The Great Indian Laughter Challenge: Sajid Khan and Shreyas Talpade to replace Mallika Dua, Hussain Dalal and Zakir Khan

Akshay Kumar hosted The Great Indian Laughter Challenge makers have now roped in Bollywood stalwarts Sajid Khan and Shreyas Talpade in place of Zakir Khan, Mallika Dua and Hussain Dalal.

Comedy is an evergreen genre on television. And when Star Plus launched The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, excitement piqued to a different level. Sadly, the first couple of weeks did not manage to bring in the expected laughter. To add in a punch, the makers have now roped in Bollywood stalwarts Sajid Khan and Shreyas Talpade in place of Zakir Khan, Mallika Dua and Hussain Dalal. The team is quite confident that Sajid and Shreyas, with their years of experience and comic timings will work their charm to make the show super successful.

There’s a strong buzz that the three YouTube stars couldn’t work their magic on TV and thus the makers had to go back to these comedy veterans to pull up the ratings. Dissing the buzz, Sajid, in an exclusive chat with indianexpress.com quipped, “This is how the entire show was planned. The three were to be part of the audition rounds and choose the best out of the lot, while in the second stage Shreyas and me would join the judging table along with Akshay. They played mentors, we would be the judges, now that the competition will begin. We are starting shoot from day after tomorrow and quite kicked about getting associated with this show.”

Commenting on the developments, Producer Ashvini Yardi in an official statement said, “After the several auditions we held across the country, we are now at a critical stage of the show wherein the real competition begins. We would like to thank our mentors Zakir Khan, Mallika Dua and Hussain Dalal for selecting and giving us our final contestants. To take the competition from here onwards we now move from our mentors to our judges Sajid Khan and Shreyas Talpade and our very own super judge Akshay Kumar.”

Zakir, Mallika and Hussain are popular Youtube stars. While Zakir rose to fame with his stand-up appearances, Mallika’s videos with Snapchat filters got her overnight stardom. She recently also appeared in Bindass’ web series The Trip that got her rave reviews. Hussain, on other hand, apart from being an actor has been part of the writing team of Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani and other films.

The Great Indian Laughter Challenge airs every weekend on Star Plus at 8 pm.