Comedy Central’s "Key & Peele" Ending Five-Season Run in September
by Greg Evans
July 25, 2015


Fans of Key and Peele might need an anger translator after today’s news: Comedy Central’s Peabody-Award winning, Emmy-nominated sketch series will end a five-season run with its final episodes in September.

Comedy Central confirmed the cancellation news to Deadline. The decision to end the series reportedly came from the stars, not Comedy Central.



The current 11-episode season kicked off July 8, and with all filming in the can, the series will continue into September before its finale.

“Don’t miss the last 8 episodes!,” tweeted Jordan Peele on Saturday.





Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele first worked together on Fox’s "MadTV" before creating their self-titled program for Comedy Central in 2012. The pair is among Comedy Central’s buzziest non-talk-show stars, second perhaps only to Amy Schumer.

The show’s 2013 Peabody Award cited the “racially charged” issues addressed with humor on the show, noting that Key and Peele “break new ground even as they lay claim to all of comedy’s traditions.” The show is currently Emmy-nominated in seven categories, including best variety sketch series and, for Keegan-Michael Key, best supporting actor in a comedy series for the 2014 episode 'Sex Detective'.





The series has spawned any number of popular characters, including Key’s irate if clueless substitute teacher Mr. Garvey, who is set to get his own movie, with Peele co-starring.

Another notable skit revolves around “Luther,” President Obama’s “anger translator” (played by Key, to Peele’s Obama) who turns the president’s ultra-cool comments into pure heat and vitriol. The skit even drew the attention (and approval) of Obama himself, who appeared with “Luther” at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in April.

http://deadline.com/2015/07/comedy-centrals-key-peele-ending-in-september-1201485167/

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/07/key-and-peele-ending?

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele recognize that they have bigger opportunities outside of their Comedy Central show, while also realizing they don’t want to burn out their signature characters (http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/all-298-key-and-peele-sketches-ranked.html).

http://grantland.com/features/race-to-the-top-the-meaning-of-key-and-peele/

"This was,” says Wesley Morris, "a very funny show (http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/key-peele-was-always-a-show-built-to-last.html) that always seemed saddened by its own existence, by its popularity, by what it has perceived in American society. Who can say whether the decision to end it was a matter of having run out of new things to say or having eternally more and feeling the precarious burden of giving voice to that eternity – possibly for mis-comprehending viewers. Five years or five hundred? It’s entirely possible that the sobriety of those car scenes and the decision to walk away from a hugely successful show reflect a lesson learned from (Dave) Chappelle’s cautionary mental breakdown. Inhabiting racism so immersively for even two proper seasons was toxic for him. Key and Peele might be trying to maintain the sanity Chappelle says he lost. They’ve already accomplished a nearly impossible feat. The show has managed the trick of treating race as a literal construct — no show has more crucial hair and makeup artistry — that many of us can’t live without and too many of us refuse to live with.” PLUS: Key & Peele’s finale proves (http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/9/9252615/key-and-peele-finale-internet-television-youtube-ratings) that the internet is leaving TV behind, Key & Peele knew how to tell a race joke (http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/key-peele-knew-how-to-tell-a-race-joke.html), here are the best Key & Peele sketches (http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/and-now-our-favorite-key-peele-sketches-1729540926), and what it was like filming the Key & Peele pilot (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/so-long-lcarpetron-its-been-real-key-peele).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR4HUgUFOQb/

Some people have recently become fans of Comedy Central's "Key & Peele" following #JordanPeele's epic release of the film #GetOut!

One person who has been familiar with the duo for quite some time says his feelings are hurt by the platform they get to do on the network--especially since the network shut down his ideas so many times.

He feels as though he fought so hard to create a lane that has since been taken over by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.

"[There were] certain conventions of the show that the network resisted," Dave said in an interview. "I fought the network very hard so that those conventions could come to fruition. So, like the first episode I do, that black white supremacist sketch. And it’s like, ‘Well, that’s 10 minutes long. It should be five minutes long.’ Why should it be five minutes long?

“Key & Peele” has earned multiple Emmy nominations and a 2016 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series. Chappelle says that he “fought very hard” to help create the pair’s show format.

He added: “When I watch ‘Key & Peele’ and I see they’re doing a format that I created, and at the end of the show, it says, ‘Created by Key & Peele,’ that hurts my feelings.”