Andy DehnartJon Reep won Last Comic Standing 5 last night, taking home the show’s new $250,000 cash prize, an NBC talent contract, and a half-hour special on Bravo. While the show auditioned internationally for the first time, its winner is from North Carolina, and runner-up Lavell Crawford is from Missouri.
The top five comics–Jon, Lavell, Gerry Dee, Ralph Harris, and Amy Schumer–will go on tour this fall, starting at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun casino tomorrow night and concluding in Ohio in late December.
Jon “has appeared on ABC’s ‘Rodney,’ CBS’s ‘Star Search,’ NBC’s ‘Late Friday’ and has filmed his own half-hour ‘Comedy Central Presents,'” and “is a pitchman on several commercials, including Dodge Hemi, where he appears as the lovable redneck who utters the famous line, ‘That thing gotta Hemi?'” The Republican reports. Why did he do the show? “The show never said it was just for amateurs, it’s a showcase for all comics, and those who have been doing comedy for 20 years and are very funny deserve a chance to be on the show just as much as those who have been doing comedy for only a year or two. You can’t beat the amount of exposure the show offers you as a comedian,” he said.
The two-hour finale was a padded, fluff-filled affair, and Jay Black reviews it for TV Squad, asking questions that NBC execs might have asked, such as, “Why was the USC Marching Band there?” and “Why did we need to talk to the parents? Was there a chance that any of them wouldn’t be proud?”