Chaos erupts on ABC as heckler interrupts live TV game show
New Zealand comedian and host of Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee was left flabbergasted when a contestant got the unexpected lifeline from the audience.
Fellow comedian He Huang was struggling to identify (and then spell) the name of a country represented by one of four international flags.
'Does it start with G?' she asked Guy, after being given the 'fun fact' prompt: 'This country has a lot of world's heaviest animals because a lot of them are still carrying the psychological weight of World War Two.'
' Poland!' a voice from the crowd yelled out, shocking everyone on the stage.
From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop.
Fellow contestants Emma Holland and Rove McManus were left visibly shocked, with Emma covering her mouth with one hand to stifle a genuine gasp and Rove freezing with his jaw open.
'That is absolutely illegal,' a stunned Guy reprimanded the audience member, prompting a round of raucous laughter.
Co-host Aaron Chen sprung into action.
'Don't worry Guy, I'll go sort this,' he yelled, before pretending to run into the audience to apprehend the audience member.
Not to be outdone, Rove made eye contact with the audience as he said, 'Before I go, can I just check, are any of my "ancestors" out there?'
'That is generally discouraged,' Guy responded.
The host was adamant that the real-life blooper not be taken out of the episode in the final edit because he enjoyed how 'incredibly unusual' and 'kind of funny' the moment was.
Speaking to news.com.au, Guy said he felt the social contract between a live audience and TV quiz show contestants was 'pretty clear'.
Which is, of course, not to participate in the game show unless you're actually a contestant.
'To be fair, no one was requesting spelling assistance,' Guy laughed.
'The show does draw an audience of word nerds or people who believe in themselves as spellers, so there is a sense of excitement and frustration that can occur when they're watching a contestant who is so close to approaching a word.'
The stand-up comic and TV host attempted to unpack potential underlying motivations that may have pushed the helpful heckler to break that unspoken contract.
'One might be sympathy and that you're wanting to help them. You think "I can get them over the line here",' he theorised.
Guy came up with the idea for The Guy Mont Spelling Bee in 2020 during the Covid lockdown in Auckland.
He invited some of his comedian friends to join him on a Zoom for the silly spelling contest and uploaded the results to YouTube, creating an informal pilot for a stage show.
Joseph Moore came onboard as a co-writer and pitched the idea to ABC, with Aaron Chen attached as a co-host.
Guy has previously said the series has developed 'quite an intense fandom,' thanks its rotating roster of top Aussie and Kiwi comedians.
Previous guests have included the likes of Melanie Bracewell, Urzila Carlson, Geraldine Hickey, Nazeem Hussain, Demi Lardner, Zoë Coombs Marr, Luke McGregor, Tim Minchin, Rhys Nicholson and Steph Tisdell.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Ivo Graham: Orange Crush review – comic riffs on his favourite colour, from Irn-Bru to Wotsits
With Orange Crush, Ivo Graham promises us either his best ever standup set, or a colour-coordinated breakdown. I'm not sure it's either. Having been asked 'What's your favourite colour?' by his six-year-old kid, this show riffs on Graham's fondness for orange – which doesn't exactly scream standup with something essential to say. But he roams around the subject entertainingly enough, in an hour addressing Wotsits and Irn-Bru, his mother's MS and his role in the campaign to save Swindon Town football club. Alongside that material, Graham is bracingly outspoken on Palestine, to which cause he also lends his support. All of which, with his newfound suavity and recent rebranding (tongue in cheek or otherwise) as simply 'Ivo', made me wonder: whither the shy and self-abasing Graham of yesteryear? It mightn't have been much fun to live, but it was a compelling comic persona – whereas Ivo 2.0, 34 years old and with a bit of swagger, is harder to grasp. Not that he's grown out of awkwardness. The stories here loop around reveals of Graham's favourite orange things ('It's time to lift the first cloche of the evening …'), and the first finds him banging into an old flame while riding a particularly manky Lime bike. In another, his plan is thwarted to pester Nick Hornby at a VIP dinner. There are one or two clunky audience interactions, too, that our host frets about more than is necessary. On the flipside, a cocky visual gag offsets any Orange Order anxieties among the Scottish crowd; and then there's his 'I'm the top Ivo' material, comparing himself to his humbler namesakes. One such is the rapper Drake (full name: Aubrey Drake Graham), and the comic knows well how funny it is for a posh Englishman to implicate himself in hip-hop 'diss tracks'. His Eton background gives us the show's funniest gag, too, about a careers fair at his former school. Much of what remains prompts smiles rather than belly laughs, with his tale of filming a video for his save Swindon campaign in particular feeling too many steps removed from the stage. It's not a career best, but there are flashes in this chromatically themed outing of Graham in glorious Technicolor. At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 24 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
