LITTLE ROCK — I always get a kick out of American Idol when judge Randy Jackson unleashes his ultimate criticism.
“I don’t know, Dawg,” Randy says, trying to sound reluctant. “I mean, just keepin’ it real, for me, Dawg, I don’t know, it was just a little too, you know ... karaoke.”
“Being karaoke” is evidently the worst thing an Idol contestant can do. I suppose it means they didn’t take a song and “make it their own.”
But lots of folks love grabbing a microphone at some public venue (like a bar) and singing along to recorded music.
If “being karaoke” is supposed to be a bad thing on Idol, then ABC has taken the lemon and made lemonade. Karaoke Battle USA debuts at 8 p.m. Friday with former boy singer Joe Fatone as host.
As with all the other talent competitions, there will be “celebrity” judges. In this case they are singer/TV host Carnie Wilson (ABC inexplicably labels her a “singing superstar”), music journalist Joe Levy and 2009 National Karaoke Champion Brian Scott.
Karaoke Battle USA will attempt to find the best in the country in six one-hour episodes.
America has loved its singing shows at least since 1961 and NBC’s Sing Along With Mitch. I was a tonedeaf preteen, so I hummed along with Mitch.
Amusing oneself and friends is part of the appeal of karaoke. Tapping the secret inner performer in us all is no doubt behind the success of the competition shows.
Not only is American Idol still TV’s top draw, but The Voice was a recent surprise hit for NBC.
Other such shows include Don’t Forget the Lyrics and The Sing-Off, The Glee Project and Simon Cowell’s The X-Factor coming Sept. 21 to Fox.
Karaoke Battle USA’s first episode is a special two-hour premiere filmed at the Las Vegas House of Blues. Other regional competitions were shot at House of Blues locations in Houston, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
The best male and female performers at each regional will move on to Los Angeles for the finals and a chance at the titles of King and Queen of Karaoke.
Ted Danson update. The Associated Press reports from the TV critics summer press tour in Beverly Hills that adopted Arkansan Danson is already hard at work in his new job on Season 12 of CSI.
“My jaw is kind of hanging down from the newness of all of this,” Danson said about the swiftness of zipping from vacation in Massachusetts to the CBS set.
Danson will play D.B. Russell, the new supervisor for the Las Vegas CSI team. The character is described as a man “who has things really, really in balance: family, work, life.”
“I feel like I have walked into this perfect situation for me,” Danson told the critics.
Ashton Kutcher update. Also on press tour, CBS honchos played it coy and revealed little about how Kutcher’s character will replace the fired Charlie Sheen’s character on Two and a Half Men.
We do know that it’ll take two episodes to introduce Kutcher as Walden Schmidt, a heartbroken Internet billionaire. He will not be related to the one and a half men left on the show.
We’ll find out all the details when the Sheen-less series returns Sept. 19.
Hog-huntin’ update. How hot has it been? So hot that the new A&E series American Hoggers has had its debut postponed from Tuesday to “sometime in the fall.”
The series follows a family from Brownwood, Texas, that hunts wild boar. It’s been too hot for even the hogs.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Weekend, Pages 32 on 08/11/2011