Lilly Singh hosts 'Battle of the Generations' game show that will enrage and excite Canada

Canada is getting a new game show, Battle of the Generations hosted by Scarborough, Ont., icon Lilly Singh, where Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z players try to out smart competing generations to win a $25,000 cash prize.

"Every generation is getting schooled in the show," Singh teased to Yahoo Canada about the new trivia game show, premiering June 19 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app. “Everyone's thinking their generation is the best and quickly learning they [don’t know] as much."

“You can see their confidence. They all come in, especially in Gen X, they'll come in tough like we're the best generation. And then they'll get a question, you can see in their eyes them being like, ‘I don't even know what this question means, where does it even come from?’ And then you can see Gen Z rolling their eyes at them. … You will learn there is no superior generation.”

'I have to keep a pretty big poker face'

Part of what makes Battle of the Generations so captivating is that it's actually enraging to hear people get some of these questions wrong, but in the best way. This isn't a game show where most of the audience watching at home won't know the answers, it's more about being familiar with music, movies, celebrities, toys, and other popular culture items and moments that are specific to a particular decade. It's more of a circumstance where you'll be very confident about an answer, or you may have absolutely no clue what something is.

“I have to keep a pretty big poker face,” Singh said. “It's loose and it's fun, so I might poke fun at people a little bit, but I definitely don't want to give it away if I know the answer.”

“That's where my acting comes in. I'm like, ‘OK yeah, let's see what's the answer to this question,’ with a picture that is clearly Dennis Rodman and they're giving me LeBron James. … The idea that someone doesn't know what LeBron James looks like, that's where my best acting performance comes up.”

Battle of the Generations has contestants from all over Canada. In the first round of the game each player answers questions about their own generation and with every correct answer, $500 is put into The Vault. Then the first two people to answer a question about any generation correctly secure their spots in the next round. The other two enter the Battle Zone, a head-to-head battle where only one person moves forward.

In the next round, the first person to answer three trivia questions correctly moves on, while the other two head into another Battle Zone competition. The last person after the Final Face-off takes on The Vault for their chance to win up to $25,000.

“It's been fascinating and it's actually been a schooling for me because I think we all have our biases,” Singh said. “When we go into the show, we all have these ideas, and I definitely think it debunks a lot of stereotypes.”

“There's a lot of Gen Z contestants that were so savvy when it came to ‘60s pop culture or like old school tech, and then there were a lot of Boomers who knew internet slang. So it was just really a mixed bag in terms of people's abilities.”

'My goal is always to create content that I think the most amount of people can enjoy'

For Singh, she shared that she grew up watching game shows with her family, which made her particularly excited about hosting Battle of the Generations, but it also really connects to a lot of her comedy, joking about family dynamics and generational differences.

“A lot of my comedy in my career has been intergenerational comedy and trauma, and I've poked fun of my parents and I've made fun of the family dynamics. So this felt so on brand for me," Singh said. "But I just love the idea of a format where families could really come together and watch something together, because I feel like that glue is kind of being lost with a lot of content these days, and I love the idea of being part of something that would bring that back.”

Singh is not only the host of Battle of the Generations, but she also serves as an executive producer, with the show produced by Bell Media Studios, in association with GroupM Motion Entertainment and Singh's Unicorn Island Productions.

“I like to be the type of creative that is in the room, having a conversation, shaping something, and that's why I love the show because all of the people that work on the show were super collaborative," Singh said. “When it came to the format, or what the stage looks like, or how we should word questions, or what kind of questions we should have, I got to put my input into all of it."

"My goal is always to create content that I think the most amount of people can enjoy and watch. I do feel like historically, content has been geared towards certain types of people. Even in late-night I felt like that, but I always try to make a show where I'm like, … could my parents watch the show and enjoy it?"

In fact, Singh's parents went to a taping of Battle of the Generations and they got so into the game that they told her they were shocked about some of the answers contestants got wrong.

"They were really playing along as well, which is really cool because they don't always get to say that they relate to everything they watch," she said.

Of course, another highlight for Singh is that she's able to be part of a trivia game show based in Canada, featuring Canadians from all across the country. As Singh describes herself, she's "an overly obsessed and proud Canadian."

“Any opportunity I can have to come back and create content here I'm really precious about, because I believe in the talent here so much," Singh said.

“I believe in just the magic of Canadians. Like the contestants that are on this show, I would argue you will not find contestants like this anywhere else in the world. They're just so special and so sweet. But then their sweetness turns into competitiveness in this really unique way.”

So could Singh herself cut it on Battle of the Generations? She's not so sure.

“Honestly, I don't have the guts to,” Singh said.

“The contestants have to take a little bit of a test to get on the show to prove they know some stuff. I feel like next season I'm going to take that test to see if I would even get on the show, because I'm not sure. There's like a 50 per cent chance. I'm really savvy with certain categories and others, I know nothing.”