Comedy Central has set a premiere date for animated news satire show “Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News.” TheWrap can exclusively reveal it heads to the small screen on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
The half-hour show, which features animated characters lampooning top news stories, and interviewing real-world guests, will air after “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” It’s move to Comedy Central from its original home of CBS All Access (before it was Paramount+) was announced in May.
TheWrap also has a first look at the new promo of the show, which has its own takes on many of the primetime cable news hosts.
“Tooning Out the News” will span 13 episodes. Each episode will be made up of segments including big news, virtue signal, hot take and inside the hill. Just like Colbert does on his late night show, “Tooning out the News” will have special elections coverage, with programming tied to the 2022 midterm elections, as well as “A Very Special Pre-Recorded 2022 Year in Review.”
The key art was also revealed, and you can see it below:
“I am so excited that Comedy Central is the new home of ‘Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News’ and look forward to CNN trying to fire my anchors before learning it airs on a completely different network,” Colbert said in a statement. (It’s worth noting that new CNN boss Chris Licht is Colbert’s former “Late Show” executive producer, and he helped create the animated series).
Colbert executive produces the series with RJ Fried, Tim Luecke from Showtime’s “Our Cartoon President,” Zach Smilovitz, Mike Leech and Nicole Savini. The series is produced by CBS Studios.
“After leaving CNN in solidarity with Jeffrey Toobin, being terminated from MSNBC for calling for an innocent total no-fly zone over Europe, and getting frog marched out of Fox News for instigating one measly gin-fueled airport brawl, I’m thrilled to bring my talents to the world’s premiere journalistic network, Comedy Central, until the instant I receive a call from the Saudi Comedy Channel,” animated news anchor James Smartwood added in a statement provided by the network.