Hairspray Live! college sophomore Maddie Baillio, as her first professional role. In November 2016, it was announced that Ricki Lake and Marissa Jaret Winokur (who portrayed Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film and the Broadway version respectively) would make cameo appearances; Winokur and Lake appeared as employees of Mr. Pinky's boutique. Darren Criss served as an on-air host, hosting a half-hour "Countdown to Hairspray Live!" show on NBC with Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes, as well as behind-the-scenes reports throughout the live broadcast. Oreo, Reddi-wip, and Toyota broadcast live, themed commercials during "Hairspray Live!"; Oreo's ad featured the character of Corny Collins,
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