Aussie comedian Rove McManus is the first to make fun of the fact that nobody in America has ever heard of him.
"Nobody in the States knows who I am," he says with an affable laugh. "It's such a small amount of people that it's not even worth counting."
But as McManus parades on stage to deliver the opening monologue for "Rove LA," a weekly talkshow that plays to substantial audiences in Australia and the U.K. (its premiere hooked the No. 1 spot the week it aired), it's hard to imagine why he's not a star in the States as well.
"When Jay Leno first invited me to do 'The Tonight Show' in 2007, people thought I was from England," quips the Perth-born comic, who as a teen dreamt of becoming the next Johnny Carson. "Americans were not quite ready to hear foreigners; Aussies mumble and talk far too quickly. Now there are more Australian actors -- Sam Worthington, Simon Baker and they've paved the way for other performers."
This exciting new celebrity talk show shot in front of a live audience at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, incorporates the hottest guests every week and joining Rove for his premiere episode will be mega sitcom star from Friends Lisa Kudrow, Emmy Award winning comedian Kathy Griffin and Entourage star Jerry ‘Turtle’ Ferrarak.
Rove LA will continue to deliver star power every week including confirmed guests for episode two (September 26)- America’s funniest man Steve Carrell, home grown international superstar Hugh Jackman and the very stylish Tim Gunn from Project Runway.
The one hour series will also provide viewers with Rove’s take on the LA way of life and brings a weekly slice of Hollywood taking you beyond the tourist traps to discover why the phrase ‘Only in LA’ was coined. (continue reading the full article)
ROVE McManus is renowned for projecting a polite but slightly distant manner in interviews. His desire to offer little more than a glimpse of what makes him tick at and away from work is no great surprise given he feels he's been burned so many times in the past.
If you were to rifle through press clippings on McManus, who on Monday makes his return to hosting on FOX8's Rove LA, you'd discover piles of magazine stories quoting his non-existent "friends" all too eager to offer supposedly deep insight into his private and professional lives.
He has the TV persona of someone who's near impossible to rile, but he's quick to present his prickly side if he thinks a line of questioning is either disrespectful or based on an unfounded rumour.
McManus, speaking from his production base in Los Angeles, weighs his words carefully as if to imagine how they'll look in print... (continue reading the full article)
ROVE McManus is close to cracking the big time in the American TV market, with a breakthrough just around the corner, according to Todd Yasui, the American executive producer of his new Foxtel show.
As well as showing on Fox 8 in Australia, a UK deal is all but signed, sealed and delivered according to McManus's long-time right-hand man, fellow executive producer Craig Campbell.
"It's great news," he said.
"I'm proud of him. We didn't go searching for that deal, it came to us. (read the full article)
TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO - Rove Across America Added: Tuesday 6th September
Some preview photographs of Rove filming his 'Rove Across America' segment for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno currently scheduled for Thursday the 8th of September (U.S).
Rove LA will see Rove back in his natural habitat – a supercharged comedy driven talk show in front of a live audience, talking to celebrities. Incorporating the hottest guests as well as Rove’s take on the LA way of life, this exclusive one hour series is the perfect way to welcome Rove McManus back into your lounge room... (continue reading the full article)
From The Sydney Morning Herald: Rove's bid to be the next Leno or Letterman Added: Monday 1st August
As a Perth teen, Rove McManus dreamed of becoming a wildly successful TV talk-show host. Now, after years of charming Aussie viewers, he has set his sights on the home of the brave. Janet Hawley meets him in Los Angeles.
When Rove McManus awakes in his new secluded home, at the base of a peaceful canyon in Beverly Hills, just beyond the craziness of Hollywood, he knows he is among showbiz royalty. Higher up, along the manicured winding streets lined with tall security fences and taller hedges, sits David and Victoria Beckham's fairy-tale white palace. More importantly to McManus, the home of Jay Leno is only a few streets away...
Comedian Rove McManus, a three-time Gold Logie Award winner as the "Most Popular Personality on Australian Television" and host of his own top-rated late night TV talk show for the past decade, is bringing his down under humor to Southern California with a series of live podcasts originating from the "Jon Lovitz Comedy Club" at Universal CityWalk, beginning August 10.
McManus's arrival at CityWalk comes at a time when more Australians are heading to Los Angeles for extended vacations and visits to such iconic attractions as Universal Studios HollywoodSM.
Rove McManus, said: "As an avid podcast fan and especially of those recorded at 'The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club,' it is a ridiculously exciting opportunity to be the next in line to entertain the masses through such a widespread medium. Plus, the benefit of appearing at Universal CityWalk means I'm one of the few people who can say they can check out 'King Kong: 360 3-D' – the world's largest most intense 3D experience – on the way to work."
