Thank God You’re Here: The real reason TV show stopped airing - NEWS.com.au

Tom Gleisner has revealed why the hit TV show Thank God You’re Here ended after just four seasons.

If you don’t remember the show, the format was pretty simple.

A guest comedian was invited by host Shane Bourne to walk through a blue door and was thrust onto a set filled with props and an ensemble cast.

It was then up to the comedian to improvise the remainder of the scene in character for five minutes.

RELATED: Kavalee reveals most challenging celebrity on Thank God You’re Here

The popular show, which was created by Working Dog Productions, ended in 2009. And now, more than 10 years later, Gleisner has explained to Ed Kavalee on the EKP podcast why they decided not to make a fifth season.

“We didn’t want to overuse the people we loved; the Shaun’s (Micallef), the Angus’s (Sampson), Julia Zemiro, Cal Wilson,” Gleisner said.

“They were fantastic performers. We got to the point where we didn’t know if there were too many other people out there who could do it and we didn’t want to get to the point where we went, ‘oh god, not Angus Sampson again!’

“So that was probably the main reason we thought, you know what, I think we’re done.”

Working Dog went on to sell the Thank God You’re Here format in more than 20 countries, and Gleisner told Kavalee that it wasn’t always easy coming up with scenarios for the Chinese to do on their version.

“Santo (Cilauro) went over to China to help them with scenarios because they’d done quite a few series and they were running out,” Gleisner said on the EKP podcast.

“It was tough because … there were no-go zones. In China you can’t do anything that questions authority, so anything where a cop or a doctor looks silly. We said, ‘Oh, we’ve got a great one about a babysitter that does something to the kids,’ and they said, ‘Oh no, with the one child policy there are no babysitters in China’.”

In addition to China, local versions of Thank God You’re Here were produced in the US, Vietnam, France, Germany and Russia.

Series 1-3 of Thank God You’re Here are streaming for free on 10 Play now. Series 4 will drop July 6

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2020-06-29 01:33:55Z
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