RETURN TO THE REALITYROUNDUP INDEX
QUESTIONS?
COMMENTS?
EMAIL ME
REALITY TV LINKS
WEEK OF 8.9.04
See. Told you I'd get around to it this weekend. Final thoughts, for a few weeks anyway, on the “Last Comic Standing” finale, the “Joe Schmo 2” finale, “Amish in the City” and some tidbits on “Outback Jack”, “Big Brother”, “Last Comic Standing 3”, and an update on FLOM’s Rachel and Caleb.
-So, in case anyone hasn’t heard, Rachel and Caleb are no longer. They broke up about a month after the show finished taping, meaning they were broken up before they even started airing this thing. I think they officially broke Jesse and Jessi’s record. Congrats to you two. Sure put forth a hell of an effort.
-The reasoning each gave were pretty weak. Caleb said that he thought by picking Rachel, if she picked him, they’d both end up at least getting some money out of it. Nope. And Rachel now says she’s pretty upset she didn’t take the money since her and Caleb are now just friends. She also thought they’d be getting compensated for staying with each other. According to “People” magazine, Rachel is currently mulling an offer to do Playboy. Shocker. Why do I have a feeling her set of twins will be making their way to a newsstand shortly? Just a hunch.
-I can’t imagine we’re going to see another FLOM next summer. They can’t possibly pull this off again, can they? I mean, it’s bad enough this season that these two both knew eventually that they were in the game, yet both seem so surprised when twists kept coming. There’s no way they can do this show again. No way. So I guess we’ve seen the last of Jordan. Bye buddy. We’ll miss you.
-I think back in Week 2 I said that John Heffron would win “LCS”. And you know what? He should’ve. No disrespect to Gary and Alonzo because both of them are very funny, but week in and week out, I think John was consistently funny. The likability factor was also through the roof on him. And if we’re just judging on final performances, and we look at all three performances last Tuesday, John definitely deserved to win.
-Alonzo has definitely had better sets. And I like Gary because he has that real “smart” humor. And the fact that this guy can spend a least a portion of every one of his sets on cookies and still be funny definitely earns him points. How does he do that? Why is he the cookie monster? So I had Gary beating Alonzo. And since John and Alonzo basically did the same female/relationship material, and John’s was better, I had Alonzo finishing third. Not that it mattered.
-Due to the fact I had a lot of free time on my hands Saturday, I saw basically all of the season over again thanks to Comedy Central. Even though I’ve heard every joke, and seen everything once already, I wanted to watch again to see if I missed anything. And boy did I ever. Here’s a couple things I noticed the 2nd time around:
-I swear the audience was being told to laugh during Jay London’s sets. He does the same EXACT thing every time on stage. A lot, and I mean A LOT of his jokes were repeated, and the quips in between his jokes never change. How can people still find that funny? I didn’t get it.
-Tammy’s “sicilian” routine got overplayed. I mean, I knew she used it a lot, but watching her again I almost threw the remote at the TV. Enough already. We get it. You’re sicilian. Quit rubbing our faces in it.
-Kathleen Madigan was high during her set. Had to be. Just listen to the way she slurred through her sentences, the glazed look in her eyes, and she said “thank you” at least 498 times during a five minute set. Crazy. And the fact that woman has one “Comedian of the Year” shows the state that female stand up comedy is in. Gary Gulman said it best at the roast when he said, “That’s like winning Ms. Pakistan.”
-As funny as I think Ralphie May is having seen him four times in person, I can’t believe he went with the same “gangsta” act he did last season. I mean geez. In a year he couldn’t bring something different to the table? Maybe it’s because I’ve heard that “Jizzack in da’ Bizzzox” bit a few times already, but that’s what he used twice last year during the competition. I’m shocked he went with that again.
-As for Dat Phan, I liked him better than Ralphie only because he only retold one of his jokes from last season. At least he talked about what he’s been doing since the show ended. And the fact he pretty much stayed away from imitating his mom for five minutes definitely helped. Margaret Cho used to base her whole act on that. Now look at her. Exactly.
-Here’s the biggest thing I noticed about re-watching the final episodes: ALL these comics read what people are writing or saying about them. And worse yet, they referenced it in their bit. I didn’t think that was a smart move. It actually showed weakness if you ask me, like, they were really bothered about what people were saying about them. Bothered enough to bring it up during their set.
