Ben Lyons to Host Nickelodeon's New Extreme Sports Competition Series, My Family's Got GUTS, Premiering in Prime Time Sept. 15

Ben Lyons to Host Nickelodeon's New Extreme Sports Competition Series, My Family's Got GUTS, Premiering in Prime Time Sept. 15

NEW YORK, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Ben Lyons, the E! Network's resident film critic and an entertainment correspondent, has been tapped to host Nickelodeon's new extreme sports competition series, My Family's Got GUTS. My Family's Got GUTS celebrates sports and fun, healthy competition and lifestyle and is being recreated for a new generation of families. The new prime-time series is based on GUTS, Nickelodeon's groundbreaking original hit game show from the '90s. My Family's Got GUTS will premiere on Nickelodeon on Monday, Sept. 15.

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Production is currently underway at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., on two 11-episode tournaments, (each tournament includes an hour-long finale and a half-hour special), created and executive produced by the digital entertainment studio Worldwide Biggies. Lyons will be joined by a co-host, popular Australian TV personality Asha Kuerten.

Ben Lyons is one of the most sought-after television personalities in Hollywood. At the ripe age of 26, Ben is the resident film critic and entertainment correspondent on The E! Network and can next be seen as one of the new hosts of televisions most popular and respected movie review programs, At The Movies. He will take over the reigns from Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper to star in the next generation of the acclaimed series alongside Ben Mankiewicz. Ben's movie reviews and celebrity interviews are seen on E! News, The Daily 10, and E! Online, as well as in his signature segment and webpage called "The Lyons Den." The multi-tasking Lyons can also be seen as the West Coast Entertainment correspondent for ABC's Good Morning America, doing profiles on movie makers such as Indiana Jones producer Frank Marshall and interviews with celebrities like Dwayne Johnson and Abigail Breslin for the top-rated morning show. Lyons currently resides in Los Angeles.

Born and raised in New York City, Ben is the grandson of legendary New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons, and is the son of NBC film critic Jeffrey Lyons. Much of his childhood was spent among the world's most artistic and influential people of our time. In fact, "The Lyons Den" has been covering celebrities and pop culture in the mainstream American media for more than 80 years.

Asha Kuerten, popular Australian TV personality, has hosted various charity and media events, film screenings, and short film festivals around Australia. She began her career as the host of Australia's Channel 9 afternoon kids' variety show, [Hot] Source. After two years and 200 episodes, she made the move to Sydney to host The Disney Channel's Studio Disney. Asha also had a guest spot hosting MTV's 2005 TRL Awards. In April 2006, Asha was nominated as Favourite Female Personality at the ASTRA awards and soon after landed the hosting role on FOX8's music show CD:LIVE. Asha is currently the host of the Channel 9 Saturday morning music magazine show The Music Jungle. She is also the 2008 face of skate brand Element.

My Family's Got GUTS is an extreme sports competition series that brings families together where every member of the team -- from the smallest to the strongest -- plays a vital role and works together to complete each challenge. Each episode will feature two teams of four players (two adults and two kids) who gather in the Extreme Arena to compete against each other in multiple rounds of events that put a twist on today's sports. In the final round, the families face off on a new updated 3D, super challenging version of the original GUTS' Aggro Crag fantasy mountain. The team with the most points going into the Crag round wins a time advantage, but the team who wins the Crag round wins the game.

The original GUTS was hosted by Mike O'Malley (Yes, Dear; Get the Picture) and aired on Nickelodeon from September 28, 1992, until October 1995. The half-hour action-sports game show allowed kid contestants to live out some of their greatest sports fantasies in a competitive arena. There were several different types of sporting events featured including basketball, baseball, football and soccer, while other events made use of a wave pool, a racing track and fantasy ski slope.

Popular sports figures and celebrity guests made appearances on the series including Picabo Street, Evander Holyfield, and Backstreet Boy A.J. Mclean. In its third season, the show evolved from GUTS into Global GUTS where kids from around the world competed in sporting events. The format remained the same with four athletic events and the Super Aggro Crag and the contestants included kids from the United Kingdom, Mexico, Israel, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the United States.

About Worldwide Biggies

Created by renowned children's and family entertainment hitmaker Albie Hecht, Worldwide Biggies, is a new digital entertainment studio creating web-based intellectual properties for kids, families and young adults that are designed for additional distribution in the film, TV and licensing arenas. Worldwide Biggies launched its first multi-platform hit on Nickelodeon and Nick.com last year with The Naked Brothers Band and has produced the Video Game Awards on Spike TV, which Hecht created during his tenure as the network's president.

In addition to Worldwide Fido (www.worldwidefido.com) a website dedicated to user-submitted videos of dogs, Worldwide Biggies has partnered with TMZ.com on Star vs. Star (www.starvsstar.com) an online celebrity fan community that features a celebrity fantasy league, a weekly video webcast and amazing Star Card artwork, and has launched the humorous webisode series MoCap, LLC -- a mockumentary of a video game motion capture studio. Worldwide Biggies' affiliated non-profit Shine Global was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category this year for War/Dance, a documentary set against the backdrop of Uganda's 20 year civil war. This June, the company is gearing up for the highly-anticipated launch of The Princess Bride Game (www.princessbridegame.com), the first-ever downloadable video game based on the classic film.

Nickelodeon, now in its 29th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, magazines and feature films. Nickelodeon's U.S. television network is seen in more than 96 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 14 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA)(NYSE:VIA.B).

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Source: Nickelodeon

CONTACT: Jodi Davis, +1-212-846-5981, Jodi.davis@nick.com, or Mirian
Arias, +1-212-846-7653, Mirian.arias@nick.com, both of Nickelodeon

Web Site: http://www.princessbridegame.com/
http://www.starvsstar.com/
http://www.worldwidefido.com/

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