Take a Ted Lasso-inspired tour of Kansas City as filming locations for season 4 are revealed
Filming of the highly anticipated fourth season of comedy-drama Ted Lasso is underway in Kansas City, Missouri. And it looks like the Midwestern destination will feature heavily in the Apple TV+ series, which sees KC native Jason Sudeikis playing a small-time American football coach hired to manage English soccer team AFC Richmond. A teaser clip of a Kansas City restaurant scene was posted to Instagram by Apple TV+ and the cast and crew have been spotted in several other locations around the city. Here, we reveal how you can follow in their footsteps with a breakdown of the key filming spots used so far. The Plaza Several scenes have already been filmed at the Country Club Plaza, Kansas City's historical downtown retail area, which features 15 city blocks of Spanish-inspired architecture, dozens of fountains and the chance to shop trendy designer brands and dine at popular restaurants. Season 4 reportedly sees Ted coaching a women's football team and during filming at The Plaza, Sudeikis was seen wearing a jacket sporting the branding for the Kansas City Current team, the first National Women's Soccer League team to sell out all of its home games. Gates Bar-B-Q There are five Gates Bar-B-Q restaurants across the Kansas City metropolitan area, but it was the Main Street branch that will be seen on screen in Season 4. Apple TV+ posted to Instagram a teaser scene filmed at the eatery, which is famed for its signature sauce and the Kansas City specialty 'burnt ends' – flavorful, caramelised pieces of meat from the point end of the brisket. CPKC Stadium Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham, who plays AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton, have been spotted filming at the CPKC, home of the Kansas City Current. The CPKC opened in March 2024 as the world's first privately financed stadium purpose-built exclusively for a professional women's football team.. 18th & Vine District The historic jazz district is one of Kansas City's must-sees and home to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, where the crew spent a whole day filming. The compelling museum preserves and celebrates the rich history of African American baseball and its impact on the social advancement of America. Visitors can peruse hundreds of photographs, artifacts and several film exhibits.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
Jamali Maddix: Aston review – bursts of brilliance and a wicked sense of humour
'I used to be a cool young comic with cool young fans,' bewails Jamali Maddix. He's certainly one of the most intriguing, though not perfectly formed, comic voices of his generation, with little by way of filter and never one to be swayed by on-message orthodoxy. He may now be moving into middle age, at 34, with touring show Aston, but this isn't a step forward – just another characteristic compound of fearless and sometimes lazy thinking, pitted with brilliant moments casually moved on from and underdeveloped. One thing the Ilford man has never been backwards about is his own delinquency, and Aston opens with a life update from a man who self-identifies as 'toxic but cheeky'. He's no longer cheating on his girlfriends. He held out for only three days before surrendering his ID to access porn online. He's also now using Ozempic to control his weight (cue a fun gag about submitting naked pics of himself to a pervy doctor) and addicted to the TikTok output of former light-entertainment icon Michael Barrymore. The running Barrymore gag is the one you'd expect from any comic with a wicked sense of humour. The show's best section finds Maddix addressing himself to racism and British identity. Again, the quality veers wildly, from a choice line on Nigel Farage ('He's got poor people thinking other poor people made them poor') to a glib remark about small boats. But this is the section where Maddix's own thinking expands, as he conjures with the idea and lives of poor white people (some in his own family), marvels about the quantity of hate in the air, and imagines racists being given, if only for 24 hours, the country they think they'd like to live in. This sequence finds our host contemplating his own stake in Britishness. What does it mean to have a face that represents the new Britain – and be told you can't be British? When Maddix is good, he's profane, surprising and insightful all at the same time. He's just never quite as rigorously good as he could be. At Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, until 24 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews
