Is this the worst show on television?
November 12 | thedaily.com.au

Most of us have been dragged to a karaoke bar at some point in our lives.

After a few too many glasses of the evil amber ale, some of us have even found ourselves on stage, screeching along to a truly noxious song like Celine Dion¡¯s Titanic torture ¡°My heart will go on and on and on ¡­¡±

Or maybe warbling the words and mimicking the dance moves to Abba¡¯s Knowing Me, Knowing You (the year was 2001, the place was Vietnam and no one there knew me, people!).

But most of us have the good sense to confine our efforts to anonymous dingy pubs in foreign countries, and stop short of humiliating ourselves by displaying our lack of karaoke talent on television.

I say most of us because a few amateur karaoke singers foolishly decide to take to the stage in front of a national audience on Channel 9¡¯s Singing Bee (Sunday nights, 6.30pm).

Now up until I caught my first glimpse of this show a couple of weeks ago, I thought National Bingo Night was the worst show on television. I was wrong.

Singing Bee makes National Bingo Night look like an intelligent, high-quality production.

Channel Nine¡¯s website says it all: ¡°The rules of the game are simple: you don't have to sing it well, you just have to sing it right.¡±

The aim of the game is for contestants to sing the lyrics to popular ¨C and I use that term loosely ¨C songs without getting the words wrong.

A live studio band and professional singers start the song, and the contestants have to stumble their way through the rest of the lyrics. Make too many mistakes and you¡¯re out, but if you¡¯re the last screecher standing you could win $50,000.

The theory behind song choice seems to be the cheesier the better, with most of the music featured being pre-2000. And best of all, we have to watch an annoying American host, who I can only assume was given the job because no Australian was prepared to take it on.

Last night I watched a woman who identified herself as a radio station employee massacre The Foundations¡¯ 1968 hit Build Me Up, Buttercup, while a mum/shop assistant did a version of I Go to Rio that would have Peter Allen spinning.

In the end the winner was a fuller-figured bloke who, to be fair, didn¡¯t have a bad singing voice, though his hip thrusting dance moves made me a little nauseous.

When his accurate rendition of Oasis¡¯s Wonderwall won him $20,000, he squealed: ¡°I think I¡¯m gonna wee!¡±

Fortunately, he didn¡¯t ¡­ and he went on to scoop the $50,000 pool with more ill-advised hip thrusting to Tom Jones¡¯ Kiss.

Good for him, but I lost 30 minutes of my life that I¡¯ll never get back again. Still, it made the three finalists on Australian Idol look bloody brilliant.

¡ª SUZANNE KEEN

Recent Comments:

Posted by becm from Currimundi
on 13 November, 2007 at 11:23 a.m.
Totally agree...it is atrocious, but NOT worse than National Bingo. But why, oh why, do these shows rate so well? It is one of life's biggest mysteries and I, for one, will never understand it - just like Joey Fatone's surname (poor guy - you are really pre-disposed to a weight problem with that one, 'fat one'). Bingo came in at number 14 in the national list of most watched shows this past Sunday, Singing Bee was 13.
Can anyone out there explain this??

Posted by NikkiP from Mountain Creek
on 13 November, 2007 at 12:17 p.m.
I LOOOOVE National Bingo ... there is nothing more cute than my two year old swinging his arm out in front of him and exclaiming, 'noooo, bingo!'

Submitted by David on 13-11-2007

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