Big Brother producers address franchise future of Jankie (exclusive)

Ice cream! Pizza! Dance parties! Singalongs! What’s not to love about any of those things? Yet you can forgive the contestants of the recently completed Big Brother season 26 for waking up in cold sweat with PTSD centered around all of the above, and it’s all courtesy of a junior artificial intelligence entity jammed Jankie.

Introduced midway through the season, Jankie locked the remaining eight players in the back yard, making them live outside for a week — eating only ice cream and pizza while singing and dancing on command. The dream became a nightmare for the contestants, yet was a hilarious delight for viewers. Alas, the artificial intelligence named Ainsley that ruled the house finally killing Jankie off at the end of the week was a strangely disturbing scene considering the absurdity of the entire thing.

Makensy Manbeck and Jankie on 'Big Brother' season 26.

Matthew Taplinger/CBS

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However… for the last scene of the entire season, host Julie Chen Moonves interrupted the celebration while crowning Chelsie Baham as the winner to take us inside the house, where Jankie miraculously came back to life! According to executive producer Rich Meehan, that was not the original plan, as Jankie was supposed to remain in Big Brother’s digital graveyard.

“The original creative for Janky did not have him coming back to life,” reveals Meehan. “But when we pitched the whole season out, it was like, ‘You're going to do what to Jankie?’”

“Everyone was really upset,” chimes in fellow executive producer Allison Grodner.

“Everyone's like, ‘Wait a minute, you might need to bring him back,’” says Meehan, laughing.

And it turned out fans were just as obsessed with Jankie as the crew was. “We've never had so many texts and people wanting Jankie merch,” Meehan says. “I had friends that watch the show, and everyone was texting me asking for Jankie hats! I was like, ‘Wow!’”

And if you are one of those people that found the demented Jankie theme song running through your head for weeks on end, Meehan says simply, “That was the goal.”

Julie Chen-Moonves, the cast of 'Big Brother' season 26, and Jankie.

Matthew Taplinger/CBS

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But after Jankie’s surprising success and robot reincarnation, might he become an annual event, not unlike seasonal appearances by the sassy wisecracking Zingbot or Veto-bestowing rotating animatronic Otev? Producers have not completely mapped out future Jankie plans, but Grodner does acknowledge, “It's hard to say goodbye to him. There's got to be another way of using him.”

Speaking of Otev, season 26 made history when the competition designed to eliminate only one person per round surprisingly eliminated everybody but one in the very first round, giving the victory to Makensy Manbeck, who was the only one who successfully figured out Otev’s request of “I need some trash from the evicted player who didn’t get to play in a New Rule HOH competition.” Everyone else thought it was Tucker Des Lauriers, but Makensy correcly brought back the right name of Cedric Hodges.  The one-round competition was a development that took both viewers and producers by surprise.

Otev and the cast of 'Big Brother' season 26.

Matthew Taplinger/CBS

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“Look, expect the unexpected,” Grodner says. “We've been doing Otev forever, and it’s never happened.”

While the producers were originally bummed for the classic competition to be cut so short, they quickly realized the uniqueness of the situation provided value of a different sort. “My first reaction was, ‘Oh, that sucks,'" Meehan says. “So in retrospect, in the moment, you're bummed, but then it's like, ‘Well, actually, that's never happened before.’ So in season 26, if new things happen, that's actually a good thing.”

Grodner says she also had some emotional whiplash when Otev came and went so quickly. “We always find that when something like that happens, at first, it's like, ‘Wow, we built this whole set, and a lot of money went into that set, and there was a whole game that was going to play out.’ But it worked into the drama and the strategy of that week.”

Taylor Hale on the 'Big Brother' season 26 finale.

Matthew Taplinger/CBS

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While Otev will be back next season, and it seems like Jankie may as well, what about the newest jury roundtable host? Season 24 winner Taylor Hale replaced longtime jury roundtable host Will Kirby for the most recent finale, and Grodner was pleased with the results. “I think she did great,” says the EP. “Obviously, Dr. Will was great for almost a decade, and it was sort of time to hand over the scepter or whatever to a new generation and someone from this new Big Brother decade.”

Does that mean Taylor will return in the same role next year? “I think so,” Grodner says. “I think she did great, but it’s early and we always make those decisions as we start the season.”

If Taylor ends up being unavailable, perhaps Jankie could step in?