Variety Big Brother (, literally Big Brother of Entertainment), also known as Big Brother's Return, was a

television show A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed b ...

hosted by Chang Fei, a.k.a. Fei Ge, which screened on

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

ese channel

China Television China Television Company, Ltd. (CTV; ) (Formerly called Taiwan Daytime TV (TDT) in 1969-1975) is a television broadcasting company based in Taipei, Taiwan. It was established on September 3, 1968, by the then-ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) of ...

on Saturday evenings, Singapore Mediacorp Channel U on Sunday nights and Singapore

Mediacorp Channel 8 Channel 8 ( zh, 8頻道) is a Singaporean free-to-air television channel, airing in Mandarin Chinese. It was created by Television Singapura on 31 August 1963 with experimental broadcasts, before going official on 23 November that year. The ch ...

on Friday nights. In 2007 the show was nominated for ''Best Entertainment Variety Programme'' at the 42nd

Golden Bell Awards The Golden Bell Awards () is an annual Taiwanese television and radio production award presented in October or November each year by the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, a division of Taiwan's Ministry of Culture. It is th ...

. Host Chang Fei is reportedly retiring as a host but would still be involved with the show. One of the co-hosts, ''Kang Kang'', left the show in 2004. The current co-hosts are and . The show ended its run on September 24, 2011.

Format

The program representative of the format and style common to Taiwanese

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp ...

s, with amateur performances and a number of Taiwanese celebrities. Every week the show has celebrity guests and performers from Taiwan and/or abroad. It is split into two separate types of performances. The first segment uses singing performances and the second segment uses magic performances including a magic competition judged by famous magicians. Earlier episodes typically have comedy sketches with the main cast. The series has slowly progressed into a celebrity-studded show. Like most Taiwanese variety shows, there are frequent on-screen displays (if freudian slips or puns occurred), stock sound effects and a laugh track (despite being taped in front of a fairly small audience). Chang's brother, Fei Yu Ching, a well-known classical singer, is a frequent guest and a co-host. Co-host

Ni Min Jan Ni Min-jan (; 30 April 1946 – April 2005) was a famous well-rounded Taiwanese celebrity and entertainer. TV and movie star. Comedian and recording artist. Cross-talk(Xiangsheng) and play writer. In 1979, he teamed up with Zhang Kui, Zhang Fe ...

failed to appear in several shows, and it was later revealed he had committed suicide after he was suspected of having an affair.

International broadcast

It is shown in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

on the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

-based television station

KTSF KTSF (channel 26) is a multicultural independent television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by the Lincoln Broadcasting Company, and maintains studios on Va ...

, which shows much Chinese-language programming for the area, under the English translation ''Big Brother of Entertainment'', the literal translation of the Chinese title.

References

Taiwanese variety shows {{Taiwan-tv-stub