Dancing With the Stars favorite Joey Fatone is joining the recently fast tracked prime time game show The Singing Bee, an updated take on “Name that Tune” where contestants must remember the lyrics to pop songs in order to win cash. The show was originally planned to air later in the season, but NBC pulled the production forward to July 10th in order to head-off Fox Network’s similarly themed Don’t Forget the Lyrics. Dancing With the Stars’ Fatone has already put his famously competitive – yet jovial – attitude to work by publicly ribbing his rival host, Wayne Brady.

Fatone told New York Daily News "I actually called him up and said, 'So I hear you're kind of doing a similar show?' He said, 'Yeah, it's similar,' and I said, 'Ours is better.'"

Specific details on Wayne Brady and Fox’s edition are not known. The two shows will each run two episodes a week, Singing Bee on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Don’t Forget the Lyrics airing on Wednesday and Thursday, making Wednesday the true battleground for the shows.

According to Fatone, Singing Bee will offer some huge payoffs for contestants in an endurance fashioned contest. Despite his experience in the pop scene with the band N*Sync, Fatone’s duties will not involve any crooning.

Fatone, who is currently making an appearance on the Dancing With the Stars tour, is now taping the NBC show.  He described his job as emcee by saying, "My role is just to keep it moving, obviously I have a musical background, so that kind of helps. Although, thank goodness, you won't really be watching me sing. But I try to help them out if they mess up."

There hasn’t been any word on how this will impact Fatone’s involvement in the Dancing With the Stars tour, which is still under way, but no news is good news for tour ticket holders.

- Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer

Source: New York Daily News