The Ricky Gervais Show
| Hosted by | Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant & Karl Pilkington |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy |
| Created by | Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant & Karl Pilkington |
| Updates | active in new format |
| Debut | 1998, 2001–2005 (radio) 2005 (podcast) 2006 (paid podcast) 2009 (audiobooks) 2010–2012 (animated series) |
| Website | www.rickygervais.com |
The Ricky Gervais Show is a comedy radio show in the UK starring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington, later adapted into a podcast and a television series. Despite being named after the more famous Gervais, it mostly revolves around the life and ideas of Pilkington. The show started in August 2001 on Xfm, and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, and mid-2005. In November 2005, Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month. According to the BBC, by September 2006, the podcasts of the series had been downloaded nearly 18 million times. As of March 2011[update], the podcast has been downloaded over 300 million times. The animated series adapted for television debuted for HBO and Channel 4 in 2010.
Gervais and Merchant first worked together in radio on the London-based alternative radio station Xfm London. Their show was broadcast from January to August 1998 from 4-6pm on Sundays, and only featured Gervais and Merchant (before their collaboration on The Office). The show's original format was more interactive, with features, guests, phone-ins, and audience interaction through listeners' letters.
Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in August 2001, after the first series of The Office had been broadcast. However, the earliest surviving radio broadcasts are from November. Xfm brought in Pilkington as producer. The show was originally just billed as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Karl's presence was not acknowledged on posters and other advertisements. Gervais and Merchant would speak to Karl about his thoughts on whatever they were talking about. In 2003 Pilkington was officially added to advertisements for the show as over the years Karl's role on the show became more prominent as Ricky and Steve were finding more amusement with his views and personal life. As the producer, Karl had input with features such as Rockbusters, Songs of Phrase, Do We Need 'em, Knob News, Cheeky Freak of the Week, Monkey News and Educating Ricky. Their last show for XFM aired on July 2nd 2005, after which they chose to switch the show's format from radio to podcasting.
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