Hit Me Baby 1 More Time

Before I forget - other Netflix DVDs watched this month: Pirates of the
Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Tuck Everlasting, and Pooh's
Heffalump Movie. Which brings the total to 5. I think.

I've restarted this like four times now, because each time is just
...boring.

My desk is a mess. I'm so unorganized and cluttery. Part of me wants to
just toss everything in the trash. So long, papers! So long, green pen!
So long more papers!!

Still no progress on either story. On any story. Writing? Bah!

We watched part of NBC's Hit Me Baby 1 More Time last night. For those
not in the know - consider yourselves lucky - this show is an unscripted
program wherein bands that had hits (sometimes just one) in the 1980s
(or early 90s) are brought back to perform in front of an audience.
Multiple bands play each week, and then the studio audience votes on
which band was the best. The winner gets $50,000 donated to the charity
of their choice, along with an additional 15 seconds tacked onto their
15 minutes of fame.

Last night's bands were: The Knack ("My Sharona"), Tommy Tutone ("Jenny
(867-5309)"), Haddaway (um...who? Oh! That "Baby don't hurt me" song. I
swore that was Howard Jones that sang that, but whatever), The Motels
("Only the Lonely") and Vanilla Ice ("Ice Ice Baby").

Each band sings their original hit, then once all the bands are done,
they come back to sing a cover of a song that is famous now.

In between are snippets of interviews with the wash-ups, finding out how
life has been treating them since fame left them.

So. Highlights (such as they were) from last night's episode:

Tommy Tutone does computer work now! He's an office drone, and seemed
very sad about it. I actually felt kinda bad for him. It seems The Man
had won in regards to Mr. Tutone. And when they sang "Jenny (867-5309)",
they were pretty rocking. I got goosebumps. (Which, admittedly, doesn't
mean much. I get goosebumps from frickin' pizza commercials) Anyway,
when they came back to do "All the Small Things" by Blink 182...um. The
goosebumps went away. They BUTCHERED that song. Oh, man. It was
extremely painful to listen to. He kept putting the emphasis on
the wrong syllable. Also, as Steph pointed out, "he sounds too
tired to sing". Aww. Poor 80 year old man. At least he gets an A for
effort, right?

I missed The Knack's performance of "My Sharona", which is a pity,
because they did an okay version of "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet.
Funny Steph commentary: The Knack guy says, "The Knack - you can't kill
it with a stick." Steph says, "What can you kill it with?" Heh. My wife
gets all the good lines.

The Motels were boring all around. When the lead singer lady (I can't be
arsed (heh) to check her name) came back for her rendition of the Norah Jones song, "Don't Know Why", though, she totally turned it into an 80s song.
I don't think that's meant as a compliment, but I guess the small amount
of goosebumps I got would argue otherwise.

I didn't see Haddaway perform his first song, either. But his cover of
Brittany Spears' "Toxic" was wrong on many many levels.

And then there was the Ice.

Oh. But first, the Host. Or, rather, the HostBot. The host of this show
is a British guy who ...I don't know what, exactly, but he just looks
wrong somehow. Like his teeth are too large, or his face is too square
or ...something. Steph suggested that maybe he is a robot, and that made
sense to me. HostBot! And sense I never heard HostBot say his "real"
name, HostBot he shall be.

Anyway, HostBot kept referring to Vanilla Ice as Vaniller Ice. Hee.
Vaniller.

So, yeah, when they showed Vaniller's back story (they did that for all
of them - updating the viewers who are too young to remember when these
people were "important", or reminding those of us who had tried to
forget) they played snippets of "Ice Ice Baby", and of course, I got
goosebumps.

But then they doubled, because Vaniller came on stage, and the funk, he
did bring. Ohhh, yeeeah.

He kicked all kinds of ass, because if there was a problem, yo, he'd
solve it.

Except for when he put the mike out for the audience to sing along.
Because either they were too far from the microphone, or they weren't
singing loudly enough, or maybe the microphone wasn't really plugged in
to begin with, but whenever Vaniller would hold out the mike for some
"audience participation", there was a pretty embarrassing lack of
lyrics. Doh.

But despite that, there was break (grape) dancing (heh) and record
scratching and lots of words to everyones muthas. So it was good.

His 2nd song, though, was supposedly Destiny's Child's "Survivor", but
Vaniller turned it into some kind of hip-hop metal ...mishmash that was
not appealing. Interestingly enough, Stephanie got goosebumps from that. (Okay, I did too, but it took longer for it to effect me.)

In the end, there was no contest. The audience (both studio and
television viewing) knew that Vaniller had stolen the show, so the Make
a Wish Foundation wound up 50 thou richer. Hoorah.

Next week, because I'm a huge sucker for bad tv, I'm sure I'll watch again.