Celebrity Duets was a take-off of the Australian series program It Takes Two and its predecessor, the BBC's Just the Two of Us. Simon Cowell of American Idol and The X Factor fame created the program, and Wayne Brady of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame, himself a singer and the former host of a variety show on ABC, hosted the show. The show debuted on Fox, with a 2-hour premiere installment on August 29, 2006.