Comedy Central is a cable television channel in the United States. As its name implies, the channel carries predominantly comedy programming, both original and syndicated.

Comedy Central began on April Fool's Day 1991, after Home Box Office, owned by Time Warner, merged its Comedy Channel with MTV Network's HA! comedy channel, owned by Viacom. Viacom bought Time Warner's half in April 2003 for $1.225 billion.

The channel had a relatively small viewership until South Park premiered on the channel in 1997. As word of mouth spread, the number of people who requested that Comedy Central be added to their cable systems increased, and the channel became available in over 50% of American homes by 1998.

A lot of Comedy Central's programming consists of 1980s through mid-1990s comedy movies and stand up comedians. On late Saturday nights, they show unedited movies and comedy routines. They call this "The Secret Stash." It also hosts original programming, including Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

Notable original programming

• 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time
• Battlebots
• Beat the Geeks
• Chappelle's Show
• Comedy Central Presents
• Crank Yankers
• Crossballs
• The Daily Show
• Distraction (U.S. version)
• Drawn Together
• Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
• The Graham Norton Effect
• Insomniac with Dave Attell
• Larry the Cableguy
• Let's Bowl (season 2)
• The Man Show
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 (seasons 1-7)
• Reno 911!
• Short Attention Span Theater
• Shorties Watching Shorties
• South Park
• Straight Plan for the Gay Man
• Strangers With Candy
• The Toilet Show
• Tough Crowd
• TV Funhouse
• Upright Citizens Brigade
• Wanda Does It
• Win Ben Stein's Money

Notable syndicated programming

• Absolutely Fabulous
• Banzai
• Blue Collar TV
• The Critic
• Dilbert
• Duckman
• Kids in the Hall
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien
• MADtv
• Saturday Night Live
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? (British version)

External Link

Comedy Central (http://www.comedycentral.com)