Thomas See, Vice President of Sales for Universal Studios Hollywood said: "We are thrilled that Rove selected Universal CityWalk and the 'The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club' as the site to host his weekly podcast. With visitation by Australians at an all-time high, we're pleased to be able to share this exciting opportunity with both vacationing Aussies and L.A. residents who will enjoy Rove's hilarious sense of humor at one of L.A.'s leading comedy venues."
Additional dates for the live Rove McManus podcasts will be August 17, 24 and 31. Performances begin at 8 p.m., and tickets can be purchased online at CityWalkHollywood.com or on site at the "The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club."
Rove to go live with show from City of Angels Added: Saturday 23 July
TRIPLE Gold Logie winner Rove McManus will make his much-anticipated return to the small screen on September 19 with his new variety show Rove LA.
The whip-smart host, who stole the show at the ASTRA Awards when presenting the gong for Channel of the Year, will head back to his adopted home of Los Angeles on Tuesday, with his wife Tasma Walton, and open the production office for his new show on August 1.
"We get back Tuesday and I head off on Thursday to do a piece on the world lumberjack championship for the Tonight Show (hosted by Jay Leno) and then we are in the office on Monday," McManus said.
"It is going to be great. I have had enough rest."
McManus said his new show for Fox8 would be mainly based around celebrity interviews, although he would also be filing reports from famous and infamous and just plain odd LA locations.
"The fact we are in LA will hopefully work in our favour. We will only be asking them (guests) to drive 15 minutes instead of fly 15 hours, so that will be good," he said.
"We have got people locked in already, which is a nice start."
McManus said he was ready for the new challenge.
"I have really just been recharging my batteries (since leaving Channel 10).
"There is some pressure, but if it is coming from anywhere it is put on me by myself and I think that is a good thing."
"Hosting Aussies In Film event tonight, on @chelsealately tomorrow, Tonight Show with @jayleno Fri & stand up gig Saturday. Busy but fun week"- Rove via Twitter
TELEVISION - Rove on Chelsea Lately round table Added: Monday 30th May
Theres a chance Rove McManus will be making a scheduled appearance on Chelsea Lately along side comics Ross Mathews & Jen Kirkman on Wednesday the 8th of June (@ 11pm U.S time.)
Rove McManus back for awards Added: Wednesday 1st June
ROVE McManus is returning from Los Angeles to present at the ASTRA Awards in Sydney next month.
Rove will fittingly present honours for the best of subscription television.
His new show, Rove LA, screens in September on FOX8.
"As a new recruit to the world of subscription television this has a first-day-of-school feel to it, although my first day of school didn't have canapes and if it did I wouldn't have left," Rove said from LA.
ASTRAs manage to pull Rove McManus as hostto present award Added: Tuesday 31st May (revised)
LOS Angeles-based Rove McManus will head home in July to host the ASTRA Awards.
LOS Angeles-based Rove McManus will head home in July to present a gong at the ASTRA Awards for 2011.
The pay awards could benefit from some star-power following budgetary cuts that have seen the ceremony reeled in over the past two years.
The ASTRAs were hosted by Brian McFadden and Charlotte Dawson in a 2009 wine and beer-fuelled event, but such were the headlines that Foxtel bosses Brian Walsh and Kim Williams were left unimpressed.
So they moved it to the State Theatre last year with cocktails before, not during the show, and then again after at the event party at Ivy.
The venue on July 21 is the Sydney Theatre Company in Walsh Bay where McManus will present one of 14 awards.
TELEVISION - Rove Across America - The Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog Jubilee (Angels Camp, California) Added: Wednesday 25 May (updated: 28 May with videos)
U.S viewers: Rove is currently scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Friday to present his 'Rove Across America' segment. Tune in at 11:35/10:35c on NBC.
Line-up (27th May): Paris Hilton, Dhani Jones, INXS with Pat Monahan
Rove has been ranked at #16 on the Top 250 Personality rankings list. Read more at News Limited and TV Tonight.
ARTICLE Added: Sunday 15th May
The Tonight Show is coming to Huntsville.
It won't be host Jay Leno, but Rove McManus, a personality on the NBC late-night show, will be in town next month to help mark the ending of the space shuttle era.
Dr. Deborah Barnhart, CEO of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, told the Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission on Friday that she received confirmation from NBC just before the quarterly meeting.
"(McManus) is going to come here and shoot some (tape segments), and they are going to show it during the week of the final launch.
"They told us they would come here and film him, and we would be invited to come to the show."
Though no date has been set for the final shuttle launch, it's expected to be some time this summer.
Nerdist Podcast Live with Rove McManus Thursday, May 12th at 8pm $10 Get all of your best Australian cliches together, because on May 12th, Chris, Jonah, and Matt are doing another live podcast at Nerdist Theater at Meltdown.
