The Ricky Gervais Show Season 3 Gets Premiere Date

It's getting harder and harder to avoid Ricky Gervais these days. But really, why would you want to? 

On Sunday, after the premiere of his new sitcom Life's Too Short, HBO premiered a quick advertisement promising the return of his other HBO series, The Ricky Gervais Show, for a third season, which was revealed to begin on April 20.

The Ricky Gervais Show is an animated series with audio taken from Gervais's radio show of the same name, which aired on XFM in the early-to-mid 2000s. The series stars, Gervais, naturally, in addition to frequent collaborator Stephen Merchant and their wonderful friend Karl Pilkington, who is slowly growing to become a household name. At the time of these recordings, though, Karl was just a radio producer who Ricky and Stephen took a shining to; his opinions are so strange and naive that they just couldn't help but make him the third host of their show. 

The HBO series focuses on Karl's strange views, prodded out of him by Gervais and Merchant, who then promptly ridicule him for the strange things he says. That sounds mean-spirited, but the real joy of the series is the obvious friendship between the three. The wacky animation, reminiscent of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, puts Karl's strange ramblings into a literal context, adding another level of zaniness to his already bizarre statements. It's like the show puts you inside Karl's imagination. 

HBO will premiere the third season of the series on April 20. Gervais himself has already confirmed that a fourth season, featuring newly recorded material, is extremely likely. We can't wait to see what Karl will say next. 

Life's Too Short will return for its second episode next Sunday.