Craig Ferguson reappears on the History channel with Join or Die

This week at the Television Critics Association, Comedy Dynamics’ Brian Volk- Weiss and Craig Ferguson revealed the premiere date of their new History Channel series Join or Die with Craig Ferguson.

Who better than a visitor from abroad to guide Americans through historical discussions? There is something to be said about being able to facilitate the best conversations when you have no proverbial horse in the race. Craig Ferguson will return to American Television this spring as the host of Join or Die, a show centered around smart people talking about history. Think The Nightly Show if it’s topics were more the Civil War or the Industrial Revolution as opposed to a recap of topical new stories.

Produced by Comedy Dynamics, Ferguson hopes Join or Die will re-introduce civil discourse to American audiences, as opposed to the “who can shout louder” mentality that has taken over a lot of “panel discussion” shows. Guests will range from Dr. Cornel West to country music star Trace Adkins, with all ideas and differing opinions welcome. Here is how Ferguson describes the show:

“We book people who know what they’re talking about, so that each show contains, you know, a celebrity who may or may not know what the subject matter is, but knows how to talk in that environment,” said Ferguson during the panel. “We tend to book comedians because they tend to look at what’s going on around them and be very observant. And then with each show we try and book someone who’s an expert in the field so if I don’t you know, if I don’t know the answer to something, I’ll just ask it. I think that what I wanted to do, what I wanted to achieve with this show is create a show where a real discussion could take place. And by a real discussion what I meant was what I mean is we had arguments on the show. We’ve made 22 shows and we’ve had I’ve had discussions where I was put in over points of view which I didn’t agree with, but I wanted them to be in the discussion, because that’s, I believe, what real discussion is.”

We talked with Comedy Dynamics President Brian Volk Weiss in December, who told us that getting to work on Join or Die with Craig Ferguson has been “literally the greatest thing that’s ever happened” careerwise- and that’s during a year of remarkable achievements. “The show was a dream,” he said, “because Craig Ferguson — there is no one nicer– no one more fun to work with. He’s just so fun, so funny, so cool.”

Ferguson hosted CBS’s the Late Late Show from 2005 until December 19, 2014 when he hosted his last show. Since leaving late night, Ferguson has toured, recorded an hour special and released an accompanying album “Just Being Honest,” that has been nominated for a Grammy.

The 22-episode, half-hour series will debut at 11 PM Thursday, February 18th.

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