Tonight we have Week Two of Hit Me Baby One More Time, NBCs version of Battle of the Bands. This week pits an interesting mix of past stars against one another: The Knack, Tommy Tutone, Haddaway, The Motels and Vanilla Ice.

This week, for added fun, I wrote my review as I was watching the show, so I could capture my visceral reactions to what I was watching. Here, without further ado, is your Hit Me Baby rundown - and for an added bonus, here on TV Squad, you get all the scoop with no Vernon Kay to sit through! God, what is up with that man's teeth? They are spooky white. Kinda like Ross's on that Friends episode where Ross uber-bleaches his teeth before a big date and they glow in the dark.

First up, The Knack, singing their classic hit "My Sharona." Okay first of all - hate the cheesy 80s thing with the bands rising up on the platform, with the "jazz singer" silhouette lighting. That's not The Knack's fault, of course, but I'm just noting.

The Knack look very Brit tonight, with their early Beatles' black suits and narrow ties. I bet they've sung this song 9 billion times in the past 15 years. Love the sorority girls in the audience doing the little hand motions to the song, like they just did a cheer routine to it. Which they probably did. Very polished performance overall, but what do you expect? How many times have they been asked to perform "My Sharona" over the years?  Let's see how they do on song #2.

Here comes Haddaway - Oh yeah, that's what song he had. "What is Love?" (baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, anyore...whoaohwhoaohwhoaohwhoaohhhh -- everybody!) Dude, get a shirt on. Please. What's with the sleazy fly girls in the crotch riding minidresses? Is this Solid Gold? Performance was okay, but not anything you can't hear in a karaoke bar on a Saturday night. Plus also, the backup singer dances like she does it for a living - in a lot less clothes. She needs to stop with the sexy dance moves and just sing, she has a great voice but the Carmen Electra stripper moves are too distracting. She acts like she's desperate to get discovered here. 

What's Jenny's number? "867-5309"! Okay. Here comes Tommy Tutone. There is a certain age past which, unless you are David Bowie or Keith Richards, it is just NOT cool to wear leather pants anymore. Lead singer Tommy is 51 and a software engineer these days.  You'd think he'd be set with having such a major hit song - I'd figured he'd be retired in the Bahamas or something, but I guess not. I kinda liked his graying hair and the goatee action.These guys have the same vibe Loverboy had last week - they look like what they are, a bunch of old rockers reuniting to relive their heyday. But dang, the crowd was all up into it, chanting Jenny's number like it was some mystical code to get the UFOs to land.

The Motels, not surprisingly, open with one of the best songs ever, "Only The Lonely.". This band was one of my faves back in the day. Lead singer Martha Davis still has that same smoky voice. Totally polished,  best performance so far next to The Knack. Ohmigod. Martha Davis lives in Seattle? I had no idea she lives in Seattle. And - she performs at Teatro Zinzanni. Holy geez.  Here I always said I'd never go to that place, but now maybe I'll have to check it out.

Here we are - "Ice Ice Baby." Okay, have to give Vanilla Ice big time props here. I'm liking this.  He did a new version of the song with a modern hip hop edge to it. I actually liked him much better on this show than I did 15 years ago. He seemed to genuinely be enjoying himself up there, the crowd loved him. This Vanilla Ice might still get his butt kicked by Eminem in a knock-down-drag-out, but he's much better grown up than he was as an youth-wid-attitude. Hmmm...maybe we could get him to smack Vernon Kay around a bit, just for fun. Loved, loved, LOVED the tattoos. I hate to say it, but, dang. He looks H-O-T, and he sounds amazing. He's the one to beat here.

The Knack chose  "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by  Jet for their second song. I really love this song, but it's a bad song choice for The Knack, I think. They don't have the rockin' vibe this song demands. They're trying to give it a different sound, but it is not working. Bah. I know a guy who does this better at karaoke in West Seattle. This version sounded like a band playing cover songs at a wedding or bar mitzvah. Plus also, they're a little too old to be taken seriously singing the words "are you gonna be my girl".

Haddaway's second song is "Toxic" by Britney Spears. Okay, first of all, memo to Haddaway: No! NO! There can be no crawling on the floor. That has to stop. Oh, look. More fly girls. And they look like Britney. Gah. If I wanted to see Britney I'd be watching Chaotic. He does have a nice voice, but  - agh! More floor crawling. Stop trying to be a stripper.

For their second song, Tommy Tutone take on "Small Things" by Blink 182. Good lord, it looks like he's gonna have a freaking stroke up there. Hope they have paramedics on hand. This is just bad. Very. Bad. They just do not have enough of a punk vibe to sing this song. My husband summed it up well: "I hate to say this but if Martha Davis doesn't do well, we're pinning all our hopes on...Vanilla Ice. God, I never thought I'd say those words".

The Motels second song is "Don't Know Why" by Nora Jones. Wow. They're doing a surprisingly rocked out version of this song. I was not expecting that. She is way too old to be wearing Converse sneakers. It's like watching your grandma parade around in your teenager's clothing. You're past 50, Martha. Just embrace it, don't fight it. I would have liked it far better if she'd come out there in a classy evening gown and done a very 40's-esque cocktail lounge version of the song, something like Rosemary Clooney might have done back in the day. I would have loved to hear Martha Davis's fabulous voice doing this song right. Not really crazy about this arrangment of the song at all. That song is meant to be haunting, and they just lost the meaning of the song completely. It's all up to Ice now.

A surprising choice - he's doing "Survivor" by Destiny's Child. I don't care much for Beyonce and the girls, let's see what he does with this song. Really excellent version of this song; it bears about as much resemblance to the original as Ice does to Beyonce. He put his own mark on it, and made it his own. Like Arrested Development last week, he could release this as a solo and do really well with it. Actually, he could release both this and his updated version of "Ice Ice Baby" and do really well. Get a better deal on the royalties this time so you don't get screwed, Ice. He seems to be really enjoying himself out there, and I have to say, this Ice seems so much more genuine than the Ice we saw 15 years ago. Clearly  the crowd fave.

Well, well. Not a shock that Vanilla Ice won, he was by far the best of them, especially on the second song. He actually made me like him, and let me tell you - that was a tall order, because I came into this prepared to totally mock him. Anyone can and should do well singing the song that made them famous, the real test is how they do singing someone else's material. Good choice of a charity for Ice, too,  -  Make a Wish Foundation, one of my own favorite charities.

UP NEXT WEEK: Wang Chung, Sophie B Hawkins, Cameo, Howard Jones, Irene Cara. Don't miss it!