Hey, what kind of game is this? For old ladies and fairies? I quit.
- Canadian prisoner Capt. Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) after not being allowed to tackle players during a soccer game in the 1981 film "Victory," screenplay by Evan Jones and Yabo Yablonsky
Americans don't like to be told what to do. The folks at the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer will have to come to terms with this lesson as they market the arrival of one of the few athletes to have his name appear in the title of a feature film, David Beckham.
In case you have been holed up with Cheney in his undisclosed location for the last few weeks, the Galaxy signed the 32-year-old Beckham, a former captain of the English national soccer team who has played for arguably the two most storied football clubs in history, Manchester United and Real Madrid, to a five-year contract. Reports often value the contract at $250 million, but Beckham's actual salary is $5.5 million per year (the balance is projected revenue from merchandising and marketing). MLS has occasionally brought in stars at the end of their careers, but none had the name-recognition of Beckham, nor a wife who is a Spice Girl (she was Posh Spice, but based on her skeletal appearance, I think she should now be forced to swap Spice names with Scary Spice).
The Galaxy's ownership, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), has been at the forefront of a massive media blitz announcing Beckham's arrival, which included a one-hour reality special chronicling Mrs. Beckham's move to Los Angeles that ran last night (and was about as entertaining as watching groundskeepers mowing the Galaxy's practice field). It's been all Beckhams, all the time, as if the couple are filling the celebrity news vacuum created by the lack of any recent outbursts by Paris, Lindsay and/or Britney.
While AEG might be happy with the unprecedented amount of media attention for one of its MLS clubs (the company operates three of them), it may not be happy with the backlash that seems to be forming.
As a soccer fan, I get it. I can attest that Beckham's arrival is a big deal for MLS. He can still play, having recently regained his place on the English national team, and his skills and mental approach to the game will raise the playing level of his teammates (including U.S. international Landon Donovan, who, while undoubtedly talented, is in sore need of some lessons on how to play with grit, determination and desire, all qualities Beckham possesses). Beckham is also charismatic and won't falter under the spotlight of being the "savior" of U.S. soccer. As a soccer player, nothing is more pressure-packed than wearing the captain's armband for England. Beckham's arrival will absolutely help the league.
What Beckham's arrival will not do is suddenly turn soccer into a major American sport. Here is where the idea of Americans not wanting to be told what to do comes into play. It seems to me that U.S. sports fans love the idea that the world's most popular team sport is an afterthought here. There is a pride in resisting the calls of the world to embrace what other countries call "the beautiful game." As I have listened to, read and watched the reactions to the media blitz surrounding Beckham's signing, it seems to me that the average American sports fan is more than just indifferent. Rather, the average Joe (or Josephine) is pushing back, delighting in saying, "Who cares?" as a way of really saying, "Don't tell me I'm supposed to care about something I don't care about."
You also have to factor in that U.S. sports fans tend to be suspicious of soccer as a sport. The line from "Victory" quoted at the top of this article, uttered by the ultimate man's man of the era, Sylvester Stallone, is what a lot of American football fans think of soccer. Rather than starting from even with a lot of men in the U.S., soccer begins with a stigma of not being a physical or tough enterprise (even though that point of view is wrong, especially in tough leagues like the English Premiership).
Let's face it, it's not like Americans are open to new sports in general, or even new leagues in established sports. Essentially, in the U.S., there is the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, NCAA football, NCAA basketball, NASCAR and PGA golf. Everything else lags far behind in viewership. The National Hockey League has tried several times over the last 40 years to break through, but fewer people watched the NHL finals on ABC in June than watched weekly Arena Football games on NBC. Speaking of football, the trash heap is littered with the carcasses of failed leagues, from the WWE-sponsored XFL (who gloriously brought us the player known as "He Hate Me") to the Donald Trump-dominated USFL. There really are no openings in the wallets and hearts of most Americans for another major sport. MLS is destined to remain what it is right now, a fairly successful (15,000 fans a game) niche sport.
MLS has another problem based on its quality of play. Americans are spoiled in that our major leagues, by and large, represent the top level of competition in the world for those sports. The best basketball players from all over aspire to play in the NBA. The elite baseball players from Asia to South America to Central America to the Caribbean flock to MLB. MLS isn't even one of the top five (maybe not even top 10, and possibly not even top 15) soccer leagues in the world. The economics of the league do not allow the teams to pay a competitive wage to players (Beckham was signed under a new rule enacted before this season that allows each team to pay one player a lot of money without it counting against the club's salary cap). As long as MLS is a minor league, it will be treated as such by the American public. Most of the soccer fans I know think like me, in that we would rather watch our favorite European teams (Arsenal for me) than an MLS game. The quality of play in the big European leagues is just better.
