''Tosh.0'' ( ) is an American

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

that aired on Comedy Central from June 4, 2009, to November 24, 2020. The series is hosted and produced by

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolish (as in slapstick), or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audienc ...

Daniel Tosh Daniel Dwight Tosh (born May 29, 1975) is an American comedian, writer, and producer. After graduating from the University of Central Florida with a degree in Marketing, Tosh moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in comedy. His career acceler ...

, who provides satirical commentary on online

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander H ...

clips,

internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

, trending topics, society, celebrities, stereotypes, and popular culture as a whole. The tone is based on Tosh's deliberately offensive and controversial style of

black humour Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discu ...

observational comedy Observational comedy is a form of humor based on the commonplace aspects of everyday life. It is one of the main types of humor in stand-up comedy. In an observational comedy act, the comedian makes an observation about something which is common eno ...

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

, and

sarcasm Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...

. The show has reached number 1 ratings for its timeslot among men within the ages of 18–24, reaching millions of viewers at a time. On August 20, 2020, Comedy Central announced that season 12 would be its last, reversing a four-season renewal.

History

''Tosh.0'' was launched to a similar demographic as E!'s ''

Talk Soup ''Talk Soup'' is a television show produced for cable network E! that debuted on January 7, 1991, and aired until August 2002. ''Talk Soup'' aired selected clips of the previous day's daily talk shows—ranging from daytime entries like '' The ...

'' (and its since-canceled derivative, G4's '' Web Soup''), and of time-filling video mashups on late-night talk shows. It launched at a time of the convergence of television, computers, video cameras, and Internet access—across all devices and across all walks of life. The show premiered on Comedy Central on June 4, 2009, starring stand-up comedy veteran

. The first season was a surprise hit, averaging more than one million viewers per episode. Within 10 weeks of its premiere, ''Tosh.0'' became the second-most-watched cable network show in its time slot among males aged 18–34, a sought-after advertising demographic. The show was originally scheduled for only 10 episodes, but as its popularity increased, Comedy Central extended the first season to 16 episodes. In December 2009, it was announced that Comedy Central had renewed the show for a full second season with 25 episodes, and the show has since been consistently renewed . In 2015, the series was sold into

syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...

, to air on local stations in major US cities, and in other local markets for late-night weekend spots. Syndication ad-sales and distribution were done through syndicators

Debmar-Mercury Debmar-Mercury is a television syndication company. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Lionsgate, it was formed from a merger of Debmar Studios and Mercury Entertainment in 2006. History Debmar Studios Debmar-Mercury's history begins on October 31, ...

and

CBS Television Distribution CBS Media Ventures, Inc. (formerly CBS Television Distribution, Inc. and CBS Paramount Domestic Television, Inc.) is an American television distribution company owned by CBS Studios, part of CBS Entertainment Group, a division of Paramount G ...

. The 12th season was originally scheduled to premiere on March 17, 2020, before the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

stopped the show's tapings. On August 20, 2020, one day after the cancellation of ''

Drunk History ''Drunk History'' is an American educational comedy television series produced by Comedy Central, based on the Funny or Die web series created by Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner in 2007. They and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are the show's ...

'', Comedy Central announced that season 12 will be ''Tosh.0s final season. The show was previously renewed for four more seasons, but this decision was reversed as Comedy Central transitions away from live action original programming to adult animation. The 12th and final season premiered on September 15, 2020, and concluded on November 24, 2020.

Overview

''Tosh.0'' low-cost production model uses

clips that are freely downloadable from the Internet and freely reusable via American

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

chroma key Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...

virtual stage. Daniel Tosh says, "The lip showformat had been tried a couple dozen times and failed. Our idea asto push it as far as we can and see what happens"; and that the staff selects videos of "people whose lives were changed because of a 15-second clip". Executive Producer Charlie Siskel said the show " ooksat pop culture and all areas of life through the lens of the Internet". The video clips are primarily selected by the show's full-time researchers and validated "on a case-by-case basis" by Comedy Central's standards and practices division. Though reportedly approving 95% of all the show's submitted videos, Tosh says this division is surprisingly unpredictable in both its approvals and disapprovals, and that he is as surprised as the audience is at what the company allows on TV. The range of selected clips includes spontaneous cuteness, whimsical performances, romance, accidents,

exhibitionism Exhibitionism is the act of exposing in a public or semi-public context one's intimate parts – for example, the breasts, Sex organ, genitals or buttocks. The practice may arise from a desire or compulsion to expose themselves in such a mann ...

fetishism A fetish (derived from the French , which comes from the Portuguese , and this in turn from Latin , 'artificial' and , 'to make') is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over o ...

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

, stunts, vomit, gore, and other acute bodily harm. Hank Stuever of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' says the show's decadent tone is formed around the values and maturity of its young adult target audience.

Format

Each episode begins with a

cold open A cold open (also called a teaser sequence) is a narrative technique used in television and films. It is the practice of jumping directly into a story at the beginning of the show before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. In Amer ...

of a

clip from the Internet. Presenting to a live studio audience seated before his virtual stage, Daniel Tosh makes jokes and commentary about that video, and about a selection of other viral videos and pictures. He may act as if he were commenting on a video-sharing site such as

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

, making as many jokes as possible in 20 seconds. The final video in this section enters a "Video Breakdown" segment, where Tosh discusses the video's elements of action and themes. Tosh may perform original short sketches related to or parodying these videos. For example, he displayed a video of a man attempting to climb a precariously homemade staircase of milk crates to reach a flagpole, resulting in a great fall with visibly broken bones. Tosh whimsically parodied the tragedy in a fully animated stylistic recreation of Nintendo's original ''

Super Mario Bros. is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The successor to the 1983 arcade game '' Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series, it was first released in 1985 for ...

