Television’s Funniest, Most Diverse Late Night Comedy Show Has its Life Unfortunatelty Cut Short

One of the most original, creative, and diverse comedy shows on all of television, Totally Biased with Kamau Bell, was given the boot by the FXX network Thursday night. The move is undoubtedly disappointing to a great number of fans, many of whom had to settle for watching the late night comedy show’s clips over the internet after the show was moved from FX to the recently-launched FXX network back in September this year. The show pulled stellar ratings as a one-night stand-up comedy show on FX, but unfortunately did not survive as a nightly television broadcast on FXX, a cable network that very few households have access to. The show’s brilliantly hard-hitting and often-times controversial brand of comedy was especially appealing to many of society’s often marginalized groups, featuring a cast representative of communities who are usually overlooked by television executives. It featured original segments with jokes that appealed to African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Jews, Muslims, Gays, Lesbians and even the Transsexual community – a community which no other show airing on a mainstream Cable TV Network has sincerely attempted to appeal to.

W. Kamau Bell himself addressed the cancellation on his blog and was humble as ever, wanting his fans to know that he is not going to let this get him down and that he’s thankful to FX for giving him the opportunity, writing:

”   It goes like this. Person gets job. Person works hard at job. Person loses job. My whole career I’ve seen talented comics get opportunities that I thought, “WOW! That is definitely going to be the THING for her!” And then I’ve seen that thing not become the THING. This is just my time for that. I thought Totally Biased was going to be my “THING!” I worked hard to make it so, and it didn’t happen. So now I get the chance to find a new “THING” and to see how that goes. That’s amazing. The show was canceled. I’m not canceled.    “

A Los Angeles mother named Anoosh Jorjorian wrote a column appearing on Salon.com expressing the overall sentiment of Kamau’s fan base in an article titled “Totally Biased”: the show that actually looked like America. Below is an excerpt:

”   So when I first watched “Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell,” I couldn’t believe it actually existed. As a real show. On a TV channel. With a set and everything. This contradicted everything I knew about the world: Black men who do comedy criticizing catcalling, anti-Muslim bias and homophobia do not get a national megaphone.

And it wasn’t just Kamau, as if one black man over 6 feet tall plus another 4 inches of ’fro weren’t enough. No, there were more black guys, one with dreds all the way down to here, a couple of desis and a lesbian woman with soft butch style. A Japanese guy! A gay man! And not as caricatures written by other people, but as themselves doing their own jokes! About their own lives! Suddenly, my screen resembled my reality, and it was blowing my mind: These were my people!    “

Here are some of our favorite clips from the show:

Hari Kondabolu Reports on Sikh Captain America:

Hari Kondabolu – Chris Brown’s PR Guy:

Citizen Dwayne Kennedy – The Redskins Name Game:

Reverend Shannon Sharpe:

Guy Branum at the San Genarro Festival:

Anything to Say to a Black Guy:

Craig Cobb’s DNA Test:

Kamau Talks to Laverne Cox:

  Also See:

• ‘Totally Biased’ Was the Best TV Show That Never Stood a Chance – Flavorwire
• Some of W. Kamau Bell’s Best Jokes Are Black – Mother Jones
• Totally Biased with Kamau Bell: Bill de Blazio, Miley Cyrus, ‘White History Month’ and More!