The Galaxy is using Beckham's arrival as an opportunity to bludgeon U.S. sports fans into becoming interested in soccer. It seems to me that this is a bad approach. Such a task would be next to impossible on its own, but when you throw in the niche nature of MLS and its minor league status, the job becomes a suicide mission. As a result, the media blitz, instead of luring sports fans, is pushing them away.
A low-key approach would have been more effective. The Beckham signing called for just enough publicity to let America know that an elite player nearly in his prime would be, for the very first time, plying his trade in MLS. Curious sports fans would then be drawn to check out what the guy who can bend the ball so well a writer named a movie after him was really all about. Now, people will be checking out Beckham's debut with an eye towards trashing him. "I'll bet you the pretty boy isn't even that good."
Also, soccer is a sport that generally does not allow for a lot of spectacular individual SportsCenter-friendly efforts. People are going to be tuning in expecting Beckham to take over a game the way Michael Jordan did, scoring at will. That's not how soccer is, and it's not how Beckham plays. He is likely to make some eye-popping kicks off of free kicks (the genesis of the whole "Bend It Like Beckham" thing). He is also likely to deposit some devastatingly accurate passes onto the feet and heads of his teammates. But, for the most part, his influence will be subtle, possibly so subtle that the average U.S. sports fan might think, "What's the big deal?"
From a financial perspective, the Anschutz folks did their homework. Bloomberg.com reported that the increased revenue associated with the Beckham move has already covered the player's salary. But I think AEG miscalculated in its marketing plan. Time will tell how much impact Beckham's arrival will have on the popularity of MLS in the long-term. It seems that in the short-term, many Americans are put off. Most of the polls I have read online agree that sports fans don't care that Beckham is coming to MLS.
When Beckham makes his Galaxy debut in a friendly (that's a soccer term for an exhibition game) against English powerhouse Chelsea, a lot of Americans will be watching (assuming Beckham shakes off an ankle injury in time to play). The question is, will they continue to watch the rest of this season, and in the four seasons to come? A slow build is no longer an option. AEG has treated Beckham's arrival like a major U.S. sports event, so expectations are now through the roof. The pressure is on. Things have to pop for MLS very quickly, or the whole move will be talked about as a failure. It didn't have to be that way, though. And that's a shame, because from a soccer point of view, we are lucky to have David Beckham playing in MLS. Thanks to the relentless marketing blitz, it doesn't always feel that way.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Nobody Talks About the True Dilemma in Iraq
And the only people I fear
are those who never have doubts
Save us all from arrogant men,
and all the causes they're for
I won't be righteous again
I'm not that sure anymore
- Billy Joel, "Shades of Grey," from his 1993 album "River of Dreams"
President George W. Bush's world is very simple. There are good guys and bad guys. You're either wrong or you agree with him. And, you never change your mind, no matter how much evidence is presented to you. Taking reconsideration of your positions out of your daily routine must make life blissfully simple, and being happily ignorant must be quite peaceful. But, it's no way to run a country.
Republican senators, remembering the loss of Congress in the 2006 election over the Iraq issue and fearing another electoral drubbing in 2008, have started to slowly move from under Bush's coattails on the war. For example, a Yahoo!/AFP article from Saturday discussed how GOP Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and John Warner of Virginia on Friday released a plan that called for the beginning of troop withdrawals from Iraq by the end of the year. Bush's response? Of course, he's not changing his policy, even at the behest of members of his own party, saying that there are two courses on Iraq: Either you believe U.S. forces will fail there, or you believe America can still succeed.
Again, everything is simple to Bush. You're a winner or you're a loser, period.
The problem with the Iraq debate is that nobody, not the Democrats nor the Republicans, have moved off that basic bipolar approach to the situation. As with most things in life, the issue is much more complicated than Bush would have you believe. Remember, this is the man who couldn't predict that the three hostile groups in Iraq -- Shias, Sunnis and Kurds -- would be at odds with each other once they were released from Saddam Hussein's iron fist. (There is no shortage of people who wonder if Bush even knew there were three kinds of followers of Islam when he made the decision to invade Iraq.)
I would love to hear a politician, from either party, realistically look at where we are in Iraq and then make an argument of what we should do next, rather than repeating the same "should we stay or should we go?" arguments that have come out over the last few months.
