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.”
Evans’ Emmy submission, a Kate McKinnon episode he calls “a good reflection of the show,” will be judged against the work of Colbert, whose CBS run ended in May. The slow-rolling collapse of traditional late-night shows has been the theme of the past year, with the FCC pressuring broadcasters, network economics imploding and streaming gobbling up all of the leftovers. Evans, who built his platform entirely on YouTube, is not dancing on the grave. On the contrary, he’s still celebrating it.
“You can take away someone’s show,” Evans says, echoing what Letterman told Colbert on his final episode. “But you can’t take away their voice. The reason I fell in love with show business, in an early, core memory way, was the lights, camera and action of it all. The Ed Sullivan Theater, the crowd is full, the curtain pulls, people are cheering, and David Letterman walks out. As much as I’ve benefited from this, it is a bitter pill for me to swallow — the idea that the aspirational, swing for the fences show business is being replaced by being the No. 1 podcast on Spotify.”
The format has produced enough genuine moments to make the “gimmick” label hard to sustain. Conan O’Brien called his “Hot Ones” appearance the best interview he’s ever done. Gordon Ramsay, the guest Evans calls the most nerve-wracking booking of his career, has become a friend. Evans points to a specific signal for when an interview is working: “I look for a shoulder drop. The guest realizes that it’s not a normal interview show, and that goes beyond the scorching hotchicken wings.”
The broader case Evans is making this season has nothing to do with chicken. It is that YouTube is television, and pretending otherwise has become indefensible. The platform recently acquired the rights to air the Academy Awards, beginning with the 101st ceremony in 2029, a move Evans sees as the natural next step.
“YouTube is good at these big swings,” he says. “If you want monoculture moments, this is where these things need to live.”
Asked whether he would ever host the Oscars himself, Evans demurred before saying, “Yes.”
But can he sing? It is a helpful hosting trait to have while emceeing Hollywood’s biggest night.
He chuckles, saying, “I guess I’ll have to lean into it and see how it goes.”