For seven years, the chair sat empty.
There were no increasingly tipsy storytellers attempting to keep dates and names straight, no famous actors solemnly lip-syncing every slurred sentence, no Derek Waters quietly sitting beside a narrator with the expression of a man who knew the evening was about to become considerably stranger.
Drunk History had disappeared.
The Comedy Central series ended its original television run in 2019 after six seasons, and although a seventh season was initially ordered, the pandemic interrupted those plans. In 2020, the renewal was reversed, leaving a show with a fiercely loyal following without a proper return. (TV Insider)
Now, unexpectedly, the glasses are coming back out.
On September 8, 2026, Comedy Central officially announced that Drunk History is returning with three brand-new short-form episodes, beginning September 15. They will be the show’s first original installments in years, with creator and host Derek Waters once again involved. (Paramount Press Express)
And Waters’s reaction was wonderfully simple:
“I’m so excited to be back making DRUNK HISTORY again! We have a lot of catching up to do.” (Paramount Press Express)
It Started With One Ridiculous Conversation
Long before Drunk History became an Emmy-winning television series, it was a wonderfully strange idea born from the kind of conversation that probably should not have produced a successful franchise.
Waters developed the concept in the 2000s, eventually creating Drunk History with Jeremy Konner as a web series.
The premise was almost absurdly straightforward.
Someone would get drunk.
That person would tell a story from history.
Actors would then recreate the story exactly as the narrator told it — including the mistakes, pauses, digressions, strange noises and increasingly questionable sentence construction.
The historical events themselves were researched, but the presentation was deliberately chaotic.
It was history class after someone had removed every rule that normally makes history class feel like history class.
The original version appeared online through Funny or Die, where the format quickly proved that the joke had considerably more life in it than anyone might have expected. Comedy Central eventually turned it into a half-hour television series in 2013. (TV Insider)
Suddenly, famous actors were showing up to reenact American history while perfectly matching dialogue delivered by people who were becoming progressively less capable of delivering dialogue.
And somehow, beneath all the alcohol and comedy, viewers occasionally learned something.
The Actors Had to Treat Complete Nonsense With Absolute Seriousness
That was part of the magic.
The reenactments worked because the performers rarely behaved as though they were above the joke.
If the narrator stumbled over a sentence, the actor stumbled over it too.
If someone stopped halfway through the story to complain, laugh or make an irrelevant observation, the actor onscreen faithfully reproduced it.
The lip-syncing became extraordinarily precise.
A narrator could suddenly hiccup, repeat a word or lose the thread of the story entirely, and the performer portraying Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman or some other historical figure would obediently follow along.
That collision between serious period costumes and completely unserious narration became the show’s signature.
Over its six-season Comedy Central run, the series attracted an astonishing collection of performers. Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Bob Odenkirk and Lin-Manuel Miranda were among the many recognizable faces who entered its deliberately messy version of history. (Time Warner Entertainment)
Yet the joke was never simply that somebody was drunk.
The better episodes managed something more interesting.
They found stories that viewers often hadn’t heard before.
Derek Waters Wanted the History to Matter
Waters has always been unusually earnest about the educational part of a show with the word “drunk” in its title.
The comedy came from the storytelling, but the subjects themselves frequently involved overlooked people and events.
That philosophy remains intact in the revival.
Speaking about the show’s return, Waters explained that Drunk History has always been about informing viewers about history they may not have heard but should know. He also suggested that the current moment makes looking backward feel particularly relevant.
“We need to learn from our history but we also need to be laughing right now,” Waters said. (AV Club)
It is difficult to imagine a better explanation of why the series worked.
People arrived for the drunken chaos.
Sometimes they left knowing who an obscure historical figure was.
And now Waters has three new opportunities to do it.
The First New Story Begins With Madonna Rolling Around in a Wedding Dress
The revival isn’t beginning with a president or a war.
It is beginning with Madonna.
Specifically, Madonna at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards in 1984.
The performance of “Like a Virgin” became one of the defining moments of her early career. Dressed in a wedding gown, Madonna transformed what could have been a conventional television performance into a piece of pop-culture history.
More than four decades later, Drunk History is going to reconstruct it.
And the woman playing Madonna is Meghan Trainor. (Paramount Press Express)
The episode will be narrated by comedian Lisa Gilroy and will premiere on September 15.
It is almost perfectly suited to the format.
A huge celebrity.
