Sony Pictures Television/HBO Enterprises Garry Shandling in “The Larry Sanders Show,” and Bob Odenkirk and David Cross of “Mr. Show With Bob and David.”While the IFC cable channel stakes its future on a slate of original comedies aimed at young male viewers who like to stay up until the wee hours, it is also looking to the recent past to help build its library. On Thursday IFC said it had acquired the rights to four breakthrough comedy shows from the 1990s, a not-too-long-ago era when David Cross and Bob Odenkirk were wide-eyed newcomers looking for things to be cynical about, and Judd Apatow produced everything but nobody realized it yet.
The vintage series that IFC will present as part of a nightly 90-minute comedy block are “The Larry Sanders Show,” the HBO series about a self-loathing late-night host played by Garry Shandling; “The Ben Stiller Show,” a short-lived but influential Fox sketch show that helped introduce viewers to Mr. Stiller and pals like Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick; and “Mr. Show With Bob and David,” a slightly longer-lived HBO sketch show created by Mr. Odenkirk and Mr. Cross, both “Ben Stiller” veterans.
These three series will begin showing on IFC next month (with “Larry Sanders” to have its debut on Jan. 3; “Ben Stiller” on Jan. 5; and “Mr. Show” on Jan. 7), along with new interview and retrospective segments hosted by the comedian Scott Aukerman, another survivor of “Mr. Show” and a founder of the Los Angeles comedy showcase Comedy Death-Ray.
In the fourth quarter of 2011, IFC said, it will add to this lineup a 1999 series called “Action,” another gone-before-its-time Fox comedy that starred Jay Mohr as a ruthless Hollywood producer and Buddy Hackett as his uncle (and chauffeur).
“They’re irreverent, slightly off comedies, many of which didn’t have their fair shake,” Jen Caserta, the general manager of IFC, said in a telephone interview. “You look at them and you add to it what we have, we’re completing the family portrait.”
In addition to its lineup of independent films IFC has been gradually building a portfolio of offbeat comedy reruns like “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “Freaks and Geeks” and “Arrested Development” as well as new shows like “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret,” which Mr. Cross stars in and helped to create.
IFC makes no secret of aiming these shows at male viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 (some of whom vividly remember watching them the first time around), who fall into demographic categories Ms. Castera described as “authentic influencers” (at the younger end of the spectrum) or “responsible rebels” (at the other end).
“As you can imagine,” Ms. Caserta said, “authentic influencers grow up to be responsible rebels — the one thing they have in common is the exact sensibility we’re talking about. They look for what’s new, next and relevant.”
Among the new shows IFC will introduce next month for authentic influencers and responsible rebels (and anyone who loves them) are “Portlandia,” a comedy series featuring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, and “The Onion News Network,” adapted from that satirical Web site.