This time, they are joined by Australian megastar Rove McManus, best known for hosting his own variety show Rove and for his tireless work as a comedian. Enjoy your shrimp on the barbie!
"Special appearance by Aussie band Axis of Awesome, who will be performing a couple of songs in preparation for their big show at Largo on May 19!
TELEVISION - Rove Across America - WWE's Wrestlemania XXVII Added: Monday 4th April (clarified Tues 5th)
U.S viewers: Rove is currently scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Wednesday to present his 'Rove Across America' segment. Tune in at 11:35/10:35c on NBC.
Line-up (6th April): Glee's Matthew Morrison & Carrie Underwood
Just For Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival hosted by Pamela Anderson - Comics include Steve Martin, Rove McManus, Brad Garrett, Jimmy Carr, Tim Minchin, Cheech & Chong, Dave Thornton...
ROVE McManus has not turned his back on Australia despite selling his Melbourne house at the weekend and pushing on with plans to focus on opportunities in the US.
McManus sold his Richmond home for $3.405 million - his new home is in the Hollywood Hills - but will continue working, by way of his local production company Roving Enterprises, on three local TV shows - The 7pm Project, Before The Game and a new show he is working on for Foxtel.
"It may mark closure on his return to live locally in the short term, but he has a long-term vision for the US and bought a house there a year ago so was always going to stay a while," his representative said yesterday.
"He and Tasma are really loving it there and he was never from Melbourne, so keeping a home there, when he was from Perth, just made no sense.
TELEVISION - Rove on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Added: Tuesday 16th March
American viewers, you can catch Rove as a 'Meal or No Meal' judge on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Wednesday (16th of March) @ 11:35/10:35c on NBC.
Article:Verndale grad gains fame for beer can trick - Kern said one of his favorite moments was recognizing familiar faces from the Eelpout Festival in Walker, Minn., where he was a production assistant for "Rove Across America." The show's host, Rove McManus, was the only one of "The Tonight Show" judges to vote "No Meal." All in good fun, of course.
UPDATED(17th March)
TELEVISION Added: Monday 28th February (updated with video: Sunday 6th March)
U.S viewers: Rove is currently scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Friday (4th of March) at 11:35/10:35c on NBC.
A festival fit for an ugly, slimy fish? How could Jay Leno resist? Well, he couldn't. This weekend's International Eelpout Festival in Walker has caught the attention of folks from Leno's "Tonight Show."
Kelly Plummer, a publicist for the festival, says a crew of eight from the NBC late night show (but not Leno) arrived in town last night including correspondent Rove McManus, a TV show host from Australia. The group will be at the event through Sunday collecting footage and McManus is even taking part in Saturday's Polar Plunge. I'm guessing they'll have plenty of material for the segment tentatively slated for [Edited: March 4th] Source: TwinCities.com
• The Herald Sun: Rove breaks the ice with Leno gig - "While I'm thankful to Jay Leno and The Tonight Show staff for allowing me the opportunity to see more of what this crazy country has to offer, I have to admit I question their choice when they decided they wanted to send me within a stone's throw of the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter" - Rove
• The Courier Mail: Rove's shrinking violet - "I think I saw enough human beings with dead animals on their heads to last me the rest of my lifetime" - Rove
THERE was no hiding Channel 9 was filming a new episode of This Is Your Life at Crown on Thursday night.
Large white signs sporting the show's name outside The Palms and the nearby nightclub Co. were a giveaway... (continue reading at The Herald Sun)
'This is Your Life' episode will air Monday February 28 @ 8.30pm on Nine
FOXTEL'S executive director of television, Brian Walsh, calls it the biggest thing to happen to Foxtel since landing Hugh Jackman as a spruiker in 2004.
The subject of Walsh's adulation, Rove McManus, is a little more modest but calls his return to Australian television on the subscription-television platform as "the perfect choice"...
The Aussie power couple made waves with their hot bodies while holidaying in Perth.
With a body this good, life after Australian television is clearly agreeing with Rove McManus.
Rove and his wife, actress and author Tasma Walton, turned heads with their trim and toned physiques during a recent visit to his home town of Perth. Looking as buffed as the man of steel himself, exercise-lover Rove wasted no time stripping down to just shorts, jogging shoes and – what else? – a Superman baseball cap....
AFTER signing off from Australian television last year, Rove McManus is back with an LA-based chat show.
A YEAR after he bid farewell to Australian television and moved to Los Angeles, Rove McManus has signed a lucrative Foxtel deal that will see him again front his own, self-titled chat show.
The pint-sized performer will remain in the US, filming the program from in and around Los Angeles, where he has bought a hilltop home with his wife, actress Tasma Walton....
HE'S the talk of Tinseltown, but at a gala dinner in New York on Friday Rove McManus was just another Aussie bloke.