Maybe we could come up with an effective Iraq strategy if a bipartisan group of moderate Republicans and Democrats chose to frame the issue this way: "The United States is caught in an ethical dilemma. The President skewed intelligence to drag the country into a war that was wrong, and he executed the operation with a total lack of planning for what would happen once Hussein fell, so America is clearly responsible for what is happening in Iraq. But, no matter what cause of action we take now that the mess has been made, we risk acting immorally and in a way that will cause repercussions for the nation down the road. On the one hand, every day that we remain in Iraq, we are perpetuating our mistake by staying in the country and putting the precious lives of U.S. soldiers at risk for no good end. Plus, the Iraqi political leaders, despite having a U.S. military presence for more than four years, have done nothing to solve the underlying issues that will have to be addressed before there can be peace. But, on the other hand, despite the initial invasion being a mistake, the fact is that we're there, and there are people fighting each other because of us, and it is up to us to stay there as long as possible to give the Iraqi people a chance to settle their differences and to avoid the possibility of genocide or a full-on civil war with millions of casualties."
Such a positing of the issue, to me, is the most honest and accurate way of assessing the situation, and lends itself to a more productive discussion of what the right ways forward are. In such an argument, it would be hard for one side not to respect the position of its opponent. You can reasonably make either argument.
Instead, Bush acts as if the Iraqi invasion was not a mistake, as if we are not bogged down in the middle of a tragic (more than 3,000 dead U.S. military personnel) and costly (as I wrote on July 10, a Yahoo!/AP article put the cost of the Iraq war at half-a-trillion dollars this year) civil war, and as if he has not played right into Osama bin-Laden's arms and acted as the top recruiter for Al-Qeda. Bush keeps moving forward, ignoring the reality of how his policy has failed, and how his actions are viewed in his own country, Iraq, and the rest of the world.
Instead of strongly rising up to move the debate to a place where the premise is that Bush has presided over one of the biggest foreign policy catastrophes in the country's history, the Democrats have been tepid, caving on the funding legislation when Bush held firm against them earlier in the year, and never really recovering enough to provide a strong counter to the White House's policy of "stay the course ... further into hell." It will not be lost on voters, I fear, that no real pressure was put on Bush until Republican senators started breaking ranks in the last few weeks.
The current debate on Iraq has to change. We need a new voice. We need to accurately assess what has happened the last five years, and how we now find ourselves in a virtually no-win situation in Iraq. The total fabrications of the administration, all perpetuated in the service of political posturing and the pursuit of now-discredited ideologies, have to be dismissed. Without knowing where we really are, any discussion of what we should do next lacks a basis in fact and is doomed to fail.
I am a proponent of the "it's time to go" approach to Iraq, but even I could not be too upset if someone made the argument we had to stay, so long as that person acknowledged the disaster of what has gone on up to now. But, there is no excuse for Bush's head-in-the-sand, full-steam-ahead policy.
Bush is the ultimate "arrogant man" Billy Joel wrote about in "Shades of Grey." But while our president may like his world black and white, the world, in real life, is far more grey. He should not be allowed to continue on a course of failure for one day longer. Each day that he does, the situation in Iraq gets that much worse. Bush may not seem to notice or care, but the rest of us certainly do. It's time for us (and the members of Congress of both parties) to show it.
are those who never have doubts
Save us all from arrogant men,
and all the causes they're for
I won't be righteous again
I'm not that sure anymore
- Billy Joel, "Shades of Grey," from his 1993 album "River of Dreams"
President George W. Bush's world is very simple. There are good guys and bad guys. You're either wrong or you agree with him. And, you never change your mind, no matter how much evidence is presented to you. Taking reconsideration of your positions out of your daily routine must make life blissfully simple, and being happily ignorant must be quite peaceful. But, it's no way to run a country.
Republican senators, remembering the loss of Congress in the 2006 election over the Iraq issue and fearing another electoral drubbing in 2008, have started to slowly move from under Bush's coattails on the war. For example, a Yahoo!/AFP article from Saturday discussed how GOP Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and John Warner of Virginia on Friday released a plan that called for the beginning of troop withdrawals from Iraq by the end of the year. Bush's response? Of course, he's not changing his policy, even at the behest of members of his own party, saying that there are two courses on Iraq: Either you believe U.S. forces will fail there, or you believe America can still succeed.
Again, everything is simple to Bush. You're a winner or you're a loser, period.
The problem with the Iraq debate is that nobody, not the Democrats nor the Republicans, have moved off that basic bipolar approach to the situation. As with most things in life, the issue is much more complicated than Bush would have you believe. Remember, this is the man who couldn't predict that the three hostile groups in Iraq -- Shias, Sunnis and Kurds -- would be at odds with each other once they were released from Saddam Hussein's iron fist. (There is no shortage of people who wonder if Bush even knew there were three kinds of followers of Islam when he made the decision to invade Iraq.)
I would love to hear a politician, from either party, realistically look at where we are in Iraq and then make an argument of what we should do next, rather than repeating the same "should we stay or should we go?" arguments that have come out over the last few months.
