Sean Evans has been hosting his chicken-wing eating interview series “Hot Ones” for 11 years, and he can still remember exactly what the show felt like when he wasn’t entirely sure anyone was watching.
“From the first couple of episodes, we’d have guests stand up on the tables and do laps around the studio,” Evans tells Variety. “There was such gonzo chaos. I knew that the way it would translate to video would be unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before.”
Four billion views later, the YouTube series enters this Emmy cycle in a newly merged category. Earlier this year, the TV Academy folded talk and scripted variety into a single outstanding variety series race, putting Evans in direct competition with late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert, along with the long-running sketch comedy “Saturday Night Live.” For a show that has spent more than a decade getting clicks and views, being filed under “late night” is validating, and the merger feels like a coronation waiting to pop for aspiring creators.
“‘Hot Ones’ is a show that’s very much influenced by the traditional talk shows that have come before us,” Evans says. “We have this unique, novel, internet-y hook with the wings. But overall, we’ve always thought of it as a traditional late-nighttalk show.”