'' (1985) video game, starring himself as

Mario is a character (arts), character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in ...

within the game's madcap action of jumping over huge blocks and collecting treasure. The "Web Redemption" or "CeWEBrity Profile" segments additionally invite the stars of those videos directly onto ''Tosh.0'', where they are interviewed to explain and recreate the video's subject matter. The segment yields various blends of increased cuteness, humiliation, bullying, parody,

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

, sympathy, or protectiveness in an attempt to explore and redeem the star and the subject matter. For example, Tosh pretends to spend days trapped in an elevator with Nick White, whose actual 41 hours trapped in a New York elevator had been chronicled by ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and posted on YouTube in 2008. The "Web Reunion", "Web Remix", or "Web Investigation" segments are formatted similarly; the "Web Retreat" featured Tosh hiking with Paul Vasquez from the viral video '' Double Rainbow''. Throughout the show, Tosh interacts directly with the live audience, inviting broadcast viewers to actively join his following of millions of

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

users in "live tweeting" and to

submit ''Submit'' is an EP by the British band Pitchshifter, released on 23 March 1992 by Earache on LP, cassette and CD. French black metal band Blut aus Nord Blut Aus Nord (, ) is a French black metal band from Mondeville, Calvados, that ...

their own videos. In the "Is it Racist?" segment, Tosh invites viewers to vote on any racial stereotypes presented in a video. In addition to garnering a reported average of 1,200 monthly death threats, Tosh's ability to call the audience to action has yielded the mass vandalism of the show's own

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

article, and has resulted in traffic volumes that have temporarily crashed websites such as CelebrityNetWorth and Comedy Central. Tosh routinely utilizes the show's screen time for promotion of his stand-up comedy tours, merchandise, and other TV shows—prompting ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' to describe the show as being "as much marketing ehicleas ... oneymaker.

Cancellation & future

''Tosh.0'' was originally renewed for four more seasons following its 12th season before Comedy Central and its parent company's announcement on August 20, 2020. ViacomCBS said in a statement that their intentions were to focus on the future of the network to be in animated and topical comedies, with ''Tosh.0'' not fitting that format. As of January 1, 2022, MTV has purchased the licensing to the first 12 seasons of ''Tosh.0'' and has been airing them weekly. In a 2020 press release, following news of the show's cancellation and before its acquisition by MTV, Daniel Tosh joked, "I look forward to doing an animated reboot of my show on MTV in 25 years".

Reception

Viewership

The first season was a surprise hit, averaging more than one million viewers per episode. In June 2010, the season premiere was the number 1 show on its timeslot among men aged 18–24. With nearly two million viewers, the episode was the most-watched episode of the series. This record was quickly broken by the July 7 episode, which had up to 2.4 million viewers, and the July 28 episode would attract 2.7 million viewers, again winning the time slot and being the most-watched show on television that day among men aged 18–24 and 25–34. The July 28 episode was the top cable show that night for adults 18–49. Within 10 weeks of its premiere, ''Tosh.0'' became the second-most-watched cable network show in its time slot among males aged 18–34, a sought-after advertising demographic. In June 2015, ''Forbes'' ranked the show's Twitter following of 17 million members as number 43 out of 100 on "The Social 100", its list of the most followed celebrities on Twitter. In 2016, a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that ''Tosh.0'' was "very much of a Northern show, but not necessarily an urban one. It is most popular in Colorado; least so in Mississippi".

Critical reception

The show's core premise has been initially compared to that of the perceived competition of E!'s ''

'' (and its since-canceled derivative, G4's '' Web Soup''), ''The Dish'', ''Sports Soup'', and of time-filling viral video mashups on late-night talk shows.

Hank Stuever Hank Stuever (born 1968) is an American journalist who writes about popular culture for the ''Style'' section of ''The Washington Post''. Early life and education Stuever was born and raised in Oklahoma City, where he attended Bishop McGuinn ...

of ''

'' initially gave a mostly negative review of the June 4, 2009, debut episode of ''Tosh.0''. He found Tosh's stage execution to yield a banal, juvenile, and unnecessary "blooper show" serving as a "cheap example of clearinghouse programming" which adds little to a mashup of viral videos but "clutter, buttressed by a lot of stale references". Stuever thought the concept of the series had potential, concluding that Tosh can "hold his own" within the concept of redeeming the Internet and "undoing the fail". Five years later, Stuever re-evaluated the show positively as a now long-time fan, and addressed his retrospective regret of his "prematurely dismissive" impression by writing a new review to serve as "a long-delayed Valentine to issecret dirty love, Daniel Tosh", and described ''Tosh.0'' as "a TV show about the Internet, literally and thematically", with a hilarious use of cruelty "as black as the online soul, and as fleeting and ephemeral", yielding a "blundering exploration of race, class, gender, life". Kenny Herzog of ''The A. V. Club'' praised the show's "high-wire act of being hysterically vicious and accurate in mocking oblivious exhibitionists without purely bullying" and that the show's "strongest moments of pure hilarity come from its extended, performed material". He describes the show as "continually playing Steal the Bacon for unexploited scraps against the absorbent blob that is viral culture".

Series overview

Home media

On June 12, 2012, ''Tosh.0: Hoodies'' was released on DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

containing the first 10 episodes of ''Tosh.0'' season one. Another DVD and Blu-ray release entitled ''Tosh.0: Deep V's'' was released on December 21, 2012. Additionally, the entire series is available for download via the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

with new episodes available after each air date. As of November 2021, the first ten seasons are partially (259 of 271 episodes) available to stream on

Paramount+ Paramount+ is an American subscription video on-demand service owned by Paramount Global. The service's content is drawn primarily from the libraries of CBS Media Ventures (including CBS Studios), Paramount Media Networks (formerly Viacom Media ...

References

External links