Been there, done that, made the album – so what’s next for the Irish comedy duo?
The Marmite comedy duo, who hosted a successful drivetime show on RTÉ 2FM for two years, are set to co-host a new TV quiz show for RTÉ after successfully filming a pilot for the national broadcaster last month.
As first revealed by The Irish Sun, the show is called Snapshot and is being developed for RTÉ by independent film and TV production company ShinAwil – which has produced some of the broadcaster’s biggest hits, including Dancing with the Stars, Home of the Year, Celebrity Masterchef Ireland and The Voice of Ireland.
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The quiz show is a co-production between RTÉ and BBC Studios, and the pilot was commissioned by RTÉ’s group head of entertainment Alan Tyler. If given the green light, it could be broadcast in a primetime slot as early as this autumn on RTÉ One.
ShinAwil boss Larry Bass praised the pair – “Johnny B” O’Brien and “Johnny Smacks” McMahon – for their versatility.
“Hosting live TV and reading autocue was something that was totally new to the two lads, but they took direction really well,” Bass told The Irish Sun. “It’s a game changer for them, just as Jennifer Zamparelli was famous for Republic of Telly and Bridget & Eamon, but hosting Dancing with the Stars took her to a new audience”.
He added that Snapshot is “a big entertainment show” which could be broadcast on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. “I can’t go into exactly what the format is in case someone else steals our idea, but it does involve members of the public engaging with the lads.”
Tyler, meanwhile, posted pictures of the set online, which appeared to feature four contestant podiums set against a backdrop of a large screen. He spoke of RTÉ’s privilege and responsibility to “sponsor informed creative risk rather than settle for the illusory safety of a slowly atrophying status quo.”
He said the format of Snapshot was “birthed from page to screen in a truly collaborative partnership that led to an excellent record with [The 2 Johnnies] at the helm.”
The pair will undoubtedly be looking to make reparations for their previous TV outing, The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock-In, which was roundly panned by critics. Irish Independent TV critic Pat Stacey called it “a lame attempt to marry the outdated style of laddish 90s shows like TFI Friday with the pair’s exaggerated culchie codology”, adding that “Never have the words ‘supported by your licence fee’ at the end felt more like a taunt.”
Although they had amassed a listenership of 151,000 according to the most recent JNLR figures released in May 2024, the pair’s tenure on 2FM’s drivetime slot also got off to a rocky start after they were slammed for reading out misogynistic car stickers in a video on social media before their show kicked off in 2022.
Just days after taking up their new posts, they were briefly taken off-air before issuing an apology, which read: “This is not who we are nor what we stand for. We aim to do better in the future, we are not perfect and we are learning all the time.”
Leftfield choice: Johnny B O’Brien, left, and Johnny ‘Smacks’ McMahon. Photo by Ruth Medjber
However, the short-lived scandal does not appear to have damaged the duo’s popularity. They have amassed an incredibly loyal following since debuting their enormously successful podcast in 2018.
In June, they sold out the second instalment of their Pints in a Field live show at St Anne’s Park, while further live dates await in Galway, Limerick and Australia – the latter off the back of their aforementioned podcast – in the coming weeks.
They also recently released their debut album, Small Town Heroes. Song titles on the album include St Patrick Drove a Honda Civic, Mad for Mickey and Jays I’d Murder a Pint, although the fact that it entered the Irish album charts at number one but dropped out of the top 100 within weeks suggests that a career in music may not be the way forward.
In an interview with Brendan O’Connor following their departure from RTÉ radio, they admitted that “something had to give” when it came to their busy workload.
“We haven’t time [to do radio],” said Johnny B. “To be honest, we’ve been working seven days a week for the last two years, and we’re working all day today and all day tomorrow again on our new show.
“We could’ve stopped doing telly, but that’s very sporadic work. So if we ever want to have our lives back, unfortunately, radio was the one that had to go.”
Whether their distinctly Irish brand of comedy ultimately translates outside of expat communities abroad, remains to be seen. In any case, brace yourselves: it looks like The 2 Johnnies are not quite ready to give up on their TV dreams.