Partner & Executive Producer
JOEL MCGEE
Before he established “Monkey Time Media” , Joel McGee spent several years as a television network executive, most recently serving as Executive Director of Original Programming & Development for Game Show Network (GSN). While there, he played a key role in such game shows as “Bingo America”, “Catch 21”, “How Much Is Enough?”, “20Q”, “The Money List” and “Think Like A Cat”. He also oversaw GSN’s recent revival of the classic relationship show, “The Newlywed Game” and their successful Poker series, “High Stakes Poker” . McGee was also responsible for the groundbreaking television event “The 2009 Game Show Awards” , hosted by Howie Mandel. In addition, he was instrumental in helping GSN achieve increased viewer-interactivity via telephony & online participation, through the interstitial programming blocks “GSN Live”, “Big Saturday Night” and “Bingo Blitz” .
McGee’s early years in entertainment were spent working in television production. For roughly twelve of those years, he worked for the legendary “Goodson” game show company. Starting out in the mailroom at Mark Goodson Productions, he served as a production assistant for the hit TV game shows "The Price is Right", "Family Feud" and " The New Price Is Right" along with the CBS hidden-camera reality special " A Fly On The Wall", starring Gordon Elliott.
Before joining GSN , McGee served as Director of Program Development for Animal Planet . In this role, he oversaw the development of dozens of natural wildlife documentaries including the highly-acclaimed “ Meerkat Manor” series, “Orangutan Island”, “Lemur Kingdom”, “Spring Watch”, “Fooled by Nature” and Steve Irwin’s final film, “Ocean’s Deadliest”. He was also responsible for the development of the network’s domestic-pet and format-driven programming including “ Divine Canine”, “E-Vet Interns”, “Ms. Adventure”, “Backyard Habitat”, “The Little Zoo That Could”, “Things Pets Swallow”, “World’s Ugliest Dog Competition”, “Puppy Bowl” and “Dancing Pet Stars” .
Following the sale of Mark Goodson Productions , McGee was recruited to join Jonathan Goodson Productions , where he ultimately worked as Director of Production, helping to launch and maintain dozens of formatted television shows around the world. Highlights at JGP include serving for five years as Supervising Producer of The California Lottery's weekly game show “The Big Spin” . He also produced The Multi-State Lottery's weekly series ”Powerball: The Game Show”, hosted by Bob Eubanks.
In the cable world, McGee produced the PAX-TV game show “Dirty Rotten Cheater” and oversaw the start-up of its foreign productions in Italy, India and Japan. He was also involved in the development and production of numerous network presentations, pilots and series, including “CRAM” for Game Show Network , “Secrets” for Tribune Broadcasting , “Mating Wars” for Studios U.S.A. , “In The Dark” for Warner Bros. , “ Twisted” for Nickelodeon and the nationally syndicated talk shows “ Housecalls” and “ Forgive or Forget”.
Before his tenure at Goodson , McGee worked as a production assistant on MTV’s “ Trashed” , Comedy Central’s “Comic Justice” and during live broadcasts of college football & basketball games produced by Raycom Sports . His first job in Hollywood was working as a studio-page at CBS: Television City.
McGee is currently serving as the show-runner & Executive-Producer of the syndicated dog training series, “Lucky Dog”. He is a member of The Producer’s Guild of America, The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and The Hollywood Radio & Television Society.
Partner & Executive Producer GARY DAWSON
Gary Dawson comes to Monkey Time Media with more than 25 years of experience in Television production and development. Most recently he created and produced two pilots for GSN (Game Show Network) along with their new hidden-camera series “Instant Recall” . In addition, he recently teamed up with television giant 3 Ball Productions to produce the prime-time game show “Heads or Tails” , which has successfully launched in several territories around the world.
Dawson began his career at the legendary entertainment company Goodson/Todman Productions , where he quickly became the youngest producer in the company’s history. Learning his craft directly from renowned creator & producer Mark Goodson, Dawson had the opportunity to work on such classic game shows as “Family Feud”, “The Price is Right”, “Match Game”, “Classic Concentration” and “Card Sharks”. Working closely with Mark Goodson until his death in 1992, Dawson became one of the pioneers of the “reality show” genre, developing and producing prime-time shows like “Real-Life Heroes”, “Capture” and
“A Fly On The Wall” as well as the nationally syndicated “Housecalls” .
After Goodson ʼ s death, Dawson worked with Mark Goodson ʼ s son, Jonathan, producing his company’s first prime-time network show “In The Dark” with Julian Clary. Dawson also helped Goodson build his lottery television business, creating and producing shows all over the world under the Goodson banner.
Dawson left Jonathan Goodson Productions in 1997 to set up a new TV division at Columbia Tri-Star Television with the goal of creating and producing lottery games across all media platforms. While there he launched several TV shows including the very successful “Million Dollar Flamingo Fortune” game show for The Florida Lottery , the magazine-style show “ The Winner Next Door” and the educational PBS series “NY Expeditions” .
Continuing his work in the lottery world and further establishing himself as one of the most prolific creators and producers of lottery television programs worldwide, Dawson formed Milestone Entertainment. As co-owner and Chief Operating Officer of Milestone, Dawson has spearheaded numerous lottery projects including the “Make Me A Millionaire” television show for The California Lottery, which his company co-produced with 3 Ball Productions. This show, designed to help increase ticket sales, gave The California Lottery the best selling one-dollar instant ticket in its history. In addition to his work in TV, Dawson has also created a vast library of interactive lottery games for the new-media market.