Comedy Central cancels Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, Onion SportsDome
Jun 21, 2011, 2:00 PM EDT
Back when it debuted in April, our Josiah Schlatter gave an unflattering review of Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, writing among other things, I can’t wait for next week’s ten-minute screed about the innumerable talents of Keyboard Cat. If that wasn’t a facepalm for the fledgling show, this is: Comedy Central pulled the plug on it today.
Also gone: Onion SportsDome, which I didn’t particularly care for. There’s no doubt that The Onion rolls out the best news and sports parody around — this still has me laughing — but producing clever headlines and Photoshops is very different from expanding those concepts into an entire TV show. I said then that it wouldn’t work as presented, and I guess viewers agreed.
As for Sports Show, viewership had dipped to less than 1 million in the past few episodes. Whether people just got tired of Norm himself (I didn’t) or decided the format didn’t work is unclear. At any rate, I think it’s too early to declare that a sports show on Comedy Central isn’t viable. What Jon Stewart and The Daily Show did for news, someone else could still do for sports, if the right host is found. Come on, it’s not hard. Look at Tosh.0, which is getting great ratings: all they have is a host, a green screen, YouTube clips and a laugh track. Maybe less is more? It can be done with sports as well. We just need to find the right recipe.
Back when I wrote for Deadspin, a TV producer contacted us about possibly helping to develop a sports parody show. For whatever reason, that didn’t amount to anything (the exact reasons were above my pay grade), but I know that if we had been involved, the result would have been a lot different than Sports Show with Norm Macdonald or Onion SportsDome. And for sure we would have included Keyboard Cat.
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Comedy Central Cancels ‘Sports Show With Norm Macdonald’ And ‘Onion SportsDome’ [Deadline]
Sports Show with Norm Macdonald is not funny, could use a new host [Off the Bench]
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- tim8282 - Jun 21, 2011 at 4:40 PM
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I liked both shows, although Norm’s hadn’t been as funny as the first episode was. Problem I have is that shows don’t get much of a chance to grow anymore. Remember that “Cheers” was almost canceled after season one. If there’s potential, give it a chance for God’s sake.
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- yrogerg123 - Jun 21, 2011 at 5:12 PM
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I liked the show. It was pretty funny. Good, not great. The biggest problem was scheduling: it was always on opposite the NBA playoffs, which if you’re going to watch a sports comedy show, you’d probably prefer real sports. They should have waited for the playoffs to be over and then put it in the same time slot. It would have done fine. Did they honestly expect me to skip out on the second half of a playoff game to watch their show? What are they morons over there at comedy central?
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- researchrants - Jun 21, 2011 at 10:50 PM
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Oh, that’s a shame. It was pretty funny,and I hate to say it since I really like him, funnier than Jon Benjamin has been so far.
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- stopherjohnson - Jun 22, 2011 at 2:58 AM
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What the H?! Comedy Central announced they have cancelled Sports Show with Norm MacDonald. Total crap, I know. Let’s push to save the show. Here’s the Facebook petition to save the show. Please “like” the facebook petition and spread it around http://tinyurl.com/3vqmlj7
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- markbhoward - Jun 22, 2011 at 10:07 AM
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7 episodes and you’re done? What the H??? One turd writer doesn’t like one segment and he pollutes the media with his opinion. The show was still evolving, and as said earlier it was up against the NBA finals for God’s sake. It’s terrible that Norm barely gets warmed up and they axe it. I was telling people who had never heard of it to give it a watch and it’s over. THIS MAKES BILL COSBY SAD!!! Comedy Central screwed up.
