Toni Jeričević
Encyclopedia
Toni Jeričević is a young Croatian
businessman turned actor and TV host who appeared in American and Croatian theatre plays, commercials and national television productions. He is best known as a TV host of the prime time reality sports TV show My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
which was originally produced by Mark Burnett
for the U.S. broadcasting network NBC
and later franchised to the top Croatian broadcasting television station in Croatia Nova TV.
n coastal city of Zadar
, Croatia
. He has one younger sister, Karmen. His father, Darko, is a mechanical engineer, and his mother, Anka, is a chemical technician.
Jericevic played basketball for KK Zadar
and made the Croatian national basketball team generation '83 while playing with the current prominent names of European basketball such as Roko Ukić, Krešimir Lončar
and Damir Rančić
.
At the age of 15 Jericevic qualified for the three point shootout at Croatian basketball All-Star game in Karlovac
and competed against the best shooters in its PRO basketball league including Gordan Giricek
who went on to develop a successful NBA
career
. Little is known that Jericevic was regarded as one of the best young shooting guards in Croatia making 97 free throws and 31 three pointers in a row during practice.
Given the opportunity, at the age of 17, Jericevic went on to search for athletic and academic opportunities in United States as an exchange student. Jericevic graduated from Ord High School in Ord, Nebraska
, earning an athletic and academic scholarship combined for the prestigious Midwestern private university Midland University (Midland Lutheran College
at a time). While there he participated in numerous theatre plays, ending his basketball career after the freshman year, and pursing the fields of business and theatre full time. Jericevic graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree
in Marketing
and Management
among top 20 students overall, also earning himself a prestigious Wall Street Journal Student Achievement Award as the business student of the generation based on faculty merit, work involved, participation and knowledge.
he started out as an extra on television shows such as Zuhra Light Show at Nova TV, had a small appearance in a successful Croatian sitcom Bitange i princeze
, and a featuring role in an award winning Ozujsko
commercial Buđenje.
At that time Jericevic accepted a serious business opportunity in his hometown Zadar; however, he used his spare time to participate in theatre playing the supporting role of Shah Zaman in the theatre play One Thousand and One Nights produced by the Croatian National Theatre
of Zadar that received rave reviews. Also, at that time he participated in a popular television show Fear Factor
produced by RTL Televizija
Croatia in Buenos Aires
, Argentina
.
In 2007 Jericevic left a serious business position to live and work in Budapest
, Hungary to become a TV host of the national phone-in television game show Nova Lova for Nova TV. After that time he was invited to audition for a grand project My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
and got the part as the leading TV host. Due to the low ratings Jericevic was fired in the middle of the season and was substituted by Boris Mirkovic. During that time Jericevic appeared in a theatre play Tablica Dijeljenja directed by Ivan Leo Lemo in HNK Pula
, and went back to hosting phone-in game shows until the beginning of 2010.
Currently, he is pursuing a career in international sales and marketing.
(2011/02), comedy Master Class
of Maria Callas (2001/02), drama Rhinoceros
(2002/03), drama You Can't Take It With You
(2003/04), comedy It's Just A Play (2004/05), comedy One Thousand and One Nights (2006/07), drama The Liar (2007), comedy The Fish Tales (2007), comedy The Division Table (2008/09), children play
(2008), NovaTV Nova Lova (2007–2009), NovaTV Bitange i princeze
(2005), episode #39, HRT2 Buđenje - Ožujsko pivo commercial (2006)Pazi zid (2008)
MOL reklam (2009)
Fear Factor
(2007)
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
businessman turned actor and TV host who appeared in American and Croatian theatre plays, commercials and national television productions. He is best known as a TV host of the prime time reality sports TV show My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad is a reality sports TV show on NBC that premiered on February 18, 2008. The show is produced by Mark Burnett, producer of other shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, and was hosted by actor Dan Cortese...
which was originally produced by Mark Burnett
Mark Burnett
Mark Burnett is a British television producer and executive producer, based in the United States. He currently is the executive producer of five network television series with seven hours of network programming. Works with which Burnett is associated have won multiple awards and recognition...
for the U.S. broadcasting network NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
and later franchised to the top Croatian broadcasting television station in Croatia Nova TV.
