Spike’s Lip Sync Battle is hilarious as it is. And now, the celebrity lip-syncing competition is planning to take things to the next level with a live telecast that will bring back some former contestants.
Scheduled to air on Sunday, September 11 at 8 p.m. ET, a month prior to the new season premiere, the one-hour special episode will feature past participants including John Legend, Olivia Munn, and Terry Crews. The show will be dubbed Lip Sync Battle: All Stars Live.
“Popular and most memorable” performers will return to battle once again. Except this time, rather than the winner being determined by audience cheers, and host LL Cool J’s skills at determining who received the loudest applause, fans will vote from home.
In attempt to spike (pun intended) interest in the special, Casey Patterson, Executive Producer, reminds us that being live means that “anything can happen.” Indeed, the show has already had some risqué moments, from sexually-charged performances from past contestants like Katharine McPhee and Julianne Hough, to disturbingly gender-bending ones from Stephen Merchant and Channing Tatum.
“Our show is always wild,” notes Patterson, “but for this show, the returning champs already know how to play and win and are focused on giving an over-the-top performance.”
There’s no word on which other stars might return beyond the three mentioned, but here’s hoping some fan favorites come back to impress us once again; from Justin Bieber’s amazingly good interpretation of Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train, to Jenna Dewan Tatum’s fantastic impression of her husband Channing as Magic Mike, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s beautifully choreographed Janet Jackson interpretation.
That said, given that John Krasinski created the show, and Merchant serves as an executive producer alongside him, chances are they will make appearances. And since the idea was first introduced on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and Fallon was a contestant on the very first episode, the now Tonight Show host is likely to show up as well — though appearances have not been officially confirmed.
Since it debuted in April 2015, Lip Sync Battle has enjoyed growing success, thanks to many of its performances going viral online after an episode’s airing. While the episode that pitted the Tatums against one another drew in 2.5 million viewers, for example, the YouTube video of the two main performances has received 34.5 million views to date. Lip Sync Battle has become the highest-rated original series in Spike’s history.
The third season of Lip Sync Battle will debut on a new date and time slot, on Wednesday, October 12 at 9 p.m. ET on Spike.