He joked, cooked and copied Americans: how Ivan Urgant changed while working on TV Stars

It’s hard to believe, but Urgant has been working on TV for almost a quarter of a century!

Many believe that this popular morning show on the music channel was Urgant’s first work on television, but this is not the case. He joined the broadcast team, where his co-host was Olga Shelestova, in 2001, and in 1999 Ivan managed to work as a presenter of the Petersburg Courier program on Channel Five. By the way, he hosted several other programs on MTV: “Total Show” and “Big Cinema”, as well as “Expresso”, where his co-host was Tanya Gevorkyan, with whom he had an affair. But the audience remembered them less than the sparkling “Merry Morning”.

After leaving MTV, Urgant became the host of a new music television talent show. Together with Fekla Tolstaya, he participated in the first two seasons of the project, the winners of which were Alexey Goman and Ruslan Alekhno.

Urgant moved to the first button in 2005, starting with the Big Premiere program, and then got his first own show – Spring with Ivan Urgant. However, these projects did not succeed. But the real success was his arrival in the culinary program “Smak” in 2006, where Urgant replaced Andrei Makarevich *, who stood at the stove there for more than 10 years. By the way, Makarevich himself * offered Urgant to replace him in this post. Urgant led Smak until the closure of the program in 2018.

In 2008, a program appeared on the air, thanks to which Urgant established himself in the role that became his trademark – a showman of parody and entertainment programs. The idea of ​​the program was borrowed from similar American and German shows, but it was not a direct adaptation – Alexander Tsekalo and Ruslan Sorokin were officially the authors of the idea. A characteristic feature of the program was various parodies – of famous personalities, serials, commercials, popular TV shows and even paintings. Urgant hosted the show until 2012.

Simultaneously with the parody show, Urgant also hosted this program on the channel, where his co-hosts were Garik Martirosyan, Sergey Svetlakov and Alexander Tsekalo. The four of them jokingly discussed the latest news and headlines in the studio. An invited guest from the ranks of politicians or show business stars also appeared in each episode. The filming was also watched by foreign stars who came to Moscow, such as Antonio Banderas and Daniel Radcliffe. Later, this tradition will be followed by an evening urgent show.

In 2012, ProjectorParisHilton closed in its original format as Svetlakov and Martirosyan moved to TNT.

Well, Urgant did not remain without work – the entertainment format loved by the audience was slightly modified, based on the popular American Late Night Show, and in 2012 they released the Evening Urgant program.

In the studio, Ivan humorously commented on the current news, chatted with the guests, and the mood was set by the group Fruits, who performed live the musical intro of the program and various improvisations. The program also featured various regular humorous sections. One of the most striking is “Sharp message with Alla Mikheeva”. The program aired until February 2022, after which it was suspended.

*Included in the list of persons acting as a foreign agent

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