All in the Fame-ily

Before there were “nepo babies,” there were Claim to Famers. ABC‘s Claim to Fame connected members of Hollywood’s elite to their not-quite-starry relatives five months before Vulture‘s viral December 2022 story created a storm of internet chatter about “nepo babies.” Now in its third season, this competition series has carved out a unique spot onscreen for people we’ve never heard of before with surprising relationships to folks you definitely know. (Season 2 featured contestants with connections to Tom Hanks, Alicia Keys, and Jimmy Carter.)

Claim to Fame is hosted by the Jonas Brothers’ eldest member, Kevin Jonas, and his youngest bro Franklin Jonas — the only sibling who wasn’t in the Grammy-nominated family pop band. And that’s exactly the kind of person who this game show spotlights: the ordinary folks on the family trees of A-listers, who are ready for their own moment — and a shot at winning the $100,000 prize. Can success on the show bring them a future as a true “nepo baby”? Time will tell.

At the start of each season, a fresh group of 12 unknowns are welcomed to Hummingbird Nest Ranch in Simi Valley, California. And even this show’s locale has connections — the 2022 film Babylon and the first few seasons of The Biggest Loser have each called this 123-acre spot home. The contestants are then prompted to lie, concealing their notable lineage from their fellow players, all while living together in the shared space and competing in physical and mental challenges. The goal? Be the last one standing and don’t let any other players guess your *cough* claim to fame.

The buzzy summer reality series, returning on July 10, is the rare type of watercooler game show that sustains its intrigue throughout the season. Each week, viewers try to suss out the contestants’ identities right alongside the cast. Its uniquely engaging audience experience has friends and family members sharing notes over who they’ve figured out so far and which players they’ve yet to crack. But what we want to know is: how did this clever concept come to be, and how will the series keep fans guessing in its third season and beyond?

Claim to Fame‘s executive producer and hosts gave TV Insider all the scoop on its latest relatable round. (Be sure to scroll down for an in-depth look at the clue wall!)

Jason Tanaka Blaney

Creating a Guessing Game

One of the main draws of Claim to Fame is that the audience gets to play along from home, and that was the intention of its producers right from the start. “The idea of a bit of mystery wrapped with a celebrity connection, all while having a group of strangers live in a house together and competing [for cash] made for a perfect backdrop,” says executive producer and president of Kinetic Content Eric Detwiler. (The production company is also behind reality hits like Netflix’s Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum.)

In addition to finding that structural hook, ABC needed the right people to emcee. They found that in Kevin and Franklin Jonas. Though other related duos were considered for the job, it was ultimately a “no-brainer” says Detwiler to nab the pair. “You’ve got somebody like Kevin Jonas, who’s a big name, and then you’ve got Franklin, who’s the youngest brother trying to find his own place in the spotlight. It just mirrored the show’s concept so well,” Detwiler notes.

But it’s not just about “checking a box,” he adds of the casting. The two are constantly trading entertaining, brotherly jabs onscreen. Plus, “they also have a genuine excitement and curiosity [about the show],” Detwiler says. The main reason they’re so elated? They’re just as in the dark about the contestant’s identities as everyone else.

Maintaining a Mystery

It may surprise viewers to find out that even the show’s hosts are left out of knowing who’s who in the cast, but the decision to withhold the players’ secret backgrounds was made to preserve the authenticity of Kevin and Franklin’s reactions when the truth is later revealed — and so that they don’t accidentally fumble any information once they do meet the cast.

“We don’t know anything,” Kevin confirms to us while chatting at TV Insider’s New York City office. “Going into the show, we are given zero information. Anytime we show up on set … whether it’s a welcoming party, or their first night, we meet them just like everybody else. It’s pretty great because we play along the entire season.”

Maintaining that mystery means that the brothers have to honor a “vow,” as Franklin calls it, that they won’t search anything about the contestants during filming. (Players aren’t allowed devices while in the house, but the hosts are.) “It’s definitely tempting to pull up Google,” Franklin adds. “We get close on many occasions.”

The Clue Wall

They might not have the internet, but everyone has access to the Clue Wall, the spot in the house where various props relating to the famous relatives identities live. (For example: Season 2’s wall featured a miniature green park bench, signifying Hanks’ Oscar-winning role in Forrest Gump). But there’s one major change for Season 3. In the past, the Clue Wall was always available to the contestants, so they could consult it after challenges, during downtime, and whenever they wanted to compare notes. This year, their access to the Clue Wall will be limited.

