Comedy Central Roasts

Comedy Central Roast
Genre	Roast, comedy
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	90 minutes
Release
Original network	Comedy Central
Picture format	4:3 SDTV (2003–08) 16:9 HDTV (2009–present)
Original release	August 10, 2003 (2003-08-10) – present

The Comedy Central Roasts are a series of celebrity roast specials that air on Comedy Central. The first official Comedy Central Roast premiered on August 10, 2003. Usually one or two roasts are produced almost every year. As of 2016, a total of 15 roasts have aired. The latest roastee is Rob Lowe; his roast premiered on September 5, 2016.

Between 1998 and 2002, Comedy Central produced and televised the annual roasts of the New York Friars Club.

After the original five-year agreement expired, the network began producing its own roasts in the same spirit. The first, featuring roastee Denis Leary (and produced by Leary's production company, Apostle), aired on August 10, 2003 and was the most watched program in the channel's history, excluding episodes of South Park.

Some roastees have stated that certain topics are off-limits. Pamela Anderson, for example, prohibited jokes about her Hepatitis C infection. Joan Rivers disallowed jokes about her daughter, Melissa and William Shatner asked that the death of his wife not be mentioned. Others, like David Hasselhoff, have imposed no limits on the topics.Donald Trump only prohibited anyone making jokes about him not being as wealthy as he says he is. Although Charlie Sheen initially agreed to no restrictions on his roast, he later said during an interview with Jay Leno that he requested jokes about his mother be edited out of the broadcast.

During Charlie Sheen's roast, Steve-O made the joke "The last time this many nobodies were at a roast, at least Great White was playing", a reference to the February 20, 2003 The Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island that killed 100 people, which was removed from broadcast on Steve-O's request.

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