A famous television moment.
An elaborate reenactment.
And someone attempting to explain exactly what happened after drinking enough alcohol to make the explanation increasingly unpredictable.
But the next story couldn’t be more different.
Patton Oswalt Is Taking On the Woman Who Helped Build the New Deal
The second installment will turn toward American political and social history.
Its subject is Frances Perkins.
Perkins became the first woman to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet when Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her secretary of labor. She became a major force behind New Deal labor and social reforms, yet her name remains considerably less familiar to the general public than Roosevelt’s.
That makes her exactly the sort of figure Drunk History has traditionally enjoyed bringing forward.
Patton Oswalt will narrate the story. (Paramount Press Express)
The contrast between the first two installments also reveals that the revival isn’t narrowing the show’s definition of “history.”
Madonna at the VMAs counts.
So does the New Deal.
And then there is the third episode.
Which involves a very large ball of twine.
Yes, One Entire Story Is About the World’s Largest Ball of Twine
The third installment may be the most quintessentially Drunk History premise of all.
It will recount the lifelong competition between two men trying to create the world’s largest ball of twine.
Marisha Ray is the narrator. (Paramount Press Express)
On paper, that might not sound like an event worthy of an elaborate historical reenactment.
That is precisely why it belongs on this show.
Drunk History has always thrived on the realization that history isn’t merely a collection of wars, elections and famous speeches.
Sometimes history is human beings becoming incredibly committed to something bizarre.
And apparently, in this case, that something is twine.
Some Very Familiar Faces Are Coming Back
Comedy Central isn’t treating these installments like stripped-down nostalgia clips.
The new stories have attracted the kind of cast that made the original series so much fun.
Confirmed performers include Seth Green, Colin Hanks, Jack McBrayer, Chris Parnell, Steve Agee, Tim Baltz, Johnny Pemberton, Daryl Sabara, Mae Whitman and “Weird Al” Yankovic, along with Meghan Trainor. (Paramount Press Express)
For longtime viewers, several of those names should feel familiar.
The appeal of watching recognizable actors completely surrender themselves to someone else’s drunken narration was always part of the formula.
There is something strangely impressive about watching a professional actor commit completely to a sentence that has ceased to obey grammar.
And the new episodes are keeping that intact.
The Original Show Quietly Became an Awards Success
It would have been easy to dismiss Drunk History as a novelty.
Instead, it lasted six seasons and became an awards contender.
Comedy Central’s official announcement notes that the original series received 17 Emmy nominations and won an Emmy for Outstanding Costumes for a Variety Program or Special. (Paramount Press Express)
That costume award makes perfect sense.
The comedy might have been intentionally ridiculous, but the reenactments were often surprisingly elaborate. Period clothing, sets and recognizable historical imagery gave the scenes enough authenticity that the narrator’s increasingly chaotic dialogue became even funnier.
The production treated the history seriously enough for the drunkenness to work.
Then, after six seasons, the future looked secure.
A seventh season was ordered.
And everything stopped.
Season Seven Was Supposed to Happen
The show’s original Comedy Central run concluded in 2019.
But at first, that wasn’t supposed to be the end.
Comedy Central ordered a seventh season. Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and television production across the industry shut down.
In 2020, the network reversed the renewal and canceled the planned season. (TV Insider)
For Drunk History, the production challenges were particularly obvious.
This wasn’t simply a studio sitcom where actors could be placed farther apart.
Its entire format involved a narrator drinking with Waters, followed by elaborate reenactments featuring groups of performers.
The interruption ultimately became an ending.
There was no grand farewell episode announcing that viewers had reached the conclusion.
The show simply stopped.
And then seven years passed.
The Return Is Different From the Old Television Show
There is one detail longtime fans need to know before expecting a traditional seventh season.
These aren’t regular half-hour Comedy Central television episodes.
The three new installments are being described as short-form episodes, and they will premiere on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel, beginning Tuesday, September 15. (Paramount Press Express)
That distribution strategy is significant.
The original Drunk History itself began online before migrating to cable television.
Now, after more than a decade, it is effectively circling back toward its digital roots.
Comedy Central executive Ari Pearce said the revival reflects the network’s effort to bring its comedy franchises to audiences across different platforms. (Paramount Press Express)
For younger viewers who consume comedy through YouTube rather than traditional cable, the decision makes obvious sense.
For longtime fans, however, it raises one enormous question.
