UCB: What happened?

by Eliza Skinner

Its a familiar story - a rag-tag bunch of kids come to the big city to make good by putting on a show.  The Upright Citizens Brigade did it - with costumes and skits and everything, only to have their comedy central show canceled after three short seasons.

The Upright Citizens Brigade began in Chicago in the early ‘90s, wreaking their trademark havoc and chaos through improv and sketch comedy, and frequent public pranks and stunts.

After Chicago had been conquered, they set their sights on New York and in 1995 they packed up and moved halfway across the country.  Once settled in New York, the four founding members that made the move, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Amy Poehler, decided to make the Upright Citizens Brigade their main focus, which meant sacrificing a lot of their individual interests and opportunities.

They began teaching and performing for free at Solo Arts, a not-for-profit theater and studio space, all the while pitching their ideas for a show to any network that would listen.  Right from the start the Upright Citizens Brigade began attracting industry attention, earning frequent bit parts on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and a few one-off projects with Comedy Central.  Eventually Fox contracted them to make a pilot for their own show, which then never got picked up.

In 1998 Kent Alterman, an executive at Comedy Central, decided to give them a shot and hired the Upright Citizens Brigade to make another pilot.  The pilot was a success and Comedy Central picked up the show for 10 episodes.  The new show was a combination of their sketches, improv, and pranks caught on video.  Upright Citizens Brigade got the ultimate cake time-slot, going on right after Comedy Central’s biggest hit – South Park.  The first season was successful enough to order a second, and then a third.  The Upright Citizens Brigade was financially able to get their own theatre in New York, where they began teaching classes, performing, and giving their friends and students an opportunity to use the stage for their own projects.

Despite the fact that fan pages were popping up all over the Internet, it seemed that the Upright Citizens Brigade’s Comedy Central show was just not popular enough.  Their time slot was shifted from to 1:30 am, and this year, after its third season, the show was not picked up again.  According to Comedy Central there was no reason behind the cancellation.

In fact, Comedy Central doesn’t seem to want to talk about the show at all. Upright Citizens Brigade fan sites all over the Internet are lamenting the death of the show, and demanding answers from the network.  They are calling for boycotts and petitions, letter and email writing campaigns.  The only response from Comedy Central was a form letter sent out in response to any inquiries or rage-filled diatribes:

Dear Viewer,

We thank you for your interest in the Upright Citizens Brigade.  Your comments have been noted and logged with those of other concerned viewers.

Many factors inform our programming decisions including ratings, creative content, show talent, program sensibility, network direction and viewer response.  Upon consideration of these and other factors, the Upright Citizens Brigade has not been picked up for another season.  Please understand that the decision to discontinue this show is separate from the decision to run The League Of Gentlemen on Mondays at 10:30pm/9:30c.  In other words, one show has not replaced the other.

We appreciate your effort on this matter.  Please continue to watch Upright Citizens Brigade at their new time: Fridays at 1:30am/12:30c.

Thank you for watching Comedy Central!

Sincerely,

Comedy Central Viewer Services

When asked by Improv Review to comment on Upright Citizens Brigade’s cancellation, the response from Comedy Central’s publicity department was “networks cancel shows all the time for no reason,” which would probably surprise some shareholders.  When pressed further the final answer was, “the person that brought that show to Comedy Central is no longer with the company.”  So once again the Upright Citizens Brigade begins shopping around for a new network to call home.

The Upright Citizens Brigade soldiers on, with touring shows and a growing volume of devoted students at their theatre.  Their live shows always have, and continue to, win awards all over the world.  They have been lauded by the press, with many New York publications constantly recognizing them as the great hope of comedy in the new millennium.  Somehow the bridge from stage to television seems a lot more treacherous than expected.

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