Skinning Cats With Celebrities

Did anyone else out there just make the mistake of watching ‘Celebrity Duets’ this evening?

For those that didn’t, let me give you a quick rundown:

Carlton from ‘Fresh Prince’ was passable. The guy from “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” was actually good…but the rest of them were painfully bad.

Let me be clear on this. I don’t mean ‘They were bad”, I mean they were bad. Not so bad it was funny, or so bad it’s entertaining. I mean “So bad it makes your skin crawl and you actually start to feel embarrassed for them.”

They went right through bad and came out the other side, somehow discovering a parallel universe of suckiness. A world where the beat, rhythm and pitch no longer exist.

Let’s just say this is the only show that made me miss Simon Cowell. Whereas Simon tended to be too harsh, the judges on Celebrity Duets where indeed, the Anti-Simon.

They must have been listening to their iPods during the performances, because how they could call some of those vocal abortions ‘good’, means they either weren’t listening or had gone insane.

Speaking of insane, the one saving grace of the show was Little Richard who is, bizarrely, one of the judges.

I mean, what in the blue hell is that guy on? Who thought it was a good idea to give Little Richard a job where he has to talk?

It followed a strange format. First Marie Osmond would sycophantly blabber on for 20 minutes, then Little Richard would talk as though he had just stuck a pin into a dictionary and chosen random words…then the last judge (whose name I can’t remember), would have just enough time to say “Good” or “Bad”.

My personal favorite Little Richard comment came after Cheech Marin and Randy Travis had just finished singing “Digging up bones”:

“Digging up bones! Made me think of the valley! …Bones! I hope you get them outta there! Bones!”

Huh? Wha? Is that meant to actually mean something, Ricky? That’s meant to be useful, constructive criticism? No shit. That was his comment, word for word.

Come back “So You Think You Can Dance?”…All is forgiven!