Joe Bob Briggs was admittedly surprised at his show “The Last Drive-In” being cancelled at Shudder with his final episode already airing …
Joe Bob Briggs has been a staple in the horror community for decades and he’s most famously recognized for presenting films on several different series starting with “Joe Bob’s Drive-in Theater,” which ran on The Movie Channel from 1986 to 1996 and then “MonsterVision,” which ran from 1996 to 2000.
His latest series “The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs” ran for seven seasons on Shudder but ahead of the latest episode on March 6, the news was announced that it would also serve as a series finale. While he is returning for four seasonal specials that run through the end of 2026, “The Last Drive-In” has officially come to an end and even Briggs was surprised at how it all played out.
“I wanted to tell people earlier, but the decision was made to just tell people on the day of the final show,” Briggs told Variety. “So I wanted as many people as possible to watch that final show, but I didn’t have control of that.”
While he was understandably disappointed by Shudder’s decision to cancel the show, Briggs was blown away by the amount of support he received from fans after the news went public.
“It’s very sad for the eight years I spent with all the people involved with ‘The Last Drive-In,’” Briggs said. “But I have to say, I’ve been around TV for many, many years, and I’ve been canceled before. This was the most joyous cancellation I ever had, because as soon as people knew about it, the phones lit up, the e-mail inbox filled up. I couldn’t keep up with all the texts because everyone was saying, ‘I’m shocked. You have to take the show somewhere else.’
“Nobody was saying, ‘Well, the show finally played out, didn’t it? It ran its course.’ You know, nobody was doing that narrative on this one.”
While the regular series has ended, AMC (the network that owns Shudder) announced four specials still coming from Briggs in 2026 before he officially becomes a free agent again in 2027. The first special titled “Joe Bob’s Wicked Witchy Wingding” airs on April 24.
“Joe Bob Briggs has been a Shudder staple since 2018, when his original 13-movie marathon ‘broke the internet,’” Courtney Thomasma, EVP, Linear and Streaming Products, said in a statement “Since then, he and Darcy the Mail Girl have continued to delight Shudder fans with double features and seasonal specials tailored to horror buffs and cinephiles alike, always offering plenty of surprises. We look forward to sharing these four new specials with Drive-In Mutants everywhere.”
As far as what comes next, Briggs said he’s actually planning to launch his own horror production company but there’s also a chance he starts a new show that would continue his long-running series introducing films, interviewing actors, directors and other people involved in the film industry and enjoying banter with Darcy the Mail Girl, who became a staple of “The Last Drive-In.”
“I’m grateful to Shudder for firing me at the height of the show’s popularity, because it actually frees me up to do quite a few things that would have been impossible if I continued the workload of that show and the contractual obligations I had,” Briggs said.
“We had actually thought that we had the show placed with another company. But when the word got out about the cancellation, other people called. So we may do it in a different way, of somehow preserving ‘The Last Drive-In’ without using the name ‘Last Drive-In.’”
Wherever he goes, Briggs promises that Darcy the Mail Girl is coming along as well.
“There’s a natural conflict and playfulness that goes on,” Briggs said. “But also she’s one of the brains behind the show. She suggests topics that we do, movies that we do, guests that we have. And a lot of times it’s something that I wouldn’t have come up with on my own if she hadn’t told me. She’s seen more movies than I have. She would definitely be involved with anything I do moving forward.”
“The Last Drive-In” may be closed for business but Briggs appreciates the years he spent with the show on Shudder but he’s not going anywhere with plenty of plans already in the works for the future.
“I can’t thank Shudder enough,” Briggs said. “They propelled me into the forefront of the horror world. Everywhere I go, I’m asked to speak, whether that’s a convention or a show or somebody else’s show or whatever. We had at our live jamboree, and we had Roger Corman and John Carpenter back-to-back for the Lifetime Achievement Awards. I can’t thank Shudder enough for the time there, because the fan base I was able to develop is incredible, it was amazing.”
In addition to the special airing in April, Briggs has three more coming to Shudder in 2026 including one at Halloween and another at Christmas with the fourth special expected to air during the summer.
