Funny Business at 'Last Comic' Irks Comedians
Sun Mar 7, 7:53 PM ET
By Nellie Andreeva and Georg Szalai
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Two celebrity judges on NBC's "Last Comic Standing" have raised questions about the veracity of the show's process for selecting the final 10 participants to be featured in the televised competition.
Comedians Drew Carey and Brett Butler said their input as judges was discounted during the semifinal round that took place last month in favor of NBC executives and the show's producers. One of "Last Comic's" executive producers, Barry Katz, also is the manager of two of the performers who made the final 10, the one-name comic Ant and Gary Gulman, and he also manages "Last Comic" host Jay Mohr.
In an interview last week at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo., where he headlined two events, Carey cited the discrepancy between the show's final picks and the judges' reactions to the 20 contenders in the semifinals, which took place Feb. 26 at Le Theater des Arts in Las Vegas.
"I thought it was crooked and dishonest," Carey said. "It was like somebody at NBC cast the show ahead of the event in Vegas. And they had 1,100 in the audience (for the semifinals competition) who saw how blatantly it was cast. If this happened on 'Survivor' or any other reality TV show, it would be a major scandal."
Sources close to the show noted that while the judges' opinion in the rounds leading to the final are taken into account, the final decision is made by the show's producers and NBC executives, and a fine-print disclaimer to that effect ran in the credits of the show's first season.
Carey argued that the judges were misled about the nature of their role. Carey and Butler served as celebrity judges alongside "Yes, Dear" star Anthony Clark and Tess Drake, a finalist from the first season of "Last Comic."
Butler echoed Carey's sentiment in a posting last week on her Web site.
"As panel judges, we can say that (a) we were both surprised and disappointed at the results and (b) we had NOTHING to do with them," Butler wrote.
Katz was in Aspen for the festival, but declined to comment on the issue.
Mohr was scheduled to film footage for "Last Comic" during the festival, but canceled due to an illness, sources said.
NBC will continue with the production of the show as planned, with the 10 finalists selected in Vegas moving into a house together during the taping of the series.