“It’s like a moth to a flame, right?,” says Detwiler. “[Players] hone in on that space because they know there’s so much power and information to be gleaned from the clues that are there, although so often they’re wrong trying to figure out what everything means. We really wanted to encourage them to look elsewhere — away from the Clue Wall for other information — specifically with their fellow players.”

When it comes to assembling the Clue Wall, a lot of thought and effort goes into incorporating items that relate to the celebrity relatives — and the few choice items meant to throw everyone off. Behind the scenes, production designer Steve Leonhardt (who has also worked on a long list of reality shows, including Family Game Fight, Ellen’s Game of Games, and Ultimate Tag) is in charge of building the epic board each season. Producers identify a list of visual cues, and his team gets to work. “We start by putting [all the objects] together on the wall [to] see what collage looks the most interesting, and the most confusing,” he says. “The red herrings are all intentional and have some thought behind them. … We don’t want something that would be very obvious for a celebrity that we don’t have.”

Take an early look at Claim to Fame Season 3’s Clue Wall below and start working on your early predictions.

Listing the A-Listers

Another goal for Season 3, was to increase the caliber of celebrities whose relatives could become part of the show. “Every season, we’ve tried to best ourselves in terms of the level of iconic celebrity relatives that we can book for the show, but it really all starts with thinking about what are the categories we want to explore each season? Who are the people that are at the top of the game in [their respective] categories?” he explains.

In the past, those categories have included: actors, musicians, politicians, reality stars, and even a scientist. Detwiler also hints that there will be an added layer of connectivity between the castmates this time around. “When the initial casting options started coming in, we found that there were some interesting uncovered connections between potential contestants that we really wanted to take advantage of,” he says. “This is going to cause some mind-bending confusion and then some pretty epic reveals based on who these people are and where they come from.”

Still, the contestants for Season 3 are going to be a bit savvier with their gameplay, as they come in with the benefit of having watched what works and what doesn’t for past players who have failed to lie their way to the end.

“All the contestants really came with a story and initiative to win,” says Kevin. “And they stuck to it. In past seasons, our contestants talked way too much. They would just give up their information without question, which no one understood. Now, here we are in Season 3 and they have come to play. We’re talking full new identities, [saying] things that are not real, and it’s fantastic.”

Adds Franklin: “Convincing accents! Very convincing accents… Some people at home are going to figure things out a lot sooner than some of the contestants will.”

Getting into the Game

The third season will also see the return of some daily challenges from seasons past, including the “Two Truths and a Lie” game during the introduction of contestants, the talent show, “Telephone,” “Interrogation Room,” and more. But of course, this year’s challenges will be even trickier.

“We’ve worked to elevate [the challenges] and tweak them, so that the players can’t figure out the game,” Detwiler says. “One of my favorite things has been the evolution of how we do some of our blindfold challenges. In Season 1, we had all of the contestants lined up, and they were reaching their hands into a box to try to feel the item that was a clue and identify the item. In Season 2, we changed that into a team challenge and had them out on that big grass area with the statues where they were trying to figure out, as they felt these giant statues, what these items were. There’s a wrinkle on that in this coming season.”

That wrinkle? The contestants will be invited to use all of their senses while blindfolded.

Leonhardt elaborates: “There’s an olfactory clue where they have to smell to determine what the clue is. There’s a tactile clue where they have to touch something while they’re blindfolded. There’s an auditory clue where they hear something and have to determine what the meaning behind that is. And this is all just in one of our challenges.”

But the biggest obstacle is that the crew has to constantly construct new games and set pieces throughout the season based on what’s happening in real time in the house. “Sometimes producers are trying to make the clues more revelatory. Sometimes they’re actually trying to add more layers to the game,” explains art director Isabella Scannone. “It’s a very live process, minute-by-minute figuring out what they need to make a good show.”

The Final Twist

If there’s one takeaway here, it’s that Season 3 is raising the stakes right until the very last moment. “The ending is a little different,” Kevin teases. And while the tradition of bringing back all of the eliminated contestants for the finale will continue, it will be “in a really fun, evolved way,” says Detwiler.

And they’ve changed one major rule to the last hour, says Kevin: “If you win the last challenge, it does not mean that you are in full control. So, it’s going to be a little bit more problematic at the end. The friends you made along the way — or enemies — will matter.”

Claim to Fame, Season 3 Premiere, Wednesday, July 10, 9/8c, ABC