NEW YORK, NY (TPP) -- The "John McCain & Sarah Palin Comedy Hour" has been cancelled and will no longer air after November 4, officials at NBC said in a statement on Monday. The move comes as ratings for the once-profitable summer replacement series have dipped and viewer interest has fallen off after an initial surge of interest.

"We feel the time for the show has passed, and the ratings reflect our view that American audiences in the crucial demographic of 18-to-49 year old males are losing interest in the show," NBC's president of entertainment, Jeff Zucker, said to reporters on Tuesday. "It's in our best interest to discontinue production on such a costly project with little or no hint of a reward for our network."

The show began in late August, when John McCain (the seventy-two yr. old senior senator from Arizona and a prime mover in national politics) announced Sarah Palin as his running mate for the office of president. Ratings for the Republican National Convention were so strong that NBC immediately offered the senator and his "regular hockey mom" partner their own hour-long variety show, as a means of attracting CBS's traditional audience.

"Right off the bat, the show was successful," entertainment reporter Owen Gleiberman says. "It featured singing and dancing, with comedy skits in which McCain talked about being tortured by the North Vietnamese and Palin pretended to be the "dumb brunette' of old-time variety shows. This strange little team managed to entrance the nation for a brief time."

The show's format usually went like this: McCain and Palin would appear before a studio audience and perform skits or musical numbers designed to highlight their trademark characteristics. McCain was the vaudeville veteran with a maverick reputation for not always agreeing with his peers (Bob Hope and Milton Berle) while Palin was the sexy but stupid arm candy. For almost six weeks, the combination was a ratings bonanza for NBC.

"Kids loved it because McCain reminded them of their crazy grandpa, parents loved it because Palin seemed like their cute-but-ditzy best friend, and teenagers loved it because Palin fulfilled their masturbatory fantasies of the naughty librarian," Gleiberman says. "There was fun for the whole family."

McCain and Palin also allowed their respective families to share the stage, with Cindy McCain entrancing viewers as the host of "spooky home movies" that were appropriate for small children. Todd Palin, the "First Dude," did daredevil stunts, including jumping over his pregnant daughter Bristol while on a snow ski. The families would then gather around the fireplace at the end of the show while special guests (like Lee Greenwood, Hank Williams Jr., and the Osmonds) would lead them in a sing-along. The show's ratings were fantastic for the first month, but something happened around the beginning of October to change all that.

"It's just the fact that, with the fall season now in full swing, people were suddenly aware that the show was all smoke-and-mirrors, with very little substance," Gleiberman reports. "The unrealistic nature of the show was anathema to what the viewing public was craving as summer turned to fall, and the show didn't know how to bounce back."

Reports cite the backstage squabbling between the two stars, as well as the departure of the original writing staff (Sean Hannity, Karl Rove, and Joseph Goebbels) in the interim as the consequences of a hectic nightly schedule and less material to fill it. Pressuring for more screen time, Palin began to grate on the American public as her "too Canadian" accent began to be heard more often. And McCain's old-school entertainment instincts failed him when faced with the debut of the more urban "Tyler Perry's House of Obama" on TBS.

"The luster has now faded from the brand name," Zucker said in a statement from the network, "and we're not so sure that the creative direction of the show matches the high standard with which it began. What once was a charming comedy skit has devolved into a nasty personal attack, and no one wants to watch that night after night."

The show's final episode will air on November 4, and feature REO Speedwagon cover band "REO Speedwagon Cover Band" as musical guests. Early reports say that Palin is in talks to do a spin-off reality show of her own, "Sarah and Todd Plus Alaska," in the spring of 2009. McCain is expected to return to his Senate seat and entertain his fellow Republicans with his patented shadow puppets acting out his experiences as a Vietnam prisoner-of-war. NBC has said that they will air reruns of the new "Knight Rider" in the show's old time slots every night until a new daily program can be found to fill the void.