Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones Jr. (born May 19, 1949) is an American television producer and director of award shows and live television events. He is a public speaker and frequent moderator and panel participant for entertainment industry events, and the founder of SJ2 Entertainment. He is the son of satirical musician and bandleader, Spike Jones, and singer and actress, Helen Grayco, and has three sisters, including Grammy-winning recording engineer,

Leslie Ann Jones Leslie Ann Jones is a multiple Grammy Award-winning recording engineer working as Director of Music Recording and Scoring at Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm, Ltd. company. She is a past Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science ...

Early life

Jones Jr. was born into a show business family, and had a childhood career as a musician and performer. His father, satirical musician Spike Jones, led the band

Spike Jones and his City Slickers Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gun ...

. They recorded numerous hit parody songs from the 1940s through the early 1960s. His mother, singer and actress Helen Grayco, often performed in her husband's stage and television shows. Jones Jr. and his sisters spent much time on the road visiting their parents during the summer months. In early 1965, at age 15, Jones Jr. briefly took over as bandleader when his father became too ill to perform. At that time, the band was called Spike Jones and the Band That Plays for Fun. Jones Jr. had watched his father's act so many times, he knew where every gunshot, horn honk and glug went. During the following months, when his father returned to work doing three shows a night in Vegas and Lake Tahoe, Jones Sr. would perform the first two shows, and Jones Jr. would lead the band during the third show. When his father died on May 1, 1965, Jones Jr. once again stepped in and led the band for a number of scheduled performances.

Career

For 20 years he produced the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards for The Television Academy taking it from a dinner-dance held in a convention hall to a nationally telecast primetime production, emanating from the

Microsoft Theater The Microsoft Theater (formerly Nokia Theatre L.A. Live) is a music and theater venue in downtown Los Angeles, California, at L.A. Live. The theater auditorium seats 7,100 and holds one of the largest indoor stages in the United States. History ...

at LA Live. For five consecutive years, he produced the Emmy Awards Nominations Announcement Ceremony. He produced the

41st Daytime Emmy Awards The 41st Daytime Emmy Awards, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), "recognizes outstanding achievement in all fields of daytime television production and are presented to individuals and programs broadcast fr ...

and has produced and directed projects for

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

, Oxygen,

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

A&E Networks A&E Networks (stylized as A+E NETWORKS) is an American multinational broadcasting company that is a 50–50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company through its General Entertainment Content division. The company o ...

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network based in New York City and owned by Paramount Global. It was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, at the time a division of Warner Commun ...

, NBC, E!,

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

, IFC, and ABC. These include the

Film Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass ...

, Writers Guild of America Awards,

Jerry Lewis Telethon The ''MDA Labor Day Telethon'' was an annual telethon held on (starting the night before and throughout) Labor Day in the United States to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). The Muscular Dystrophy Association was founded in ...

, the

Spike Video Game Awards The Spike Video Game Awards (in short VGAs, known as the VGX for the final show) was an annual award show hosted by American television network Spike from 2003 to 2013 that recognized the best computer and video games of the year. Produced by ...

, the Red Carpet for the

TV Land Awards The TV Land Icon Awards was an American television awards ceremony that generally commemorates shows now off the air, rather than in current production as with the Emmys. Created by Executive Producer Michael Levitt, the awards were hosted and broa ...

, and

The Closer ''The Closer'' is an Television in the United States, American television police procedural starring Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Leigh Johnson, a Los Angeles Police Department Chief of police#United States, deputy chief. A CIA-trained interrogator o ...

series finale. Jones Jr. entered the arena of online gaming by directing Blizzard Entertainment's premiere release of

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

: Warlords of Draenor Cinematic Reveal in 2014. Jones Jr. lectures, mentors and presents seminars for the Television Academy's educational and charitable arm, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation (ATAS). In 2015 he executive-produced the Foundation's College Television Awards. In 2015, Jones was presented with the Syd Cassyd Founders Emmy Award by ATAS his work and contribution its behalf. In 2014 Jones Jr. produced and directed SCORE: A Concert of Music Composed for Television, a one-off orchestral concert at Royce Hall featuring a range of iconic television theme music from

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...

Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...

, all conducted by the composers of each popular theme.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Spike Jr. 1949 births American television producers Living people