Chance The Rapper to host the Punk'd reboot (on Quibi)
Every famous person who knows Chance The Rapper presumably just had a chill go up their spine today, as The Wrap reports that the musician, actor, and philanthropist has just added “Punk’d host” to his extensive resume. Taking over for Ashton Kutcher, Chance will be taking the reins on the long-running prank show, which is making its way from massive viewership on MTV over the decades to, uh, streaming-service-but-it’s-just-for-phones Quibi.
And you know what? We’ve poked some gentle fun at Quibi—for its bad name, for its optimistically ambitious content acquisition strategies, for its decision to make “turning your phone over” sound like revolutionary tech—but this is actually a pretty great fit. Punk’d is a show of clips, not episodes, anyway, i.e., the perfect thing to watch on your phone whenever you get curious about whether, say, Zach Braff can handle a tense situation particularly well. And Chance has exhibited a boundless energy for silliness that might cut down on some of the pure nastiness that so frequently marked Kutcher’s tenure on the show.
And while America’s famouses now know to be on the watch for weird customer service interactions, fake crimes perpetrated against them, or Chance in a mustache, the damage has probably already been done; Punk’d inherently relies on secrecy, so we’re going to assume that, if a high-profile announcement like this is being made, any number of pranks have already been shot.