Mike Myers explains his "English TV host" Tommy Maitland Gong Show stunt

Vanity Fair

“I’m an old punk rocker, and there were a few things I would watch (growing up): Saturday Night Live, Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club TV, and The Gong Show,” Myers tells Vanity Fair. “There was something punk rock about the show . . . It was show business, but it had absolutely no ambition in it whatsoever—it was ambition-free. The show was kind of like performance art of a talent show. It’s not really taking itself seriously. I just thought, if I’m doing this almost deconstruction of a talent show, I should be the ringmaster who is also deconstructed. It should be English in that way of keeping things moving, the super-gregarious (host).”