You might assume that, after spending five years fronting a game show that tests people’s knowledge, The Chase’s Larry Emdur might be… well, smarter. But he would like to set the record straight on this.
“If anything, I’ve become dumber,” Larry, 61, jokes to TV WEEK.
“My story has always been that I’m a high-school dropout who fumbled his way through television for more than 40 years. Poor guy, bit stupid, but he’s had some luck along the way.
“Now, there’s an expectation that I know stuff, but I don’t. My mates will say, ‘Come to pub trivia Tuesday night,’ and I’ll be like, ‘No!’”
The problem is, Larry explains, that when he’s hosting The Chase, he’s so focused on what’s happening next, there’s no time to really “absorb anything”.
“I’ll get home and my wife will ask, ‘What have you learnt today?’” Larry continues, “and I’ll say, ‘Not a single thing.’ If only I’d absorbed five per cent of what I heard, I’d be so much smarter.”
Larry, who also co-hosts The Morning Show with Kylie Gillies, is known as one of the most likeable stars on TV. And he has the TV WEEK Gold Logie to prove how popular he is with audiences.
This week he brings together some of his Channel Seven mates for a prime-time Chase special called Larry & Friends.
Testing their smarts are Dr Chris Brown, Johanna Griggs, David Woiwod and Sonia Kruger.
What can we expect? According to Larry, Dr Chris is very competitive, but the TV vet may or may not be so great when it comes to animal questions. Dr Chris also confesses on the show that he’s “madly in love with [Chaser] the Governess”. Crikey!
“It was a ripper night,” Larry says of filming the special.
Soon, Larry will dust off his dinner suit for this year’s Logie Awards, where he’s up for the Bert Newton Award for Most Popular Presenter. He says it’s a “real honour” to be nominated for the award alongside Amanda Keller, Hamish Blake, Julia Morris, Lisa Millar and Robert Irwin.
“Coming into TV, I’d always look at Bert and think, ‘He is Mr Television,’” Larry says. “I thought having that sort of versatility and adaptability, that’s what TV was all about.”
When he won the award in 2024 – the same year he won Gold – Larry says he received a message of congratulations from the late entertainer’s wife, Patti Newton, which was “very special”.
And, while he’d love to see Sam Pang take out the Gold Logie this year, he also thinks Robert Irwin, who is hosting this year’s Logies ceremony, is “so hot right now”.
“He’s in a different orbit to everyone else,” Larry says of Robert.
Last year, Larry made a deal with Gold Logie nominee Ally Langdon that he would get a tattoo on his butt cheek if she won (he already has a tattoo on his butt with the initials of his fellow 2024 Gold Logie nominees). Will he get inked if Ally wins Gold this time?
“I do have a spare cheek,” he says with a laugh. “It’s not Logie ready, but it can be at short notice.”
Larry was able to tick one thing off his personal bucket list when he launched what is now a hugely successful, multi-award-winning whisky brand, The Ben Buckler, in 2024. That business, he says, “has exploded” and is now taking up “every non-TV moment of my life”.
Well, almost every moment. He ticked off yet another bucket-list item this year – and pushed himself out of his comfort zone – when he performed a five-minute stand-up set at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival as part of radio duo Carrie Bickmore and Tommy Little’s Carrie & Tommy’s My First Time.
“I had a ball,” Larry says with a grin. “And people laughed, which was probably more out of sympathy. I got off stage and Dave Hughes said: ‘Once you’re standing on a stage and people are laughing and enjoying the ride, that’s it, you’re hooked.’
“And I did come away and think, ‘Oh, I could do that again. Maybe next time I can do seven minutes.’”
The Chase: Larry & Friends airs Monday 7.30pm on Channel Seven and 7plus.
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