In each of the last five years, Comedy Central has televised a heavily-edited and sloppily-bleeped Friars Roast. The subjects were — and I'm not sure of the order — Jerry Stiller, Rob Reiner, Drew Carey, Hugh Hefner and Chevy Chase. The last of these was horrible. They couldn't get too many celebrities to show and most of those who did turn out didn't seem to be all that thrilled or inspired by the topic of Chevy Chase. The best was the Hefner one, which had some very funny moments. (If you TiVo it and don't want to sit through an hour of penis and masturbation jokes, do this: Fast forward to catch a little of Sarah Silverman. Then skip ahead to watch Ice-T, not because he's any good but because what he does is the set-up to Gilbert Gottfried. Then jump to the end and watch Gilbert, who is absolutely hilarious. In fact, he's almost worth wading through all the lines about how Hef sleeps with seven bimbos and still can't get it up.) The others have their moments — for instance, on the Rob Reiner roast when Richard Belzer forces Reiner to read aloud Roger Ebert's unkind review of North. Or Jason Alexander's opening musical number on the Stiller affair.
Anyway, Comedy Central has severed ties with the Friars Club and pacted with Denis Leary's production company to produce a new series of Friarless roasts. The first one, which debuts August 10, happens to be a roast of Denis Leary. What an incredible coincidence. I have no idea if it'll be any good but as they usually do, Comedy Central is using the occasion of a new roast as an excuse to rerun the old ones. If you want to be horrified, the Chevy Chase testimonial runs on Monday evening. If you want to see Gilbert, the Hefner roast airs a week from Sunday (8/9). For the others, consult your local TV listing website.