Count Shake-ula OUT; Bellamy IN!

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on February 5th, 2007

NBC announced a new host and new talent scouts for the upcoming season of Last Comic Standing:

NBC’s unscripted laughfest Last Comic Standing will return to the schedule this summer with new host Bill Bellamy, new talent scouts including Last Comic Standing alumni Alonzo Bodden, Ant and Kathleen Madigan — and an all new quest — to find the funniest new comedian in the world. The Emmy-nominated series broadens its scope this season by searching internationally for the world’s funniest comedian, holding casting calls in London, Montreal and Sydney, Australia in addition to Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Tempe. Celebrity judges will also join the talent scouts as they search for the world’s funniest new comic.

Count Shake-ula (Anthony Clarke), who did such a smashing job hosting the fourth season, will go on to other projects. Bill Bellamy, so likeable in the ill-fated Fox series Fastlane, will probably be an engaging host. RossMark, the two-headed Simon Cowell imitation, are, we assume, history. This bodes well for the selection/audition portion of the show. It may actually be… funny.

Editors note: We meant to dub the former scouts “ReadMark,” an amalgam of the names of the former LCS scouts, not “RossMark,” which, as a reader pointed out, is merely an amalgam of the first and last names of one scout!