-People in that business have to have thick skin if they want to get by. You can take the funniest stand up comedian in history (Pryor, Williams, Murphy, Carlin, etc), and I can find you tons of people who don’t think they’re funny. You can’t let that get to you. By referencing it in your set, you’ve let the people win. You did exactly what they wanted. You have to know as a comedian or any type of celebrity that no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, there are always people out there that aren’t going to like you. Not everyone has the same taste. So by mentioning it in your act, you come across as insecure.
-Ok, enough about me telling these people how to perform. It’s their act, they can do what they want. I was just very surprised about how many of them brought up what people were saying about them. You guys know who you are (Tammy, Alonzo, Todd, Ant). Biggest disappointment about the finale was them stringing us along about what happens in “Last Comic Standing 3”. After waiting the whole hour, Jay tells us it’s season 1 vs. season 2. Great. We knew that by the commercials. Season 1 vs. Season 2 doing what? Are all 20 in the house together? Do they get to use those photo booths anymore? Jay says the format was “top secret”. So why the hell did they tease this “big news” for a whole hour? Sometimes I hate television.
-The only thing I found out is that there won’t be a house involved in season 3. It’ll just be stand up comedy every week pitting season 1 vs. season 2. I don’t know how they do it, whether it’s by order of elimination, or fan voting, I have no idea. All I heard Jay say this weekend was that every week will be nothing but stand up comedy. Whatever that means. Thanks for the clarification. Appreciate it.
-I thought the “Joe Schmo 2” finale was more sad than anything. After already seeing a season of it, it couldn’t possibly be better than when they first revealed the joke to Matt last season. But Tim and Amanda weren’t nearly as surprised, or didn’t act it anyway. I mean, Amanda guessed that Ingrid wasn’t part of the show, and Tim made reference to Derek’s horrible accent not being real, so in that aspect, it wasn’t as exciting to see their reactions as in season 1, but it was still pretty good.
-The best part of the finale was Piper and Austin giving their final speeches and using the word “but” at least 10 times. Then seeing the look on Tim’s face was priceless. You could tell that Tim was generally pissed off for about 10 minutes after realizing Piper was playing with him the whole time. I think he wanted to bone her.
-Kinda funny how Amanda, Tim, and Ingrid were all from the Washington, D.C. area. Does that city not get “Spike TV” on their cable? Why would they pick three people from the same city and even risk the chance of one of them knowing each other? That didn’t make much sense. This is another show that’s pretty much run its course. Not because it’s not funny, but because I don’t think they can pull it off again. Definitely though one of the funnier reality shows we’ve ever see. I’m gonna go get season 1 and season 2 when it comes out just to say I have it. I’ll show my grandkids someday maybe they’ll think it’s funny. Or they won’t.
-So “Big Brother” has had a set of twins on the show they keep rotating in and out every three days? I don’t watch the show, I just read about it, but come on. You’re telling me that no one in that house noticed it? No one even had a clue to thinking that one person could’ve been just a tad different from the other twin? I find that hard to believe. Probably one reason that I don’t watch the show. That and the fact it’s basically “Survivor” in a house but they get fed, none of them lose 40 pounds, and they hook up with each other.
-I never saw four seconds of “Outback Jack”, but I did see where he picked the blonde bimbo over the brown haired girl. And they’re going to try and make things work out. Ok, start the clock. Let’s set the over/under on how many days these to stay together at 19. Do I hear 20 somewhere? 20 anyone?
-I really dig “Amish in the City”. I actually like the Amish kids more than the city dolts. Ariel is slowly pushing herself into the “Most Annoying Reality Show Contestants” category. I cannot stand this beyotch. Shocker to find out she starts banging the Boston frat boy beginning next week. The child that those two spawn should be neutered at birth. God help us all.
-So, on the finale of this show, do the Amish kids make their decision to go back their boring pathetic life or stay “city” kids? Or will there be some print on the screen giving us an update on what they all chose? They should all choose to remain city kids. Look, I’ve never been Amish, nor do I plan on it, but why would anyone choose to live that lifestyle. I can maybe understand if you’re brought up that way and you never got the experience these kids did, but, who in their right mind would go back to living that way? One guy I guarantee you will is that dude with the chick voice. I already forgot his name. I’d definitely stay Amish if I were him.
-So that’s it. A summer that I thought was going to begin in June has now lasted until mid-August. Great. Giving myself a good month off to recoup, and I’ll back with the “Bachelor” and “Reality Roundup” on Thursday, September 9th or 16th, whichever day comes after the premiere of the “Bachelor 6”. See you then…
Return to the realitysteve.com home page