Maybe we could come up with an effective Iraq strategy if a bipartisan group of moderate Republicans and Democrats chose to frame the issue this way: "The United States is caught in an ethical dilemma. The President skewed intelligence to drag the country into a war that was wrong, and he executed the operation with a total lack of planning for what would happen once Hussein fell, so America is clearly responsible for what is happening in Iraq. But, no matter what cause of action we take now that the mess has been made, we risk acting immorally and in a way that will cause repercussions for the nation down the road. On the one hand, every day that we remain in Iraq, we are perpetuating our mistake by staying in the country and putting the precious lives of U.S. soldiers at risk for no good end. Plus, the Iraqi political leaders, despite having a U.S. military presence for more than four years, have done nothing to solve the underlying issues that will have to be addressed before there can be peace. But, on the other hand, despite the initial invasion being a mistake, the fact is that we're there, and there are people fighting each other because of us, and it is up to us to stay there as long as possible to give the Iraqi people a chance to settle their differences and to avoid the possibility of genocide or a full-on civil war with millions of casualties."
Such a positing of the issue, to me, is the most honest and accurate way of assessing the situation, and lends itself to a more productive discussion of what the right ways forward are. In such an argument, it would be hard for one side not to respect the position of its opponent. You can reasonably make either argument.
Instead, Bush acts as if the Iraqi invasion was not a mistake, as if we are not bogged down in the middle of a tragic (more than 3,000 dead U.S. military personnel) and costly (as I wrote on July 10, a Yahoo!/AP article put the cost of the Iraq war at half-a-trillion dollars this year) civil war, and as if he has not played right into Osama bin-Laden's arms and acted as the top recruiter for Al-Qeda. Bush keeps moving forward, ignoring the reality of how his policy has failed, and how his actions are viewed in his own country, Iraq, and the rest of the world.
Instead of strongly rising up to move the debate to a place where the premise is that Bush has presided over one of the biggest foreign policy catastrophes in the country's history, the Democrats have been tepid, caving on the funding legislation when Bush held firm against them earlier in the year, and never really recovering enough to provide a strong counter to the White House's policy of "stay the course ... further into hell." It will not be lost on voters, I fear, that no real pressure was put on Bush until Republican senators started breaking ranks in the last few weeks.
The current debate on Iraq has to change. We need a new voice. We need to accurately assess what has happened the last five years, and how we now find ourselves in a virtually no-win situation in Iraq. The total fabrications of the administration, all perpetuated in the service of political posturing and the pursuit of now-discredited ideologies, have to be dismissed. Without knowing where we really are, any discussion of what we should do next lacks a basis in fact and is doomed to fail.
I am a proponent of the "it's time to go" approach to Iraq, but even I could not be too upset if someone made the argument we had to stay, so long as that person acknowledged the disaster of what has gone on up to now. But, there is no excuse for Bush's head-in-the-sand, full-steam-ahead policy.
Bush is the ultimate "arrogant man" Billy Joel wrote about in "Shades of Grey." But while our president may like his world black and white, the world, in real life, is far more grey. He should not be allowed to continue on a course of failure for one day longer. Each day that he does, the situation in Iraq gets that much worse. Bush may not seem to notice or care, but the rest of us certainly do. It's time for us (and the members of Congress of both parties) to show it.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Battle of the Network Karaoke Shows
[NOTE: The following article will also appear in my regular television column for WILDsound.]
John Edwards likes to say that there are two Americas. I would argue that there are also two network television worlds. In the scripted sphere, executives are more than willing to roll the dice on innovative, edgy ideas that take the medium in different directions. The last few years have brought us shows like "24," "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Veronica Mars," "My Name Is Earl," and "Heroes" that took traditional television concepts and pushed them into previously uncharted territory. Sure, once ideas proved to be hits, then programmers played follow the leader, resulting in a schedule last year that seemed to be limited to police procedurals, serialized dramas and soaps (with sitcoms as scarce as an atheist in the Bush administration). But, that didn't stop the networks from trying new things for this upcoming season.
Meanwhile, over in the reality television department, the executives are like the ultimate high school cheaters, copying off of everyone else's papers, with nobody daring to write down a response of their own. It's a two-part stealing process, really. Step one, you buy the rights to a successful European reality/game show (or remake an old U.S. one). Step two, once it's a hit, your competitors change it slightly to come up with their own versions of it. Dropping a new idea in a reality pitch meeting is about as well-received as dropping a bag of roaches in the kitchen of a five-star restaurant.
So, it should come as no surprise that NBC and Fox are currently engaged in a war over karaoke shows, which, of course, are the modern heirs to the classic game show "Name That Tune." NBC announced its version first. Fox then jumped in, declaring they also would dive into the karaoke waters, and would even premiere it before NBC launched its program. NBC, feeling it had to go first, rushed production (even when they had yet to choose a host) and introduced "The Singing Bee" to America on Tuesday, a day before "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" bowed on Fox.