Early life
Jericevic was born in the DalmatiaDalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
n coastal city of Zadar
Zadar
Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. He has one younger sister, Karmen. His father, Darko, is a mechanical engineer, and his mother, Anka, is a chemical technician.
Jericevic played basketball for KK Zadar
KK Zadar
KK Zadar is a Croatian professional basketball team from the city of Zadar playing in the A-1 Liga.Zadar is the place where Croatian basketball was born in 1930. Zadar's reputation has been of a basketball hotbed with a team that can capture trophies at any given moment...
and made the Croatian national basketball team generation '83 while playing with the current prominent names of European basketball such as Roko Ukić, Krešimir Lončar
Krešimir Loncar
Krešimir Lončar Krešimir Lončar Krešimir Lončar (born February 12, 1983 in Split, Croatia, is a Croatian professional basketball player. He is 6 ft 10¾ in (2.10 m) in height and weighs 231 pounds (105 kg). He plays both the power forward and center positions. Currently he is a member of the...
and Damir Rančić
Damir Rančić
Damir Rancic born June 23, 1983 in Split, Croatia is a Croatian professional basketball player.-Pro career:Rancic began his professional career in 2000 with Solin. He then moved to Split in 2001. In 2005, he moved to Cibona Zagreb. He then joined Panellinios, before going to Kyiv. He then returned...
.
At the age of 15 Jericevic qualified for the three point shootout at Croatian basketball All-Star game in Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
and competed against the best shooters in its PRO basketball league including Gordan Giricek
Gordan Giricek
Gordan Giriček is a Croatian professional basketball player who is currently playing for Cibona Zagreb. Previously, he played in the NBA for the Memphis Grizzlies, Orlando Magic, Utah Jazz, Philadelphia 76ers, and the Phoenix Suns...
who went on to develop a successful NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
. Little is known that Jericevic was regarded as one of the best young shooting guards in Croatia making 97 free throws and 31 three pointers in a row during practice.
Given the opportunity, at the age of 17, Jericevic went on to search for athletic and academic opportunities in United States as an exchange student. Jericevic graduated from Ord High School in Ord, Nebraska
Ord, Nebraska
Ord is a city in Valley County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 2,269 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Valley County. Ord was named in honor of Civil War general Edward O. C...
, earning an athletic and academic scholarship combined for the prestigious Midwestern private university Midland University (Midland Lutheran College
Midland Lutheran College
Midland University, formerly Midland Lutheran College, is a private liberal arts college, located in Fremont, Nebraska, USA, and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...
at a time). While there he participated in numerous theatre plays, ending his basketball career after the freshman year, and pursing the fields of business and theatre full time. Jericevic graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in Marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
and Management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
among top 20 students overall, also earning himself a prestigious Wall Street Journal Student Achievement Award as the business student of the generation based on faculty merit, work involved, participation and knowledge.
Career
After graduation Toni Jericevic moved back to Croatia in the summer of 2005. In the city of ZagrebZagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
he started out as an extra on television shows such as Zuhra Light Show at Nova TV, had a small appearance in a successful Croatian sitcom Bitange i princeze
Bitange i princeze
Bitange i princeze is a situation comedy type television show currently airing on Croatian Radio Television. The story is positioned in Zagreb, and it relies basically on group of people living in an apartment going through disasters in their life, falling in love, making it comical, similar to the...
, and a featuring role in an award winning Ozujsko
Ožujsko beer
Ožujsko is a Croatian brand of lager beer. It is the flagship brand produced by Zagrebačka pivovara, the biggest brewery in the country which is part of StarBev, a regional brewery group previously owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev and sold to the CVC Capital Partners equity fund in 2009.StarBev also...
commercial Buđenje.
