(S04E03) "America's Got Magic." - Read on the magic box used by a contestant

America definitely got some magic tonight, as this was the first episode of the season where there were more good acts and not-so-bad ones than there were bad acts.

Before I give my two cents about the performances and let you comment on them, as well, I need to raise the issue of sponsoring. It looks like Orville Redenbacher is now sponsoring America's Got Talent. So far, it was done with some taste -- just a sort of "pop corn" ad telling us to watch the show -- but I'm afraid it may become as intrusive as the "Gone Completely Crakers" were last season. Let's hope we won't get a "Poppin' It" segment similar to the "Crakers" one, as they were boring and used good air time that could have been given to good performances.

I know it's only May and hardly the time to start thinking of egg nog and holly and Ebenezer Scrooge or any of the other Christmas standbys, but forgive me if I let out a whoop of happiness about the news that Kristin Chenoweth will star in The Twelve Men of Christmas TV movie. The romantic comedy is slated to be part of the Fa La La La La Lifetime lineup (try saying that three times fast!), and while another holiday film doesn't usually make me gleeful, this one does.

Kristin Chenoweth is a gem. I'm still bereft that we'll probably never see her Olive Snook again because Pushing Daisies is gone unless there's a movie, and I was tiffed that the David E. Kelly NBC pilot Legally Mad was not picked up only because La Chenoweth was in it.

If you heard about Fox's new musical drama/comedy Glee and thought it's probably going to be something like Disney's High School Musical, you're wrong. Gleefully wrong. Glee is one of the best entertainments I've seen on television in a long, long time.

Writer/producer/director Ryan Murphy describes the show as a hybrid, and he's right. It is. For me, I saw elements of the movie Election, plus Fame and Friday Night Lights, with a bit of The Wonder Years thrown in, only it's not nostalgia. Glee is all the best parts of all the above, plus music and dancing and great characters and really witty material.

This is either worldwide Britain's Got Talent singing sensation Susan Boyle or Three Stooges star Larry Fine in a dress. Not sure which. An American woman is selling these homemade doll replicas of Boyle. I wonder if she's going to start selling a post-makeover version?

I don't know what the heck this video below is all about, but I whole-heartedly approve.

It's from Auto-Tuning The News, and it features the words of news people from CNN, FOX News, and CBS News (along with Hillary Clinton) put to a song. Not just their words, but they actually sing the song themselves through some neat electronic trickery. It doesn't really get going until the section with Katie Couric, which is really well done. I can't wait for the extended mix on that part.

[via Kottke]

Former American Idol contestant Justin Guarini caused some controversy earlier this week when he disclosed that when the Idol singers do their big group numbers, the singers are lip-synching. First the people at Idol said "the Idols don't lip-synch, period," but now they admit that it's true. I guess you always look silly when you publicly add the word "period" to a denial.

On what planet is this new, breaking news?

If you thought The Singing Bee was bad, wait till you get a load of this. TLC is premiering it's new show The Singing Office at the end of June. The show will be hosted by ex-*NSYNCer Joey Fatone and ex-Spice Girl Mel B. Each week, Joey and Mel B. will surprise a different office and hold an impromptu audition. From each location, they will recruit a team of five for the next round of competiton. Once formed, the teams will go to "boot camp" as the hosts coach the teams on both their performance quality and their singing. Finally, the teams will compete on stage for a shot at $50,000.

Last night I went to taping of MTV's Rock the Cradle at CBS studios. We reviewed the season premiere of the show here at TV Squad so I was excited to see the show taped live and meet some of the performers.

After the show I got to talk to Chloe Lattanzi, Crosby Loggins, and Lucy Walsh. All were very nice and very gracious, considering they just walked off the stage. Find out what they had to say about the competition and the other contestants after the jump ...

Probably in preparation for a long strike and also because this type of show is easy programming that not only brings in fair enough ratings but also does rather well in reruns, FOX announced earlier this week that it was ordering 13 extra episodes of it's music-contest hit Don't Forget the Lyrics.

Wayne Brady will host Don't Forget the Lyrics, a new game show in which contestants must not forget the lyrics (in case the unoriginal title didn't make that clear).

The series debuts on FOX July 11 at 9:30 p.m. and July 12 at 8:30 p.m., and features contestants singing along with a studio band, the words in front of them karaoke-style. When the music stops and the words disappear, the contestant must continue to sing the correct lyrics. If the contestant correctly guesses nine lyrics in a row, they have one final chance to try for a tenth lyrics and the chance to win one million dollars.

If this sounds familiar, that's because NBC's Great American Singing Bee is pretty much the exact same concept. I don't quite understand how two networks became infatuated with this idea, but I blame the popularity of karaoke. And like karaoke, I assume these shows will be much tolerable if you've had a few drinks beforehand.

Recently I mentioned that NBC had a new game show in the works called The Great American Singing Bee. The game show would require contestants to sing lines from pop songs. Well, now FOX has just greenlit a similar game show, this one called Off the Charts (working title). The new series will feature a live band with a singer that will play part of a song. Then, the contestant must sing the rest of the song. The prize money increases as the songs become more obscure.

Meanwhile, CBS is still working on its own new adaptation of the classic game show Name That Tune, though there's not much new information on that particular project just yet. CBS is also creating another reality show called Life As a Song, which has real people breaking into song and dance numbers in order to make annoucements to friends and family.

Of course, one "Great American Singing Bee" was already on NBC many, many years ago, but this is different.

The Great American Singing Bee is a new game show from producers Phil Gurin and Bob Horowitz, who will each produce different versions for American and UK television audiences. Contestants will be given lyrics to songs and asked to sing the missing words. This is very similar to an old family game called SongBurst, which was based on pretty much the exact same idea.

(S01E02) As I watched this week's episode, I could only think one thing...thank goodness there are only nine finalists, cause I really can't take much more of this show, in fact, in deference to the people who like this show (both of them) this is going to be my last review.

The first big event of the show is when the girls move into their new house. After the required fifteen minutes of screaming and running with their hands in their air, they finally choose their beds. Was I the only one aroused by the girl who licked her pillow?

Back in her 'Forever Your Girl' days, I had a pretty huge crush on Paula Abdul. I was in middle school and learning to be afraid of girls for the first time, and Ms. Abdul would look seductively at me from the poster on my closet door as if to say, "I understand you, Adam. I am forever your girl. Come over here and make out with me."

How I miss the young Paper Paula, and the good times I had French kissing a door. But love, like everything else, does fade away, and since I don't watch American Idol I've moved on to other crushes and fondling other doors in my home.

Sometimes, though, when I start to pine for those hours spent with Paula, I watch a clip from Junior High School and it's like I'm 11 years old again, wanting to put my tongue in her mouth so she'll stop singing. If that's not true love, then I don't want to know what true love is.

Huh.

I apologize for being a little late with this news, but it took my brain this long to accept that this was actually true. Yes, Yahoo is planning to launch a new online video project called "Odd News Underground" featuring a singing news anchor. Yahoo isn't saying who the anchor is, but insist the person is someone people will recognize.

I guess I can give Yahoo credit for trying to make the news even more laughable than it already is, and sure, with a name like "Odd News Underground" the new Web program probably isn't going to focus on real news, but I certainly hope they don't think this is an original idea. I've placed a video from the '90s after the jump that shows at least one man had this idea already.

Anyone want to guess who this singing news person is going to be? I'm hoping it's Matthew Wilder, personally.

[via Lost Remote]