I don’t watch a lot of random TV. Unless something I’ve planned to watch is on, I probably don’t even have the TV on. However, I’ve just moved from Virginia to Georgia and am staying at my girlfriend’s apartment for a couple of days — without my regular forms of entertainment I have turned to the ol’ tube. Last night we watched two reruns of NBC’s show “The Singing Bee,” hosted by Joey Fat-One.
The show is a half hour and is broken down into four segments. In the first, the six contestants chosen are vying for four spots. They’re given the year, title, and artist and the in-house band plays and sings around 15 seconds of the song; when the music stops the contestant has to nail the lyrics to earn their spot. The judges are really particular too: “Every girl’s crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man” is not the same as “Every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.” Those four people get paired up and go head-to-head in a variety of lyric-based challenges that change from episode to episode. The last two people face off by singing the entire chorus of a song without making a mistake. The winner takes home the trophy and gets to perform in “The Final Countdown.” This final round gives the champion seven songs worth $5000 each. Five out of seven earns you $50,000. You only get three strikes before you’re out, though.
So why did I like this show so much? Because there’s no BS. There’s no drama. There’s no character development. There’s no suspense. It’s all ADD editing and camera movements. It’s great! Anybody who has ever sung along to a song on the radio will enjoy it. Joey Fatone is a surprisingly good host. I’d actually rather listen to the house band singers than the folks on that other karaoke show American Idol.
One of the episodes last night was 80’s night, which I assumed I would kick ass in. Unfortunately for me, it was mostly 80s adult contemporary rather than pop and rock and my girlfriend was able to whoop out the Bobby Brown and Stevie Wonder better than I could. It also made me realize that some of the lyrics I think I know are not 100% accurate. Looks like I need to turn to the web and get my learn on.
Check out The Singing Bee if you get a chance. It runs on Tuesdays at 9:30 on NBC and reruns can bee seen on Bravo.
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