Spoiler alert: If you’re a fan of The Amazing Race, as anyone with even a passing interest in television should be, and you have not yet seen last night’s episode, don’t read the remainder of this post because I will be mentioning the Philiminated (™ TWoP & Miss Alli). For the rest of you, join me …
Last week I was ecstatic that John Heffron won Last Comic Standing. Since then, I’ve seen his appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, and while I’m still happy he won, he was obviously crazy nervous, trying to shove as much of his act into his few minutes of Tonight Show exposure. But he was the right guy to win his little reality program.
Last night on TAR, the greatest of all reality shows, the right team finally got booted. Mirna and Charla, easily one of the top two or three most annoying and delusional teams in the history of the program came in last, and even though the show tried to fake us out to think that it was a non-elimination leg, host Phil Keoghan told them they were out. (He took far less pleasure in it than I would have; he even started crying as Charla went into her teary appreciation for what she had accomplished and how much she loved her cousin.)
What made these two so heinous that it wasn’t even fun to root against them? They (and really I should attribute most of it to Mirna, who aside from being stupid and incompetent was the more annoying of the two) went through the entire race with this haughty superiority complex that was simply absurd. They were ridiculously childish in most of their interaction with the other teams, and while other players may not have reacted in the most mature way possible, from what I saw (and therefore what the producers edited), the instigators were virtually always Mirna & Charla. They would scheme and connive — which is fine; it is all a game — but then get all upset when another team would get an advantage over them by doing the same thing. The degree to which they would demonstrate their disbelief at the other teams’ actions was laughable. And while Colin & Christie (Team Hipster) may be arrogant and abrasive in their own right, I always found myself rooting for them over Mirna & Charla in their ridiculous war against each other.
Mirna & Charla walked around with a sense of entitlement, but wanted to be treated as equals. I still can’t keep straight what languages they actually spoke vs. what shit they were making up. (Apparently, they were both born in Syria, so maybe they speak some of the local languages; it did seem like Mirna knew what she was saying while they were in Egypt.) They presented the textbook definition of “putting on airs.” They would do that really annoying thing (which I believe is unique to us Americans) where you try to put an accent onto English words as if that will make the person who doesn’t speak your language understand better. They were getting around Africa exclaiming, “Bravo” or “Bravissima” — uhm, that’s Italian. They’re Syrian and American. Give me a break. Mirna rolled her r-s noticeably, and unnaturally, when reading the clue which stated they were off to Nairobi. It wasn’t a once or twice thing; it was constant. They were the epitome of the “ugly American,” but the scary thing is, they thought they were the only people on the trip with values and consideration for others.
Meanwhile, I’m totally jumping on the Chip & Kim bandwagon. These are nice people, and they’re just having a great time. They’re doing what they need to do to win, but they’re staying away from all the internal personality bullshit. They’ve been at the back of the pack, and after last night, they’re at the front. But so far, they’re also just having fun. Chip is always laughing, and you can see their love for each other as well as their appreciation for being able to partake in all these adventures. The look on Chip’s face during the zip line stunt was priceless. Here was someone who wasn’t taking it all so damn seriously and knows that he’s just some guy on a television show, but he’s going to appreciate every moment of this trip he would never have otherwise been able to take. Of the five teams left, I’m hoping they go all the way.
And speaking of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno — you know, a few paragraphs ago — what the hell has happened to it? I never loved the show, but it is seriously awful now. I DiVo’d it last Friday because I wanted to see John Heffron’s appearance, and I had also been curious about how they had integrated the formerly “Stuttering” John Melendez, late of Howard Stern’s radio show, into the Edd Hall announcer position.
So I watch the beginning of the show and the first thing I notice is that aside from the stupid people-having-fun-in-bars footage is that “Stuttering John” no longer has any traces of a stutter, and he just goes by “John Melendez.” He also doesn’t sound anything like himself; rather he’s doing some weird imitation of an “Announcer’s Voice,” even though he doesn’t really have that kind of rich tone.
So Jay comes out, does his monologue, and it kind of sucks. Meanwhile, it seems that the difference between Melendez and Edd Hall is that Jay not only takes note of mentioning Melendez after introducing bandleader Kevin Eubanks, but they actually cut to a brief shot of John — sitting in a director’s chair, slouched down, in a little corner below the audience with a dumb “what-do-I-do-now” grin and wave.
What really surprised me, though, is that after the commercial, they went into an elaborate (and mostly unfunny) sketch called “Olympic Jeopardy.” There were three other participants in this sketch, other than Jay, and not one of them was Melendez. Not that I think John should be out there acting in sketches, but what the hell does he do on the show? I’m sure one episode is not going to illustrate his overall function, but when you have a big sketch like this, completely scripted, and if he is more than simply the show’s opening credits announcer, why isn’t he involved? Certainly they didn’t cast Gilbert Gottfried as gymnast Olga Korbett because of his acting talent or believability factor.
And Leno’s interviews are actually painful to watch now. Even his ad libs and his chuckling feel scripted. It’s so obvious that the guests have been pre-interviewed to death and told what to talk about; it almost seemed like Pamela Anderson wanted to talk about other things, like her book, but Leno just had to keep setting her up for the stories he wanted her to tell, such as plugging the Olympics via her support and involvement with USA gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj, even once there was nothing interesting left to say. The interview with Heffron was even worse. Anybody who saw Last Comic Standing heard every single joke and story on that show. I was actually surprised because Heffron never repeated any material on the reality show, but for Leno, he had not one original bit (aside from a very short story about glimpsing his name on the card before Jay Mohr announced the winner). Meanwhile, Leno’s interview simply continued to set-up Heffron’s bits for other stories from his comedy act rather than actually try to have him say something new and interesting.
Out of Focus 