The comedian and talk-show host played MC at a black-tie dinner to honour the business achievements of Anthony Pratt - son of the cardboard tycoon, the late
Richard Pratt - to coincide with the G'Day USA festival.
Mr Pratt has been in charge of packaging giant Visy's US operations for about 20 years but mostly lives in Melbourne now.
Guests included Mr Pratt's mother, Jeanne Pratt; Australian ambassador to the US, Kim Beazley; TV gardening show host Jamie Durie and singer David Campbell.
Last week McManus announced he would be hosting a new show, Rove LA, which will air in Australia on Foxtel.
After a year's absence from our TV screens it is almost hard to believe that Rove McManus was once as ubiquitous on the box as the much and rightly maligned Eddie McGuire. But with news this week that Rove is returning with a new LA-based talkshow on pay TV, the question remains: does absence make the heart grow fonder?...
Rove McManus is set to make a comeback to Australian television.
The former TEN host has signed a deal with Foxtel.
He will host a one on one style interview show from Los Angeles.
McManus has been largely based in the US since ending his long-running variety show on TEN in 2009...
FOXTEL today announced that Rove McManus will return to Australian television in 2011 – exclusively on FOXTEL – to host a new talk show on FOX8.
The one hour weekly program – ROVE LA – is to be filmed in Los Angeles and will be produced by Roving Enterprises. The exclusive series will premiere on FOX8 later this year.
Each week, ROVE LA will be a postcard home from the multi-Award winning comedian and filmed in front of an intimate audience in a Hollywood studio. Celebrity guests will feature, as well as field stories from Rove while he acquaints himself with the American way of life.
On his return to Australian TV, Rove said: "While it has been great to rest, recharge and get to know LA over the past 12 months, I have really missed the adrenaline rush of a TV studio and doing what I love most. I'm excited to be back, excited to be with FOXTEL and excited to be doing a show from a country that will give me plenty to share with everyone back home. Now if only I can get the exchange rate going in the right direction…"
FOXTEL Executive Director of Television, Brian Walsh, said: "It is an under-statement to say we are excited that Rove is joining FOXTEL. His passion and enthusiasm for this project is enthralling, and after a well earned break it will be great to have him back on Australian television again."
"Every Australian television network was chasing Rove and I am delighted that he chose FOXTEL. It is an absolute vote of confidence by one of our brightest and most successful television performers that he chose FOXTEL as the future and indeed, his future.
This series will be unique. It will see Rove return to some of his comic roots and will have all the energy and spontaneity of a studio show in front of a live audience. It also promises some of Hollywood's biggest names as guest stars.
FOXTEL intends for this to be a longterm partnership. We are already planning more show ideas well into 2012. This is a landmark deal for FOXTEL," he said.
Rove McManus is enjoying kicking back as he prepares for a new role on television, he tells Luke Dennehy.
ON the roof of the glamorous West Hollywood hotel The London in Los Angeles, a refreshed and relaxed Rove McManus looks as fit and healthy as he has ever been.
It may be the middle of winter, but unseasonal weather in Los Angeles means a mini heatwave for this time of year, 26C and more like a Australian spring day.
Tanned and obviously hitting the gym, McManus turned 37 on Friday and you get the feeling he has settled into Los Angeles life.
In a city full of aspiring actors, models and television presenters, the Gold Logie winner goes unnoticed, which he loves, and little do those aspiring stars who come to the entertainment capital of the world know that McManus has achieved more fame and professional success than they could ever hope for...
I sat down with Craig Campbell our EP while I was there (in Australia late last year) at the time, I said, 'right, let's start thinking about what's next' - Rove McManus
Foxtel director of television Brian Walsh is in Los Angeles this week meeting with McManus to talk about the new show - It is an understatement to say we are excited that Rove is joining Foxtel. His passion and enthusiasm for this project is enthralling, and after a well-earned break, it will be great to have him back on Australian television again.
McManus, along with wife Tasma Walton and friends, celebrated his 37th birthday and toasted the new show on Friday night at trendy LA Mexican restaurant Red O. The couple moved to Los Angeles after his show finished in 2009.
TWITTER 
This exciting new celebrity talk show shot in front of a live audience at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, incorporates the hottest guests every week and joining Rove for his premiere episode will be mega sitcom star from Friends Lisa Kudrow, Emmy Award winning comedian Kathy Griffin and Entourage star Jerry ‘Turtle’ Ferrarak.
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On his return to Australian TV, Rove said: "While it has been great to rest, recharge and get to know LA over the past 12 months, I have really missed the adrenaline rush of a TV studio and doing what I love most. I'm excited to be back, excited to be with FOXTEL and excited to be doing a show from a country that will give me plenty to share with everyone back home. Now if only I can get the exchange rate going in the right direction…"
.com.au
