Ty Pennington
PASADENA, Calif. — For Ty Pennington, making an "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" episode in Knoxville will be bittersweet.
It will be the 199th episode of the feel-good reality show and one of the last ones to be done — at least for a while.
"This show has been my life for 10 years, and the folks I work with have been my family. It will be very bittersweet to do this (episode)," he said Monday about the show's Knoxville visit, which begins today.
"I'm glad we finally got to Knoxville."
ABC announced it had canceled the series in late 2011 due to low ratings. Two more episodes of the weekly series are airing this month before the show leaves the primetime lineup for an indefinite period.
Despite the fate of the show, Pennington said he has been part of something incredible just by working on it
. "When you are part of something like this (series), you see how it changes lives and even changes the people who work on the (homes), you can definitely sleep well at night," he said.
Thousands of volunteers have signed up to work on the home, with the work schedule being around the clock for the next week or so.
When it eventually returns, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will pop up as occasional specials, with the Knoxville episode being one of those. The air date could come as early as next fall.
Pennington will not be in Knoxville today for the reveal of the family who'll be getting a new home. He'll be in New York City working on his new ABC daytime series "The Revolution."
He has missed the "big reveal" of the family only once before — and that was because he was in the hospital in Atlanta.
"I want to be there in Knoxville," Pennington said. "I don't miss (the reveal part) very often so I wanted to make sure I'll be around for (the taping) ."
"Extreme Makeover" will be in Knoxville for the next 10 days. Pennington said he'll be shooting segments "to make it look like" he was around longer in Knoxville.
Pennington plans to join the crew on Monday and be around for three days. He'll interview the family and be involved in the makeover of one of the rooms.
"After working on this (show), we all leave a little bit of ourselves behind in every community," Pennington said. "It's a show about changing people's lives, but for people like me it has changed my life as well. You realize what's important in life."
Actress Jenny McCarthy will substitute for Pennington at the shoot.
"Exteme Makeover" has been airing 8 p.m. Fridays on WATE, Channel 6.
© 2012, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Comments » 3
Debt writes:
I just can't trust ole Ty there..nope not one bit.
cmmoxley#208038 writes:
Congrats, Terry, for scoring this interview with Ty! All of us working on the project here in K-town are very impressed! You are the greatest!
683 writes:
Maybe I'm missing something. The local news media (especially the KNS) have been euphoric over this event. And countless hours of volunteer labor have been hustled. All for a TV program with an audience so small that the network is cancelling it. Why can't such attention and passion be given to other local charities who are in dire need of every dollar and volunteer hour and inch/second of press they can get? Does this "Makeover" thing benefit anyone other than its own production staff and the one local family whose home will be featured?
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