Comedy Central is an American cable satellite television network featuring original series, syndicated reruns and stand-up comedy programming. Popular shows include The Colbert Report, The Daily Show with John Stewart, Southpark, Ugly Americans, The Sarah Silverman Program and Reno 911. Full episodes as well as clips of these and other Comedy Central shows are available to watch at no charge on the official Comedy Central website, comedycentral.com.

Comedy Central first hit the airwaves in 1991 with an April Fool's Day launch. The channel was born from a merger between AOL Time Warner's Home Box Office (HBO) network Comedy Channel and Viacom's MTV comedy network, HA!.http://money.cnn.com/2003/04/22/news/companies/viacom/index.htm

In the early years, Comedy Central focused heavily on stand up comedy, movies in the comedy genre and reruns of situation comedies. Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show that features odd futuristic creatures watching and commentating on old, hokey black and white science fiction movies, was one of the earliest successes on Comedy Central. MST3K, as it is known, aired for 7 years on the network before switching over to the Sci Fi Channel (where it ran for another 3 years).http://www.mst3k.com/

1. 1989: Time Warner's The Comedy Channe first premieres
2. 1991: Comedy Channel merges with rival Viacom channel to form CTV: The Comedy Network
3. 1997: South Park airs and becomes a huge success, raising Comedy Central's profile
4. 2003: Uncensored Secret Stash debuts
5. 2006: The first foreign Comedy Central channel, Comedy Central Poland, launches
6. 2008: Comedy Central begins putting free shows online for Internet users to view

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