casts usually had only one or two comedians that actually made me laugh. Todd Glass, Bil Dwyer, Doug Benson, Sean Cullen and God’s Pottery were by far the funniest contestants to appear on the show, and of course none of them ever even made the top 5.

So goodbye for now “Last Comic Standing.” We’ll see if you rise like a badly edited phoenix in the coming years to give turning stand up into a reality game another shot. With a new, even less funny host. Though finding a comedian that takes less joy in comedy than Anthony Clark might be tough.