Are these three episodes merely a special event?
Or are they a test?
Nobody Has Announced a Full New Season
For now, fans should keep expectations under control.
Comedy Central has confirmed three stories.
It has not announced Season 7.
It has not confirmed that more episodes will follow.
And it has not said that Drunk History is returning permanently.
Coverage of the revival similarly notes that there is currently no confirmation that these installments will lead to another full season. (AV Club)
But the fact that the show is being produced at all is significant.
Seven years after its last original installments, Comedy Central could simply have left Drunk History in its library as a beloved relic of 2010s comedy.
Instead, it brought Waters back.
It assembled narrators.
It hired recognizable performers.
It filmed three new stories.
And it gave the project an official launch.
That doesn’t guarantee anything beyond September.
But it means the door that appeared completely closed in 2020 is open again.
Derek Waters Never Really Sounded Finished With It
Perhaps the most encouraging part of the announcement is Waters himself.
There is no sense in his comments that he views these episodes as a reluctant nostalgia exercise.
Quite the opposite.
“I’m so excited to be back making DRUNK HISTORY again!” he said. “We have a lot of catching up to do.” (Paramount Press Express)
Seven years certainly provide plenty of material.
History has not exactly taken a break while the show was gone.
Neither has popular culture.
And because Drunk History was never restricted to ancient or traditional history, almost anything that has become culturally significant could theoretically become material for future episodes.
The Madonna story proves that.
The show’s definition of history has always been flexible enough to include the monumental, the forgotten and the wonderfully ridiculous.
Which makes the possibilities almost endless.
The Format Feels Strangely Perfect for the Internet Again
There is another reason this particular revival makes sense.
When Drunk History began, online video looked very different.
YouTube was young. Funny or Die was a major comedy destination. Viral videos felt spontaneous and relatively unpolished.
Waters’s original concept fit that world perfectly.
Then television expanded it.
Budgets grew. Famous actors joined. Elaborate costumes and sets turned a tiny comedy experiment into an Emmy-winning cable series.
Now entertainment has moved toward short-form digital viewing again.
Suddenly the original DNA of Drunk History looks surprisingly modern.
A funny storyteller.
A concise historical subject.
Recognizable celebrities.
A format that can be watched and shared online.
The show has spent seven years away only to return to an entertainment landscape that, in some ways, resembles the environment where it first succeeded.
And Somehow, the Joke Still Works
There are comedy formats that belong completely to their era.
Drunk History never really depended on topical jokes.
Its central idea was more durable.
People like stories.
People like watching talented actors behave ridiculously.
And people are fascinated by the strange, forgotten corners of history.
Put those three things together, add alcohol, and the formula remains remarkably easy to understand.
That doesn’t mean the show was simply celebrating drunkenness. The narrators were there to tell stories they cared about, and Waters’s role often involved keeping the evening safe and the storytelling moving.
What made the episodes memorable wasn’t merely how intoxicated somebody became.
It was watching their enthusiasm survive the alcohol.
They genuinely wanted you to know the story.
They just occasionally forgot how sentences worked while telling it.
Seven Years Later, the Glass Is Back on the Table
There is something fitting about Drunk History returning without pretending the interruption never happened.
Waters himself acknowledged it.
They have catching up to do.
The show that began online, moved to Comedy Central, earned 17 Emmy nominations, survived six seasons, received a seventh-season renewal and then disappeared during the pandemic is now returning to the internet where its strange journey began. (Paramount Press Express)
On September 15, Lisa Gilroy will attempt to guide viewers through Madonna’s legendary 1984 VMA performance while Meghan Trainor reenacts it.
Then Patton Oswalt will take viewers into the story of Frances Perkins.
Then Marisha Ray will explain why two grown men became consumed by the pursuit of an enormous ball of twine.
After that?
Nobody has promised anything.
Perhaps these three stories will simply be a brief reunion.
Perhaps Comedy Central is testing whether audiences still want the format.
Or perhaps Derek Waters really does have much more catching up to do.
For now, the only confirmed fact is the one fans waited seven years to hear:
Drunk History is making new episodes again. (Paramount Press Express)
If you’re in the mood for more captivating stories, learn why Tom Jones says he was fired from The Voice UK at 86, discover how Michelle Williams’ quiet heartbreak became one of Brokeback Mountain’s most devastating performances, or read about Prince Harry’s very different “job” planned after returning to Britain.
