The brainchild of stand-up comedian Maher, the show first appeared on Comedy Central in 1993. The cable channel was looking for original programming that would bring much-needed recognition and ratings to the young network, which had begun in 1991. Politically Incorrect (P.I.) was the first signature show for Comedy Central, helping define the channel as more than simply a site for stand-up comedy routines and stale B movies.

Owned and produced by Brillstein-Grey Entertainment and HBO Downtown Productions, the show began its first season with 24 episodes. Taped in Manhattan, the weekly program featured Maher and an eclectic array of comedians, actors, and actresses, but also public personalities such as authors, politicians, journalists, activists, and sports and music stars. With the group sitting in a semicircle discussing politics, the show’s early production values resembled those of a local cable access show. Still, it offered a serious but entertaining reformulation of both the entertainment and pundit talk show genres. The novelty lay in the concept: famous people, few of whom were political experts, talking about something other than their latest project. This format was generally considered the show’s primary attraction for both audiences and the guests who increasingly requested to be on the show. The discussions and arguments could seem glib and ironic, yet they offered viewers honest and passionate exchanges—a very different approach to political talk on television.

After producing 45 episodes and winning a Cable Ace Award in its second season, the show added Maher’s name to the title and began appearing nightly during the third season. This allowed Maher and producers to include more topical discussions based on issues of the day. The show also appeared in the 11 P.M. (EST) time slot, going head-to-head with late-night network programming. Each show began with Maher offering a brief stand-up routine before launching into the panel discussions. In January 1996 the show moved its production to Los Angeles amid talk of the program becoming a post-Nightline companion show for the ABC network. In its last season on Comedy Central, P.I. produced Indecision ’96, a satirical take on the 1996 presidential elections that included sending its own “correspondents” to both major party conventions for reports and interviews with politicians and delegates.

After producing 411 shows for Comedy Central, Politically Incorrect moved to ABC in January 1997, one of the first successful migrations from cable to network television. Though ABC had not competed in the “late-night comedy entertainment wars” since 1991, network executives thought the show would work well as a topical companion to Nightline. The show also enabled the network to appeal to the 18–49 demographic so desired by advertisers. By moving to ABC, P.I. was able to reach ten times the audience it had on Comedy Central while offering essentially the same show in the same format with little to no interference from network censors.

Like other cable news and talk channels, P.I.’s ratings were best when breaking news or controversial issues were available for discussion. The Oklahoma City bombing and the O.J. Simpson murder trial were favorite discussion topics for many shows on Comedy Central, but it would be the presidential scandal of Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky that would comprise the show’s most frequented topic during its early years at ABC. Maher was a persistent and aggressive supporter of Clinton during the controversy and impeachment proceedings, and the subject’s mixture of sex and politics proved perfect for entertaining late-night discussions. The deliberations on P.I. were distinctive, however, more closely resembling public opinion on the scandal than views expressed on most pundit-staffed political talk shows (Jones, 2001).

During slow news periods, P.I. offered numerous thematic gimmicks to increase viewership. From 1999–2000, the show began sporadically featuring a “Citizen Panelist.” Maher and his staff visited affiliate stations in various cities across the nation, conducting tryouts for a local citizen to win a guest spot on the show, thus fulfilling a top request from viewers—for a “regular” citizen to appear on the panel. The stunt may also have been designed to improve affiliate relations and clearance issues in these cities as well as to garner publicity and ratings points. To attract more politicians as panelists, the show was occasionally taped in Washington, D.C. To attract more intellectuals, it would be taped in New York. The show also taped episodes in London, in a prison in Arizona, and with mobsters as panelists in New York (to capitalize on the popularity of HBO’s The Sopranos).

The show’s defining moment, perhaps, occurred due to discussions about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. Upon the show’s return to the air after the attacks, Maher and panelist Dinesh D’Souza began a discussion of whether the Bush administration’s designation of the terrorists as “cowards” was an appropriate label. When D’Souza argued that the word was misplaced, Maher agreed saying, “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.” Maher was referring to American military conduct during the Clinton administration, but radio talk show hosts used the statement the following day to excoriate him as an unpatriotic traitor. Though the network supported the show and Maher attempted to clarify his statements in the days and weeks ahead, 17 affiliates eventually dropped the program—with 9 still refusing to show it six months later. Two major advertisers, Sear’s & Roebuck and Federal Express, dropped their advertising. The comment even elicited a rebuke from White House ress secretary Ari Fleischer, who said Americans “need to watch what they say.” Maher and others have suggested that this event was the final step in the show’s demise. In March 2002 Maher was honored along with George Carlin, Dick Gregory, and the Smothers Brothers at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival with a Freedom of Speech Award. Maher’s contract was not renewed, and the show went off the air in December 2002.

Politically Incorrect began with a cable channel’s need for an identity in a competitive environment and as a comedian’s jab at sanitized public discourse in an era of political correctness. But throughout its decade-long run, the show proved that political talk on television was no longer the exclusive domain of news agencies and broadcast networks, and that elite sources of political commentary did not necessarily speak for or to many audience members. The show radically challenged traditional boundaries and generic conceptions of entertainment programming on the one hand, and serious public-affairs programming on the other. Indeed, P.I. represents the television talk show as a truly combinatory form with its blend of politics and social issues, humor and serious discourse, comedic monologues and group discussions, celebrities and less well-known public personalities, and layperson versus elite discourse.