Podcasting Day: WB Superstar with Jamie Kelly! π
Added 2022-06-01 12:01:03 +0000 UTC
In 2004, a struggling TV network decided to create their own American Idol, but entirely out of the good parts. And in 2004, that meant the hilarious audition failures. WB's Superstar USA was a short-sighted fool's idea. It was like trying to recreate your bachelor party weekend out of just the diarrhea part. To be clear, this was a show designed to lure bad singers into a Truman Show trap and sometimes try to fuck them!
Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts, to this mean-spirited prank with no exit strategy that went on far too long and may have ruined televised humiliation forever! Our guest is our own audio engineer Jamie Kelly, who is right now learning this podcast isn't real and Tone Loc and Vitamin C have been watching her pointlessly edit fake discussions about karate movies for months. Everyone you love is robots; you are on DZ's Superstar 900! Congratulations, Jamie!
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Comments
Tone-Loc AND Skee-Lo?
AU
2022-06-06 18:14:01 +0000 UTC""First of all, it was me," Fleiss says. "But I did not say 'Make-A-Wish.' I said, 'Who's heard of the One Wish Foundation?' and people raised their hands. There is no One Wish Foundation. It was a prank on top of a prank. It was the only way to get it to work."" https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-05-16-wb-superstar_x.htm
Daphne Lawless
2022-06-03 03:58:22 +0000 UTCIt's why I never got into these shows, the unwarranted meanness to someone just because they're not particularly good at singing or something. They still got up on stage and had a go, that's more than most people will ever do, a simple "Sorry, you're not very good at this" is all that's called for.
Matt Edwards
2022-06-02 20:21:18 +0000 UTCI realize that this was an extreme example of the genre, but shit like this is why I never really got into reality TV. It's just too mean spirited a lot of the times. Rare exceptions, like Great British Bake Off, can be pretty positive, but most just seem to be a race to the bottom.
Jeff Orasky
2022-06-02 17:04:43 +0000 UTCWhat they really needed was a double prank. Convince the judges/host they were making this when really the contestants are all actors and they're actually filming a show about the depths these four smug douchebags are willing to sink to.
Honk
2022-06-02 04:44:44 +0000 UTCYeah this show is a great example of why that sort of material is so radioactive. No matter how good someone's intent is with that stuff they're always way closer to the dicks than they think. I always felt the Idol dud parade was done in at least semi-good faith. Some people making fools of themselves on TV. I didn't wish them any actual harm and (naively) thought they'd be forgotten about by the time the next episode aired. Then this show busts into the room like 'yes, this is the best! We've got a green light to bully so let's put lit cigarettes out on their skin' and you realise you've been standing side by side with some really dark shit the entire time. Suddenly it's clear that even though I didn't wish the Idol duds harm it's what these guys were there for.
Honk
2022-06-02 04:05:29 +0000 UTCI didn't think the show could get any more reprehensible, and then Seanbaby adds the detail that the audience were told the performers were Make A Wish kids. How were the producers not hunted down an lynched when that came out?
Matt Edwards
2022-06-01 20:26:31 +0000 UTCBack in the early 2000s, any time someone was called out for making a joke that was racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist/etc., they would always deflect it by saying that "the real joke is on the bigot who made the comment" or "the real joke is on the audience for laughing" or "it's satire". On rare occasions, it was even true. But in the case of Superstar USA, there was no question that the laughs were intended to be at the expense of the contestants. You really cannot overstate how awful it is to see the judges praising these oblivious singers, before an apparently complicit audience of hundreds of people, knowing that the whole event is building to a moment of pure humiliation.
Dave Dalrymple
2022-06-01 16:50:35 +0000 UTCJamie sublimates this podcast from both sides of the studio.
Brendan McGinley
2022-06-01 16:41:40 +0000 UTCYay Jamie! My other favorite guest, right up there with the great Liddy Bugg!
Bonnybedlam
2022-06-01 13:28:41 +0000 UTC
