COMEDY CENTRAL® TO PREMIERE RONNY CHIENG: INTERNATIONAL STUDENT AS A COMEDY CENTRAL APP EXCLUSIVE

• Beginning Monday, August 13 the Entire Seven Episode Half-Hour Television Show Will Be The First Original Series Exclusively Available on the Comedy Central App

NEW YORK, June 28, 2018 – Comedy Central summer series, Ronny Chieng: International Student, will premiere as the #1 brand in comedy’s first-ever app exclusive original series. Beginning Monday, August 13, fans can binge-watch all seven episodes of the half-hour scripted television show, Ronny Chieng: International Student, which will be available to stream exclusively on the Comedy Central App.

“We’re thrilled to expand our relationship with Ronny and give his fans here in the U.S. access to this truly binge-worthy series all at once,” said Tanya Giles, General Manager, Comedy Central. “We’ve been waiting for the right project to launch in its entirety as an app-exclusive and Ronny’s name-recognition combined with the habits of many Daily Show fans who stream it via the Comedy Central App, make this the perfect series to premiere on the platform.”

Nominated for a 2018 Australian Writers Guild Award, TV Week Australia called Ronny Chieng: International Student “hilarious,” Sunday Age deemed it “screamingly hysterical” and gave it 5 stars, while the Herald Sun gave it 4 out of 4 stars and called it comedy “gold.” Ronny Chieng: International Student is loosely based on Chieng’s real life experience as a Chinese law student in Australia. It’s a series about being caught between worlds; between childhood and adulthood, between your old life and your new life, between your parent’s expectations and your own dreams – even if you haven’t worked out what they are. But mostly it’s about the stupid stuff that happens when you’re young and don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

In the series, which was co-written by Chieng (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah), Ronny plays a Malaysian student who’s come to Australia to study law. He’s smart, driven and competitive, which would make him the perfect law student, if he actually wanted to be a lawyer. As viewers follow Chieng from his first day on campus to the final exam of semester, he’ll encounter binge-drinking Australians, pompous blazer-wearing private school kids and hyper competitive anti-social Asian students who want him to act “more Asian.” A genuine outsider, Ronny is suspicious of any group that wants him as a member – be it the rowdy Australians, the Mahjong playing Asians or the blueblood…idiots. Blunt, barbed and not afraid to cut through the B.S., it’s not long before Ronny is at odds with most people on campus.

Named by Variety as one of 2016’s “10 Comics to Watch,” Ronny Chieng is best known to American audiences as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, which he joined in 2015. He will also be seen in the highly-anticipated Warner Brothers feature film, Crazy Rich Asians, based on the best-selling book by Kevin Kwan, in the role of Eddie Cheng, Nick’s status-obsessed cousin. Chieng and Declan Fay co-wrote Ronny Chieng: International Student, which previously aired on ABC in Australia, BBC in England and Comedy Central Asia.

Born in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, and raised in Manchester, NH and Singapore, Chieng graduated from the University of Melbourne in Australia in 2009 with a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce, the same year he began his comedy career as a stand-up. In addition to his acting roles, Chieng continues to tour as a stand-up and has had four sold-out global stand-up comedy theater tours in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and London. During his career as a stand-up he has sold out shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performed multiple shows at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, and opened for both Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr on their Australia stand-up comedy tours.

Chieng’s writing and acting credits include multiple television comedy shows including Problems (2012), Legally Brown (2014), It’s a Date (2013-2014), and Kinne (2015), among others. He has toured and filmed four one-hour stand-up comedy specials: The Ron Way (2012), Can You Do This? No You Can’t. (2013), Chieng Reaction (2014) and You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About (2015).

With various projects in different stages with both Jordan Klepper and Roy Wood Jr., Ronny Chieng International Student marks the third time Comedy Central has continued its development and creative relationships with different Correspondents from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

Ronny Chieng: International Student was created and written by Chieng and Declan Fay,
Donna Andrews, Stu Connolly, Rick Kalowski and Andrew Gregory serve as Executive Producers, with Chieng and Fay as Co-Executive Producers. The series is directed by Jonathan Brough and produced by Donna Andrews. Ronny Chieng: International Student is a Sticky Pictures production, with funding from ABC TV, Screen Australia, Film Victoria and Comedy Central.

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