I don’t actually watch any of the normal TV shows that other people watch. I didn’t watch American Idol or Survivor or West Wing or Everybody Loves Raymond. My TV watching tends to the random cable stations like C-SPAN (1, 2 & 3), Style, TCM, VH1, MTV, Comedy Central, HGTV, the Food Network and whatever station is showing some cheesy, uplifting movie that is not date-rape or “my husband cheated/beat me/murdered my friend” related.
But sometimes I come across something when flipping the dial that is so train-wrecky that I cannot resist. Thus my “Apprentice” addiction and now . . . Hit Me Baby One More Time!
I was flipping past Bravo yesterday afternoon, which since NBC bought the station, no longer shows the quirky indie movies that I love to discover, but now shows various lousy reality shows that even NBC won’t show on the network and “West Wing” reruns. . . and the masterpiece that is “Inside the Actors Studio” . . . but that would be a post for another day.
(Also a post for another day is how terrible a lot of my old favorite cable stations are . . . A&E doesn’t even pretend to be classy anymore, Bravo no longer shows anything quirky and decent, TLC now has pretty much nothing educational unless you consider “A Makeover Story” educational, The History Channel shows crappy history . . . even I can find the discrepancies and holes in the narrative, much less my husband who is quite the historian . . . So to all of those who say that Public Television doesn’t need to be around because there are these other channels, I demand that you watch those channels straight for a week and tell me what things of educational value and/or artistic merit you actually saw . . . end of rant)
So, anyway, I hit upon this show, where the premise is they take all of these old artists that had hits 10 years ago or more and have them perform one of their old songs for the audience and then a new song by a current artist, and the audience votes and the best performing artist gets $20K to go to the charity of their choice.
This week’s artists were: Tiffany, Loverboy, Flock of Seagulls, CeCe Penniston and Arrested Development. Curiosity sucked me in, and the show did not disappoint.
The guy from Flock of Seagulls with the hair? He’s bald . . . at least I am pretty sure because he wore a baseball cap with a ponytail which is the longtime symbol for “balding.” Actually, if you look at the old pictures of the band, you can tell he was balding even then because he had this weird comb-over thing happening in the front. The band sounded horrible singing “I Ran” and I can’t remember the second song they sang, but it was lousy too. These guys did not age well.
Loverboy: They were slightly better, but the lead singer now looks exactly like a friend of mine, but with slightly more range of motion than he has. (I couldn't stop giggling.) They didn’t age well either.
Tiffany: Not 15 anymore, so her voice wasn’t quite up to the song she sang when she was a teen. Looked pregnant. Decent voice, though.
CeCe Penniston: Still sounds awesome, but the Faith Hill song she picked for her second song did not match well somehow. I couldn’t decide if she was going too fast, or the band was going too slow. I liked her because my sister and I actually saw her perform at the Taste of DC in ‘95 and her songs were quite the dance floor hits when I actually used to go out – so I have quite fuzzy, happy memories attached to her songs.
Arrested Development: They did that song “Tennessee” from the early ‘90s and had, like 10 people in the group. They were the best ones of the night and the audience could tell. They did a cover of Los Lonely Boys “How Far is Heaven” that was pretty cool . . . made it their own. All of the remaining members can actually still sing. They won the money, which they are donating to UNICEF in Sudan.
. . . Gee, this took a long time to write. It seemed like a good idea when I started! I haven’t written in a while and you can see why . . . I am such a slow typist. I guess no one will hire me for Television Without Pity, since I’m not snarky enough. Oh,well!
If anyone else saw the show (or have other show rant they’d like to share) please do!
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3 comments:
oh I hear you about some of these cable channels. I can't bear AMC anymore, it use to be so good. They use to have this show on "Remember Wenn" about a radio station in the 1930's, my all-time favorite show! Its sad when cable channels go bad, especially when they were originally good. As for Public Television, I would literally protest on Capital Hill, if anyone took that off - I'd have Masterpiece withdrawal (ps, did you ever watch Edwardian House, I loved it!).
-Virginia Gal
Yes! I saw the Edwardian House one . . . I think it was called "Manor House" and it was the best one I had seen.
The head of the family turned out to be the biggest jerk, both during the show and, as it turns out, afterwards too. (The WP had a bunch of Live Online sessions with folks who were in the show and his responses were quite a beaut!) I loved the head butler guy too . . . he was an architect in real life, and while he was super stern on the show, his remininces about his real Edwardian grandfather brought a real perspective to the show. Thanks for stopping by! :-)
Manor House - that was it! Good memory! oh yeah the head of the house seemed really taken with the idea of being waited on.
I liked everyone on the show, but that French chef was a hoot!
Did you ever watch the Regency Tea Party? I missed the final episode and they have never re-run it. Did anyone get together? That guy whose "house" it was suppose to be was a hottie!
-Virginia Gal
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