News / TV

Live show Historical Roast gets a Netflix series order thanks to Jeff Ross

While the Friars Club and Comedy Central have enjoyed ribbing and roasting their famous friends for decades, for the past four years, a group of Los Angeles comedians have gone even older school, hosting live shows around LA called “Historical Roast.”

In July, they went after JFK at Dynasty Typewriter. On Oct. 2, they’ll be roasting the recently departed wrestling icon Andre The Giant in the Belly Room of The Comedy Store.

But they have even bigger plans in store for 2019.

Netflix has ordered six half-hour episodes of Historical Roast, with comedians dressing up in costumes to zing famous people from years and centuries past. The series comes from OBB Pictures, Roastmaster Jeffrey Ross and Ross’s manager Amy Zvi. The live show’s creators — Eddie Furth, Ryan Pigg and Samee Junio — will get co-EP credits.

“People always ask me who my dream roast would be — this concept allows me to finally roast them all. Plus, I’ll be learning a lot along the way,” said Ross. “The possibilities are as long as mankind itself. Everyone from Moses to Tupac can be in the hot seat. This is one more giant step in the global roasting movement.”

“We couldn’t be happier to be creating Historical Roasts as a Netflix original series,” said OBB president Michael D. Ratner. “As we continue to expand and diversify our portfolio at OBB, it’s our mission to create incredible opportunities for both new and established talent. We look forward to showing the world our cast in these insane roles as we roast some of the most iconic people to ever live. Our motto here is certainly ‘it’s never too soon.’ ”

In the meantime, here’s how the 3rd Anniversary show of Historical Roast went down, as they pitted historical figures against each other in a battle royale, including Ben Franklin, Hitler, Helen Keller, Abe Lincoln, Walt Disney, JFK, and Marilyn Monroe.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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