Craig Zadan on stage, featured prominently in Zadan's televised version. Chita Rivera appears in "Chicago" as "Nickie"; she played "Velma Kelly" in the original 1975 production. The film adaptation of "Hairspray" featured John Waters (writer/director) as "the flasher who lives next door;" Jerry Stiller ("Wilbur Turnblad") as "Mr. Pinky;" and Ricki Lake ("Tracy") as a reporter. On the soundtrack, Lake joins Nikki Blonsky and Marissa Jaret Winokur ("Tracy" from the Broadway production) to sing "Mama I'm a Big Girl Now" over the closing credits, and Harvey Fierstein (Broadway's "Edna") can be heard briefly soon after. Mink Stole ("Tammy" in the original film)
The Ricki Lake Show five new talk shows to premiere during the 2012–2013 television season, "Ricki Lake" ranked fourth, behind "Katie", "Steve Harvey", and "The Jeff Probst Show", but ahead of "The Trisha Goddard Show". "Katie", "Probst", and "Trisha" have since been cancelled, leaving "Harvey" as the only one to successfully do well in the ratings. During the week of November 5, 2012, "Ricki Lake" averaged 924,000 viewers. Global picked up the program for Canada, which debuted the program on September 10, 2012, the same date as the US airing. The series has also been acquired by FX (UK) who will air the show