Editing Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn (section)

==Show history and format==
In 2002, comedian Colin Quinn was given his own show on [[NBC]], titled ''[[The Colin Quinn Show]]'', which was broadcast live from the ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' [[soundstage]] in [[New York City]]. The show only lasted for three episodes. Each of these three episodes aired on successive Mondays from March 11, 2002 to March 25, 2002.

Although NBC canceled the show, Quinn took a similarly-themed show to Comedy Central later on that year. On December 9, 2002, ''Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn'' debuted on Comedy Central with an eight-episode test series, which ran Mondays through Thursdays, until December 19, 2002. The show was picked up in January 2003, and the regular series began its 21-week run on March 10, 2003. The show aired weeknights at 11:30&nbsp;p.m. ET, immediately following ''[[The Daily Show with Jon Stewart]]''.

The show was presented as an alternative, unpolished and more accessible political "round-table" discussion/shouting-match program in the manner of CNN's ''[[Crossfire (U.S. TV program)|Crossfire]]'', taking cue from Bill Maher's ''[[Politically Incorrect]]''. The guests on the panel were usually comedians who had been given topics in advance on which to prepare material. Quinn's regular guests consisted mainly of Comedy Central affiliated comedians from the [[Comedy Cellar]] comedy club in New York City.<ref>{{cite web|last=Szalai|first=Georg|date=July 20, 2004|title=Running with the crowd: A new breed of comics shuns L.A. and engages in foul play|url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/14002690|work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|access-date=February 27, 2013}}{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>  The club was renowned for its postperformance roundtable discussions with comedians in the audience about political issues. These exchanges were the inspiration for ''Tough Crowd''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Holden|first=Stephen|date=January 2, 2004|title=Manny Dworman, 73, Musician Who Owned the Comedy Cellar|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/02/arts/manny-dworman-73-musician-who-owned-the-comedy-cellar.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=April 11, 2012}}</ref>

The show would open with a [[monologue]] by Quinn. Quinn would then stand in front of a pool table, or sit on the edge of it, very often sipping coffee, eating or perusing through a newspaper. Usually, there were four comedians as guests, but sometimes three or five.  Quinn would introduce current events and moderate the discussion, which would take up most of the episode. Near the end of each episode, there was usually a [[sketch comedy|sketch]] of some sort, followed by each of the guests doing a brief monologue on a particular topic that was discussed earlier in the episode.