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Real Time with Bill Maher earns season 10 milestone

By April MacIntyre Jul 29, 2011, 14:42 GMT

05/17/2011 - Bill Maher and Chris Matthews - "Hardball" Interview with Bill Maher at Exposition Park in Los Angeles on May 17, 2011 - Exposition Park - Los Angeles, CA, USA © Claudio Uema / PR Photos

Yesterday at the Television Critics' Association summer press tour meeting, Bill Maher had some mighty tough competition for attention as he hit the stage: The "Game of Thrones" iron throne that all the TV critics were lined up taking photos with for posterity in the back of the room.

Maher took to the stage after HBO exec Sue Nagle announced that HBO renewed Real Time with Bill Maher for 2012.
    
"It's nice to be on a network that I myself watch," Bill Maher quipped. "I never watched 'Dharma & Greg.'"  The usually nonresponsive TCA audience fueled Maher to note that comics should never try any material at the event, and he also zinged the distracted audience, "It's really something to be here at the job fair."

HBO has renewed "Real Time" for its tenth season, as Sue Nagle noted,  “Bill Maher is a fearless, funny and totally original observer of the modern world,” noted Naegle.  “I look forward to bringing his thoughtful and irreverent insights to our viewers next year as another presidential election approaches.”

The show includes an opening monologue, roundtable discussions with panelists, and interviews with in-studio and satellite guests.  Currently in its ninth season, with episodes debuting Friday at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT), the show presented its 200th edition in January 2011, and was hailed as “hands down the funniest show on TV” in Rolling Stone by “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarlane, who added, “It surprises me more than any other show I watch.”

Maher was the creator and host of “Politically Incorrect,” which was produced by HBO Downtown Productions and debuted on Comedy Central in 1993.  The series moved to ABC in 1997 and ran through 2002.

His next book, “The New New Rules:  A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass,” will be published this November.