I know what you must be thinking: Which one is the VHS and which one is the Betamax? Because, really, you are still probably scarred by having to choose between "Wife Swap" and "Trading Spouses," not to mention the "Sophie's Choice" horror of deciding whether to throw your allegiance behind "Nanny 911" or "Supernanny." Worry not, my friends. I will be happy to put your aching minds at ease.
The Great Karaoke Show Showdown of Summer 2007 is a first round knockout for your winner and champion: "Don't Forget the Lyrics!"
While "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is pretty good, the reason for the lopsided victory is that "The Singing Bee" is one of the ten worst television programs I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. Ever. From top to bottom, and at every step in between, "The Singing Bee" is amateurish, grating and just plain doesn't work. It's the 20-car freeway pile-up of television programs.
The carnage all starts with the host of "The Singing Bee," former 'N Sync member Joey Fatone, who is smarmy and clueless to the point of distraction. It just looks like he has no idea what he's doing, what's going on around him, and why the tour bus hasn't come to get him yet. Fatone reminds you of the guy that is too much of a joke to be a wedding singer, but at other people's weddings, he will get drunk and insist on jumping in to play with the band. He displays a complete lack of personality. If Fatone was the best NBC could do in its rush to beat Fox onto the air, the network should have delayed production until a competent professional could have been signed. It's not like the bar is that high for game show hosts. Being first with this lox bringing down the entire vibe of the show just doesn't seem worth it.
As jaw-droppingly useless as Fatone is, it's not like he's getting a lot of help. NBC bills "The Singing Bee" as a "variety-competition show," but if Donny and Marie, Barbara Mandrel and Tony Orlando were watching at home, I hope they had a steady supply of anti-depressants, sedatives and Pepto-Bismol, because this is not the variety shows they remember hosting. The variety aspect, I suppose, is the presence of a large band and a rotating group of singers to perform the snippets of the songs, and a gaggle of scantily clad dancers to gyrate in the background. The result is more off-the-Strip Vegas than anything resembling the 1970s heyday of network variety hours. The band reduces every song, regardless of genre, to an in-your-face, Vegas lounge cheesiness that leaves you cringing. The singers, who over-emote and ham it up, don't help matters. And, the dancers, rather than providing some wholesome sex appeal, come off as kind of raunchy, making you feel a little dirty for watching. Like you've been caught at a lapdancing bar by the airport.
By now, you are probably thinking, "Wait, if this is a karaoke show, why are there singers in the band?" Excellent query. You would think it was something that NBC would have thought of. But, you would be wrong. You see, despite this being a karaoke competition, the contestants don't actually sing the songs. Rather, they mouth along with the words, looking incredibly awkward, waiting for the band and singer to stop. At that point, it's their job to jump in with the next phrase. Yes, on each song, the contestant sings about five words max. That's it. How is this karaoke?
With six contestants and almost no singing, there is virtually no chance for the guests to show any personality. This leaves viewers with no rooting interest (the heart of any game show) and, ultimately, bored.
The competition rules of "The Singing Bee" just don't work, leading to the proceedings being a drag. Six contestants are chosen to come up on stage, and the first four to get a lyric right go on to the next round. What if you go late in the rotation? Sucks for you. Not shockingly, the two women eliminated in the first round of the debut episode were in the fifth and sixth positions. So much for drama.
More importantly, the answers almost uniformly turned on whether the contestant got an article, preposition or conjunction right in the lyrics, making the competition feel more like a school assembly than something, you know, fun. For example, four contestants missed the lyrics to Bananarama's cover of "Venus" because they left out the "at" before "your desire" at the end of the chorus. Wow. With drama like that, who can turn away! Makes you long for your high school mathletes competitions.
When the six contestants are whittled down to one, the big finale involves the winner trying to win (insert drum roll) $50,000! Dr. Evil from "Austin Powers" must have come up with that amount. On a network that gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars on "Deal or No Deal" and "1 v. 100," it's hard to bite your nails wondering if that night's victor will be able to haul in the grand prize of 50 grand. It's as if there was directive from NBC to make sure that absolutely no element of the show could provide drama or hold an audience's attention.
There was obviously a lot of curiosity and interest in the concept of a karaoke game show. Tuesday's episode of "The Spelling Bee" drew 13.3 million viewers, making it the highest-rated new show of the summer. My question is, after it turned out to be such a bore-fest, how much of the audience will come back?
If they're smart, they'll watch "Don't Forget the Lyrics!", which debuted the next day (Wednesday) and will run on Wednesday and Thursday nights. If you can get past the admittedly lame title, you'll find that where "The Spelling Bee" does everything wrong, the Fox entry does nearly everything right.
