Remember Comedy Central?
The channel dedicated to 24/7 laughs gave us “South Park,” “Key & Peele,” “Tosh.0,” “Chappelle’s Show,” and more.
Today, it’s a graveyard of reruns and “The Daily Propaganda” with Jon Stewart.
Comedy needs a helping hand in our woke world, and YouTube and TikTok can only do so much of the heavy lifting.
Enter Netflix.
The streaming giant has been delivering stand-up specials and original sitcoms for years. Nothing new there, at least on paper. Lately, however, Netflix brass have taken the task more seriously.
And it’s paying off, big time.
The streamer is home to comedy’s biggest stars (Sebastian Maniscalco), rising players (Nate Bargatze), and even woke wonders (Hannah Gadsby). Its “Netflix is a Joke” festival series, which just wrapped its second gala, is a who’s who of comedy giants. The event churns out even more original content aimed at our funny bones.
Netflix stand-up specials took on a special significance near the end of 2021. Dave Chappelle’s “The Closer” ignited a firestorm on the Left. Progressives raged against him mocking the trans community, ignoring how the Ohio native honored a deceased trans comic at the special’s end.
The streamer’s comedy bona fides hung in the balance. Would Team Netflix cave, cancel the special and cut ties with someone considered the best living stand-up?
Remember, this was during the post-George Floyd mania, a time when offensive sitcoms got memory holed and comedians feared the wrong joke could end their careers.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos initially stood by Chappelle. Then, he got on his Schwinn and furiously backpedaled via The Wall Street Journal. He said he “screwed up” in his initial response to the blowback, adding that people were hurt by jokes.
“To be clear … storytelling has an impact in the real world . . . sometimes quite negative.”
Somehow, some way, Sarandos and co. stiffened their collective spines and rebuffed the Cancel Culture swarm. Netflix even extended its ties to Chappelle.
Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Netflix
We’re starting to know exactly why that happened.
A new Deadline.com report shows how challenging comedy is irresistible to Netflix subscribers. Turns out, aggressively unwoke comedians draw eyeballs on the platform. A lot of them.
Comedian Matt Rife isn’t as combustible as Chappelle, but he’ll veer into challenging topics when necessary. “Matt Rife: Natural Selection” delivered the biggest viewing numbers of 2023’s second half with 13M hours viewed.
That’s despite an alleged outcry over Rife’s domestic violence joke that hit social media shortly after its debut.
Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Other huge performers included Ricky Gervais’ “Armageddon,” which drew more than 8M hours between Christmas Day and December 31. Another mega hit? Chappelle’s “The Dreamer,” generating 2.1M hours in just one day.
Ricky Gervais: Armageddon (2023). Neflix. IMDB.
Shane Gillis, the comic canceled by “Saturday Night Live” for offensive jokes, joined the party. Twice. His “Beautiful Dogs” special scored with subscribers, and his just-released comedy series “Tires” opened strong, standing tall against fan favorite “Bridgeton” with less media adulation.
Few performers capture the cultural tug of war between comedy and space spaces better than Gillis. Even “SNL” admitted the error of its ways and invited him to host the show earlier this year.
Netflix welcomed him with open arms. Funny is funny.
And if Netflix needed more excuses to ditch the woke mob, Nikki Glaser gave it one. Her recent HBO special, “Someday You’ll Die,” smashed a streaming record for the venerable platform. Glaser’s blistering set at the recent “Roast of Tom Brady” likely boosted those numbers.
She took zero prisoners with her bawdy gags. Neither did anyone else. Comedy Central used to be the home of rip-roaring roasts.
The Brady roast happened, where else, at Netflix.
Netflix’s comedy embrace makes perfect sense. We’re starved for unexpurgated humor, the kind you’ll never see on “Saturday Night Live” or “The Late Show.” It’s why podcaster Joe Rogan, a center-Left comic who loathes the “woke mind virus,” holds such sway over the culture. It explains how the digital space propels formerly unknown talents like Tim Dillon and Andrew Schulz into the top-tier of touring comics.
It also explains why Louis C.K., cast out of Hollywood for admitting to gross sexual acts in front of multiple women, can still sell out Madison Square Garden.
He doesn’t follow the rules, and he never has.
The streamer knows ignoring part of its potential audience is a terrible move in today’s challenging economic climate. Plus, Netflix no longer has the streaming space to itself like it did just a few short years ago. It’s fending off ferocious challenges from Peacock, Disney+, Max, and more. Those platforms aren’t as comfortable with “problematic’ storytelling and yuks. At least not yet.
Netflix is. And it’s doing the best financially of them all.
Why? Capitalism. Give ‘em what they want.
The streamer still delivers woke content on demand. The channel featured a second Gadsby event, “Something Special,” last year. How it performed is anyone’s guess.
Its documentary lineup leans to the Left. You won’t see rebellious documentaries like Nick Searcy’s “The War on Truth,” “The Fall of Minneapolis,” or “Police State” on the platform. Maybe ever.
It still acknowledges half the country leans in the other direction. Even better? Many viewers on both sides of the ideological aisle are exhausted by the woke bylaws.
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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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