Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee (Australian TV series)

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Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee
GenreComedy
Panel show
Game show
Created by Guy Montgomery
Presented byGuy Montgomery
Starring Aaron Chen
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes8 (1 aired)
Production
Executive producers
  • Cam Bakker
  • Bronwynn Bakker
  • Greg Sitch
  • Guy Montgomery
  • Mark Sutton
Producers
  • Cam Bakker
  • Bronwynn Bakker
Camera setupMulti-camera
Production companies
Original release
Network ABC
Release14 August 2024 (2024-08-14) 
present
Related
Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee

Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee is an Australian television comedy panel show on the ABC, created and presented by Guy Montgomery and co-hosted by Aaron Chen, based on the New Zealand TV show of the same name. The eight-episode first series premiered on 14 August 2024; every episode was made available on ABC iview that day. [1]

Contents

Guy Mont Spelling Bee is loosely based on a spelling bee: each episode, four comedians participate in a series of rounds, where the goal is almost always to spell words or names in rounds that are "designed to befuddle, bamboozle, and bedazzle". [1] The winner of each episode competes again the following week and the loser of each episode (the one who got last place) must wear a dunce cap in the Dunce's Corner. [1] [2]

The cast is set to include Wil Anderson, Tony Armstrong, Concetta Caristo, Urzila Carlson (who also appeared in the original New Zealand version), Tom Gleeson, Peter Helliar, Geraldine Hickey, Nazeem Hussain, Demi Lardner, Zoë Coombs Marr, Luke McGregor, Tim Minchin, Rhys Nicholson and Steph Tisdell. [1] [3]

The show is co-produced by Kevin & Co. and ABC Television. [1] [4] This is the second Kevin & Co. production outside New Zealand, having earlier been involved in the production of Taskmaster Australia .

Format

Each episode begins with The Spelling Round and ends with The Buzz Round. In between those rounds, there are other rounds which vary with each episode.

The Spelling Round

Guests pick a word from the Coward's Cup (easy to spell words worth one point), the Person's Purse (worth two points), or the Bucket of Bravery (words deemed challenging to spell and worth three points). The guest receives the points if their spelling is correct.

Original rounds

Adapted rounds

The Buzz Round

The Buzz Round refers to the fast-paced round where words based on the chosen theme are spelled in a rapid-fire manner. The guest that is in last place, or chosen by Montgomery among those tied in last place, chooses one of four categories provided by Montgomery to start the round. Once the round starts, the guest who hits the buzzer first is given an opportunity to spell the word. Each word is worth one point, but the guest is docked one point if their spelling is incorrect.

The amount of time given in this round varies with episode. The round ends once the voice of the spelling gods utters the words, "Stop spelling!"

End of episode

At the end of each episode, the guest with the highest score is declared the winner and returns in the next episode. Conversely, the guest with the lowest score walks to the "Dunce's Corner" to wear a dunce cap there.

Episodes

Season 1

The first season premiered on 14 August 2024, with new episodes airing each Wednesday night. All eight episodes were released at once on ABC iview. The air dates shown in the table below are for ABC TV.

No. in
season
GuestsOriginal air dateAustralian viewers
(national)
1 Urzila Carlson (6), Nazeem Hussain (14), Danielle Walker (3), Tom Gleeson (13) [5] 14 August 2024 (2024-08-14)659,000 [6]
The Spelling Round; Money; Spell it Better; Hometown Hero; Spell the Audience Name; The Buzz Round
2 Geraldine Hickey, Peter Helliar, Urvi Majumdar, Nazeem Hussain 21 August 2024 (2024-08-21)TBD
3Cameron James, Jenny Tian, Tim Minchin, Nazeem Hussain 28 August 2024 (2024-08-28)TBD
4 Wil Anderson, Steph Tisdell, Demi Lardner, Cameron James4 September 2024 (2024-09-04)TBD
5 Tom Ballard, Luke McGregor, Nikki Britton, Cameron James11 September 2024 (2024-09-11)TBD
6 Rhys Nicholson, Concetta Caristo, Dan Rath, Tom Ballard 18 September 2024 (2024-09-18)TBD
7 Greg Larsen, Zoe Coombs Marr, Tony Armstrong, Tom Ballard 25 September 2024 (2024-09-25)TBD
8 Michael Hing, Alex Lee, Tom Walker, Greg Larson 2 October 2024 (2024-10-02)TBD
Final scores in parentheses after the name; winner in bold text

Reception

The premiere episode attracted an average overnight audience of 659,000 viewers nationally, winning the daily slot. [7] [6]

David Knox of TV Tonight gave the show three-and-a-half out of five stars. [8]

Critic Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen of The Guardian gave it a positive review (five out of five stars), describing the show as "an absolute d-e-l-i-g-h-t". [9]

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Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee is a New Zealand television comedy panel show on Three, created and presented by Guy Montgomery and co-hosted by Sanjay Patel. The show is loosely based on a spelling bee: each episode, four comedians participate in a series of rounds, where the goal is almost always to spell words or names in rounds that are "designed to be infuriating to take part in and entertaining to watch". The winner of each episode competes again the following week, and the loser of each episode must wear a dunce cap in the Dunce's Corner.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee premieres this August on ABC". ABC. 17 July 2024. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
  2. "ABC: Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee premieres this August". ScreenHub. 18 July 2024.
  3. "'Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee' (First Look)". IF. 18 July 2024. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
  4. Knox, David (11 May 2024). "ABC Productions behind new titles". TV Tonight. TV Tonight . Retrieved 20 July 2024.
  5. Knox, David (14 August 2024). "Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee: Aug 14". TV Tonight. TV Tonight . Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  6. 1 2 Knox, David (15 August 2024). "Wednesday 14 August 2024". TV Tonight. TV Tonight . Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  7. Knox, David (15 August 2024). "Thank God You're Here returns strong for 10. Guy Mont Spelling Bee wins Wednesday slot". TV Tonight. TV Tonight . Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  8. Knox, David (14 August 2024). "Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee". TV Tonight. TV Tonight . Retrieved 15 August 2024.
  9. Nguyen, Giselle Au-Nhien (13 August 2024). "Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spelling Bee review – an absolute d-e-l-i-g-h-t". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 15 August 2024.