Wayne Brady hosts "Don't Forget the Lyrics!", and the show's format provides a perfect showcase for his upbeat enthusiasm and love of singing and dancing that he displayed for years on "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" (Apparently, he has a thing for shows whose titles end in punctuation marks.) Where Fatone is stiff, smarmy, off-putting and boring, Brady is warm, fun and engaging, knowing just when to get involved in the action (in the first episode, he pulls a guest out of the audience to join him in singing and dancing back-up for the contestant when she sang the Jackson 5 hit "ABC"). He's part tour guide, part party host and part cheerleader, making sure everyone is having fun.
Nothing about "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is really original, but the show's format uses game show conventions to keep the drama up and viewers involved. A single contestant plays at a time, making a "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" style trek from low-value songs (you start at $2,500) up to a $1 million dollar lyric. Just like "Millionaire" and its progeny ("1 v. 100," "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?", etc.), three helps are available if the contestant has trouble with a song. And, like those shows, you have the option after each round of walking away with what you have or risking it by going on. Like "Deal or No Deal," two friends and/or family members sit on stage (one of the helps is asking them). These game elements may be recycled, but they are used so often for a reason: They work. They produce drama and keep viewers interested in the action, wondering if the contestant will blow a ton of money or win a fortune (rooting for one or the other, depending on whether the person is likable or not).
The creators of "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" also made some smart decisions about the game's format. There are categories of songs for the contestant to choose from, and within each category, the singer can choose one of two songs to perform. This element also keeps you interested as you root for the singer to choose the hit you want to hear. And, most importantly, "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" realizes that it is a karaoke competition. As a result, once the music starts (the band is subtle, ceding the spotlight to the contestant and never drawing attention to itself, which is a very good thing and a lesson the band on "The Singing Bee" could stand to learn), the singer croons along, following the lyrics on the giant in-studio message board (the words are also superimposed on the screen for the viewers at home). We watch the guest sing a good part of the song before the band stops, and the words disappear. It's then up to the contestant to fill in the next four or five words (indicated by dashes).
The "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" rules work because we want to see the guests sing, equally hoping for them to be good or horrible. We get to enjoy their energy, awkwardness and/or talent, as the case may be, and wonder to ourselves if we could do better. The filling in of the lyrics is natural, because the guest is already singing. And, the answers less frequently turn on a missing "and" or "at." It's a better test of whether the singer knows the words. Simply put, it's just more fun.
The format lets us get to know the contestants and gain a rooting interest. For example, in the first episode, we learn that Katie, an adorable, spunky grad student, likes to knit and study bugs, and if she wins money, she will use it to buy a giant microscope and an ant farm. Because she is required to sing the whole songs, she is able to get comfortable, dancing along, in way that the contestants in "The Singing Bee" never get to do. You are brought along on her journey and care more if she gets the lyrics right or wrong. When she was terrified that she might have gotten one of the words of the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" wrong, I found myself a bit tense during the inevitable pause for effect before the correct answer was revealed (she correctly got the line "and they cross the floor," whew).
In the end, it's the money -- what can be won, and what can be lost -- that lifts "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" above its NBC counterpart. (Well, that and the absence of a fun-sucking host like Fatone.) The show provides the same moments of drama and tension found in games like "Deal or No Deal" or "Millionaire." The money element provides the structure that keep you around to enjoy all the singing.
The only thing that interrupts the drama a bit is that the show feels like it was supposed to be an hour long, but was chopped into two 30-minute installments after it had already been shot. Katie was the contestant for the entire first half hour, and yet she only got about two-thirds of the way up the board. I suppose that works to bring you back the next episode, but it just felt abrupt. Of course, that's just a quibble. While certainly not new or innovative, "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is good piece of fun entertainment, something "The Singing Bee" cannot come close to claiming.
So there you have it. "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is the clear, decisive winner in the battle of the karaoke game shows. The clash should teach networks two important lessons: Don't rush shows onto the air, and never hire a host whose only claim to fame is "singing" in a boy band. No good can come from either of these courses of action.
John Edwards likes to say that there are two Americas. I would argue that there are also two network television worlds. In the scripted sphere, executives are more than willing to roll the dice on innovative, edgy ideas that take the medium in different directions. The last few years have brought us shows like "24," "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Veronica Mars," "My Name Is Earl," and "Heroes" that took traditional television concepts and pushed them into previously uncharted territory. Sure, once ideas proved to be hits, then programmers played follow the leader, resulting in a schedule last year that seemed to be limited to police procedurals, serialized dramas and soaps (with sitcoms as scarce as an atheist in the Bush administration). But, that didn't stop the networks from trying new things for this upcoming season.
