Shaun Micallef is trying to bridge the generation gap again, with a new TV game show – and this time he’s brought his son, Gabe, along for the ride.
The father-son duo are hosts of Shaun Micallef’s Parents’ Evening, which premiered on Ten on September 28.
“When he was a kid, we used to recreate scenes from movies we’d watched and enjoyed,” Micallef said.
“This is kind of a version of the same thing. It’s a bit like getting some boxes together and making a Batmobile … he’s just a bit older now.”
It’s something of a full-circle return for the senior Micallef, who also hosted Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation – which pitted baby boomers and generations X and Y against each other – on Ten from 2009-2019.
He said the offer for Parents’ Evening “came out of the blue”, but he couldn’t have done it unless his son was interested.
“I said, ‘Look … I’m keen to do as many different things that I haven’t done [before] as possible, with whatever time I’ve got left’,” Micallef, 64, said.
” ‘I haven’t done a show with a member of my family, so that might be interesting’.”
If Gabe – jokingly labelled a “nepo baby” by his father – didn’t think it was a good idea, Micallef said he wouldn’t have encouraged him to go ahead.
“I think that would be terrible. ‘Gabe, can you do this so that I can have a job?’,” he said.
However, the main draw to Parents’ Evening – which adapted from a British show of the same name – for Micallef was being able to “build something with my son”.
The show’s premise is simple: Parents predict how many questions their adult children will answer correctly. The winning teams take home bragging rights and a pot of money for their chosen charity.
So far, the series has featured the likes of journalist Ray Martin and his daughter Jenna; comedian Joel Creasey and his mum Jenny; and newsreader Jessica Rowe with daughter Allegra Overton.
Micallef said Parents’ Evening also fulfilled the promise he made to himself after Mad As Hell finished its 15-season run on ABC TV in 2022 that he would be “in the service of other people’s stories”.
“We’re getting that with the teams. We see Jessica Rowe in a different way. We see how she is so incredibly supportive of her daughter, Allegra,” he said.
“When Jenna Martin was answering the questions right in the first episode, we see that Ray can’t help but look proud.”
The show proves that, famous or not, you can never fake it with family. Micallef said it enabled viewers to “have a peek into the person when their guard is down”.
“Having a parent or a child sitting next to you, who’s yours, helps because you can’t fake it. You can be quite real,” he said.
Shaun Micallef’s Parents’ Evening airs on Mondays at 7.30pm on Network Ten and streams on Ten Play