At that time Jericevic accepted a serious business opportunity in his hometown Zadar; however, he used his spare time to participate in theatre playing the supporting role of Shah Zaman in the theatre play One Thousand and One Nights produced by the Croatian National Theatre
Croatian National Theatre
The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb , commonly referred to as HNK Zagreb, is a theatre located in Zagreb, owned and operated by the Ministry of Culture. The theatre evolved out of the first city theatre built in 1836 housed in the present-day Old City Hall...
of Zadar that received rave reviews. Also, at that time he participated in a popular television show Fear Factor
Fear Factor
Fear Factor is an American stunt/dare reality game show. The original Dutch version was called Now or Neverland. When Endemol USA and NBC adapted it to the American market in 2001, they changed the name to Fear Factor. The show pits contestants against each other in a variety of stunts for a...
produced by RTL Televizija
RTL Televizija
RTL Televizija is a Croatian commercial broadcaster with national availability that has been broadcasting since April 30, 2004.RTL Televizija is 74% owned by the RTL Group....
Croatia in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
In 2007 Jericevic left a serious business position to live and work in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary to become a TV host of the national phone-in television game show Nova Lova for Nova TV. After that time he was invited to audition for a grand project My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad is a reality sports TV show on NBC that premiered on February 18, 2008. The show is produced by Mark Burnett, producer of other shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, and was hosted by actor Dan Cortese...
and got the part as the leading TV host. Due to the low ratings Jericevic was fired in the middle of the season and was substituted by Boris Mirkovic. During that time Jericevic appeared in a theatre play Tablica Dijeljenja directed by Ivan Leo Lemo in HNK Pula
Pula
Pula is the largest city in Istria County, Croatia, situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, with a population of 62,080 .Like the rest of the region, it is known for its mild climate, smooth sea, and unspoiled nature. The city has a long tradition of winemaking, fishing,...
, and went back to hosting phone-in game shows until the beginning of 2010.
Currently, he is pursuing a career in international sales and marketing.
Theatre
All in the Timing
All in the Timing is a collection of one-act plays by the American playwright David Ives written between 1987 and 1993. It was first published by Dramatists Play Service in 1994, with a collection of six plays; however, the updated collection contains fourteen. The short plays are almost all...
(2011/02), comedy Master Class
Master Class
Master Class is a play by Terrence McNally, with incidental music by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, and Vincenzo Bellini.The play originally was staged by the Philadelphia Theatre Company and the Mark Taper Forum. After twelve previews, the Broadway production, directed by Leonard Foglia, opened...
of Maria Callas (2001/02), drama Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
(2002/03), drama You Can't Take It With You
You Can't Take It with You
You Can't Take It with You is a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The original production of the play opened at the Booth Theater on December 14, 1936, and played for 837 performances...
(2003/04), comedy It's Just A Play (2004/05), comedy One Thousand and One Nights (2006/07), drama The Liar (2007), comedy The Fish Tales (2007), comedy The Division Table (2008/09), children play
Television
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad is a reality sports TV show on NBC that premiered on February 18, 2008. The show is produced by Mark Burnett, producer of other shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, and was hosted by actor Dan Cortese...
(2008), NovaTV Nova Lova (2007–2009), NovaTV Bitange i princeze
Bitange i princeze
Bitange i princeze is a situation comedy type television show currently airing on Croatian Radio Television. The story is positioned in Zagreb, and it relies basically on group of people living in an apartment going through disasters in their life, falling in love, making it comical, similar to the...
(2005), episode #39, HRT2 Buđenje - Ožujsko pivo commercial (2006)
Fear Factor
Fear Factor is an American stunt/dare reality game show. The original Dutch version was called Now or Neverland. When Endemol USA and NBC adapted it to the American market in 2001, they changed the name to Fear Factor. The show pits contestants against each other in a variety of stunts for a...
(2007)