Meanwhile, over in the reality television department, the executives are like the ultimate high school cheaters, copying off of everyone else's papers, with nobody daring to write down a response of their own. It's a two-part stealing process, really. Step one, you buy the rights to a successful European reality/game show (or remake an old U.S. one). Step two, once it's a hit, your competitors change it slightly to come up with their own versions of it. Dropping a new idea in a reality pitch meeting is about as well-received as dropping a bag of roaches in the kitchen of a five-star restaurant.
So, it should come as no surprise that NBC and Fox are currently engaged in a war over karaoke shows, which, of course, are the modern heirs to the classic game show "Name That Tune." NBC announced its version first. Fox then jumped in, declaring they also would dive into the karaoke waters, and would even premiere it before NBC launched its program. NBC, feeling it had to go first, rushed production (even when they had yet to choose a host) and introduced "The Singing Bee" to America on Tuesday, a day before "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" bowed on Fox.
I know what you must be thinking: Which one is the VHS and which one is the Betamax? Because, really, you are still probably scarred by having to choose between "Wife Swap" and "Trading Spouses," not to mention the "Sophie's Choice" horror of deciding whether to throw your allegiance behind "Nanny 911" or "Supernanny." Worry not, my friends. I will be happy to put your aching minds at ease.
The Great Karaoke Show Showdown of Summer 2007 is a first round knockout for your winner and champion: "Don't Forget the Lyrics!"
While "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is pretty good, the reason for the lopsided victory is that "The Singing Bee" is one of the ten worst television programs I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. Ever. From top to bottom, and at every step in between, "The Singing Bee" is amateurish, grating and just plain doesn't work. It's the 20-car freeway pile-up of television programs.
The carnage all starts with the host of "The Singing Bee," former 'N Sync member Joey Fatone, who is smarmy and clueless to the point of distraction. It just looks like he has no idea what he's doing, what's going on around him, and why the tour bus hasn't come to get him yet. Fatone reminds you of the guy that is too much of a joke to be a wedding singer, but at other people's weddings, he will get drunk and insist on jumping in to play with the band. He displays a complete lack of personality. If Fatone was the best NBC could do in its rush to beat Fox onto the air, the network should have delayed production until a competent professional could have been signed. It's not like the bar is that high for game show hosts. Being first with this lox bringing down the entire vibe of the show just doesn't seem worth it.
As jaw-droppingly useless as Fatone is, it's not like he's getting a lot of help. NBC bills "The Singing Bee" as a "variety-competition show," but if Donny and Marie, Barbara Mandrel and Tony Orlando were watching at home, I hope they had a steady supply of anti-depressants, sedatives and Pepto-Bismol, because this is not the variety shows they remember hosting. The variety aspect, I suppose, is the presence of a large band and a rotating group of singers to perform the snippets of the songs, and a gaggle of scantily clad dancers to gyrate in the background. The result is more off-the-Strip Vegas than anything resembling the 1970s heyday of network variety hours. The band reduces every song, regardless of genre, to an in-your-face, Vegas lounge cheesiness that leaves you cringing. The singers, who over-emote and ham it up, don't help matters. And, the dancers, rather than providing some wholesome sex appeal, come off as kind of raunchy, making you feel a little dirty for watching. Like you've been caught at a lapdancing bar by the airport.
By now, you are probably thinking, "Wait, if this is a karaoke show, why are there singers in the band?" Excellent query. You would think it was something that NBC would have thought of. But, you would be wrong. You see, despite this being a karaoke competition, the contestants don't actually sing the songs. Rather, they mouth along with the words, looking incredibly awkward, waiting for the band and singer to stop. At that point, it's their job to jump in with the next phrase. Yes, on each song, the contestant sings about five words max. That's it. How is this karaoke?
With six contestants and almost no singing, there is virtually no chance for the guests to show any personality. This leaves viewers with no rooting interest (the heart of any game show) and, ultimately, bored.
The competition rules of "The Singing Bee" just don't work, leading to the proceedings being a drag. Six contestants are chosen to come up on stage, and the first four to get a lyric right go on to the next round. What if you go late in the rotation? Sucks for you. Not shockingly, the two women eliminated in the first round of the debut episode were in the fifth and sixth positions. So much for drama.
More importantly, the answers almost uniformly turned on whether the contestant got an article, preposition or conjunction right in the lyrics, making the competition feel more like a school assembly than something, you know, fun. For example, four contestants missed the lyrics to Bananarama's cover of "Venus" because they left out the "at" before "your desire" at the end of the chorus. Wow. With drama like that, who can turn away! Makes you long for your high school mathletes competitions.
When the six contestants are whittled down to one, the big finale involves the winner trying to win (insert drum roll) $50,000! Dr. Evil from "Austin Powers" must have come up with that amount. On a network that gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars on "Deal or No Deal" and "1 v. 100," it's hard to bite your nails wondering if that night's victor will be able to haul in the grand prize of 50 grand. It's as if there was directive from NBC to make sure that absolutely no element of the show could provide drama or hold an audience's attention.
