The Gong Show - Lead Sheet

The Gong Show - Lead Sheet

“THE GONG SHOW” (Thursdays from 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET, Premiering on June 22)
“The Gong Show” makes it triumphant return to television, as the iconic and irreverent talent show competition makes its way into the 21st century with a bang! Hosted by British comedic legend Tommy Maitland, the show is executive produced by actor/comedian Will Arnett. Every episode will celebrate unusually talented and unique performers on a primetime stage. A revolving panel of judges featuring Hollywood’s hottest stars praise, critique and gong contestants in one of TV’s all-time great variety shows.

Amongst the celebrity judges confirmed are Will Arnett, Ken Jeong, Zach Galifianakis, Alison Brie, Andy Samberg, Elizabeth Banks, Joel McHale, Dana Carvey, Will Forte, Jack Black and Anthony Anderson, with much more to come.

Performers, such as contortionists, singers, magicians, dancers, comedians, painters and people who work with scary bugs, are just some of the dozens and dozens of acts that are set to impress our panel of three celebrity judges. If any of the judges deem an act to be less than worthy of a score, they can pick up a mallet and hit the giant gong that is hanging behind them and end the underwhelming performance. But if the judges are happy with the act, they will let it play out until the end and present their scores numerically from 0 through 10. It’s not uncommon for fights to break out amongst the judges when one of them wants to gong an act, while the others want to let them play on. At the end of each show, the winning performer or act with the highest judges’ scores will receive a fabulous “The Gong Show” trophy and a check for $2,000 and 17 cents.

With Tommy as our “cheeky monkey” master of ceremonies, he is sure to keep the fun meter up on high as he attempts to unravel any semblance of sanity on stage, and he may also lead the audience into a sing along to the classic tune “Shaving Cream” at any given moment. And knowing Tommy, each show will include unscheduled surprises along the way, just to keep things even more entertaining – and just plain weird!

To follow Tommy on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, go to @MrTommyMaitland.
“The Gong Show” is produced by Den of Thieves, Electric Avenue Productions and Principato Young Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television and is taped in front of a live audience. “The Gong Show” is executive produced by Will Arnett, Evan Prager, Jesse Ignjatovic, Conrad Green, Peter Principato and Marc Forman. Jared Morell, Jordan Barrow, David Bohnert, Chris Choun and Dan Norris are co-executive producers.

EVAN PRAGER, Executive Producer
Evan Prager has 13 years of experience working for major record labels, where he worked with a variety of recording artists. He worked at Epic Records from 1993-2002, and most recently at the Island Def Jam Music Group, where he served as vice president of Video Promotion from 2002-2006. He has worked with artists such as Mariah Carey, Fall Out Boy, Bon Jovi, The Osbournes, Oasis, Rage Against the Machine, Good Charlotte, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Michael Jackson and Incubus. In addition, he holds an MBA from Columbia University.

JESSE IGNJATOVIC, Executive Producer
Prior to Den of Thieves, Jesse Ignjatovic spent 14 years at MTV, where he was responsible for developing innovative projects with music talent, as well as long-form, music-based programming for the network. He co-created, produced and developed such memorable programming as “Meet the Barkers,” “Diary,” “mtvICON,” “Dancelife,” with Jennifer Lopez, and “Life & Rhymes of…,” which featured profiles of artists including Nas, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, Ludacris and Snoop Dogg. In addition, he co-created and executive produced “MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups – Jay-Z/Linkin Park,” which won a Grammy award in 2004.

CONRAD GREEN, Executive Producer
Conrad Green began his career as a factual and entertainment producer in the U.K. in the 1990’s.  He worked on hits such as “Ibiza Uncovered,” “The Pride of Britain Awards” and “Guinness World Records” before show-running  and launching the seminal shows in U.K. reality TV, ”Big Brother” and “Popstars.” In the U.K., he originated shows for all the major networks, ran a unit at the BBC and received awards from the Montreal TV Festival, Royal Television Society, Broadcast, National Television Awards and BAFTA.

Since moving to the U.S., he served as an executive on ”World Idol” and “All-American Girl” before overseeing “Dancing with the Stars” for ABC as show-runner for the first 18 seasons. Since then, he has worked on “Utopia,” “You the Jury” and “My Kitchen Rules” for Fox and “The Gong Show” for ABC.  For his work on “Dancing with the Stars,” he has received People’s Choice, GLAAD and TV Guide Awards and was nominated for multiple Producers Guild Awards and Emmy Awards.

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