There was obviously a lot of curiosity and interest in the concept of a karaoke game show. Tuesday's episode of "The Spelling Bee" drew 13.3 million viewers, making it the highest-rated new show of the summer. My question is, after it turned out to be such a bore-fest, how much of the audience will come back?
If they're smart, they'll watch "Don't Forget the Lyrics!", which debuted the next day (Wednesday) and will run on Wednesday and Thursday nights. If you can get past the admittedly lame title, you'll find that where "The Spelling Bee" does everything wrong, the Fox entry does nearly everything right.
Wayne Brady hosts "Don't Forget the Lyrics!", and the show's format provides a perfect showcase for his upbeat enthusiasm and love of singing and dancing that he displayed for years on "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" (Apparently, he has a thing for shows whose titles end in punctuation marks.) Where Fatone is stiff, smarmy, off-putting and boring, Brady is warm, fun and engaging, knowing just when to get involved in the action (in the first episode, he pulls a guest out of the audience to join him in singing and dancing back-up for the contestant when she sang the Jackson 5 hit "ABC"). He's part tour guide, part party host and part cheerleader, making sure everyone is having fun.
Nothing about "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is really original, but the show's format uses game show conventions to keep the drama up and viewers involved. A single contestant plays at a time, making a "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" style trek from low-value songs (you start at $2,500) up to a $1 million dollar lyric. Just like "Millionaire" and its progeny ("1 v. 100," "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?", etc.), three helps are available if the contestant has trouble with a song. And, like those shows, you have the option after each round of walking away with what you have or risking it by going on. Like "Deal or No Deal," two friends and/or family members sit on stage (one of the helps is asking them). These game elements may be recycled, but they are used so often for a reason: They work. They produce drama and keep viewers interested in the action, wondering if the contestant will blow a ton of money or win a fortune (rooting for one or the other, depending on whether the person is likable or not).
The creators of "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" also made some smart decisions about the game's format. There are categories of songs for the contestant to choose from, and within each category, the singer can choose one of two songs to perform. This element also keeps you interested as you root for the singer to choose the hit you want to hear. And, most importantly, "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" realizes that it is a karaoke competition. As a result, once the music starts (the band is subtle, ceding the spotlight to the contestant and never drawing attention to itself, which is a very good thing and a lesson the band on "The Singing Bee" could stand to learn), the singer croons along, following the lyrics on the giant in-studio message board (the words are also superimposed on the screen for the viewers at home). We watch the guest sing a good part of the song before the band stops, and the words disappear. It's then up to the contestant to fill in the next four or five words (indicated by dashes).
The "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" rules work because we want to see the guests sing, equally hoping for them to be good or horrible. We get to enjoy their energy, awkwardness and/or talent, as the case may be, and wonder to ourselves if we could do better. The filling in of the lyrics is natural, because the guest is already singing. And, the answers less frequently turn on a missing "and" or "at." It's a better test of whether the singer knows the words. Simply put, it's just more fun.
The format lets us get to know the contestants and gain a rooting interest. For example, in the first episode, we learn that Katie, an adorable, spunky grad student, likes to knit and study bugs, and if she wins money, she will use it to buy a giant microscope and an ant farm. Because she is required to sing the whole songs, she is able to get comfortable, dancing along, in way that the contestants in "The Singing Bee" never get to do. You are brought along on her journey and care more if she gets the lyrics right or wrong. When she was terrified that she might have gotten one of the words of the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" wrong, I found myself a bit tense during the inevitable pause for effect before the correct answer was revealed (she correctly got the line "and they cross the floor," whew).
In the end, it's the money -- what can be won, and what can be lost -- that lifts "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" above its NBC counterpart. (Well, that and the absence of a fun-sucking host like Fatone.) The show provides the same moments of drama and tension found in games like "Deal or No Deal" or "Millionaire." The money element provides the structure that keep you around to enjoy all the singing.
The only thing that interrupts the drama a bit is that the show feels like it was supposed to be an hour long, but was chopped into two 30-minute installments after it had already been shot. Katie was the contestant for the entire first half hour, and yet she only got about two-thirds of the way up the board. I suppose that works to bring you back the next episode, but it just felt abrupt. Of course, that's just a quibble. While certainly not new or innovative, "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is good piece of fun entertainment, something "The Singing Bee" cannot come close to claiming.
So there you have it. "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" is the clear, decisive winner in the battle of the karaoke game shows. The clash should teach networks two important lessons: Don't rush shows onto the air, and never hire a host whose only claim to fame is "singing" in a boy band. No good can come from either of these courses of action.
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