The Singing Bee

Have you all been watching The Singing Bee? Lauren has turned me on to this show and I love it! It is a karaoke singing competition show on CMT. It is hosted by Melissa Peterman, who also played the hilarious Barbara Jean on the sitcom Reba. (Did anyone else have a thing for Barbara Jean? No, just me? Sorry Lauren, the secret is out) You should definitely check it out! It is on Friday nights at 8:00. Set your dvr's now!

The show begins with Barbara Jean, I mean Melissa, going around the audience and picking six people at random to head on up to the stage to play. I think they are all there to play, but you have to be chosen in order to go up to the stage. (I think this is where my Barbara Jean crush would come in handy. I would stare longingly into her eyes until she picked me to sing. Either that or picked me for a restraining order. Either way, she would pick me!)

The show starts out with a simple, addictive tune. "There's a party going on, clap your hands, sing a long. Cause there's a great big party going on!"

Melissa picks the six lucky people to go on stage. She introduces each of them and lets them tell a little about themselves. She introduces the band, which includes a keyboard, guitar, drums, bass and six or seven singers. The show is 60% country music and 40% everything else, so surely you can find a tune you like!

The first round of play is called Pick Four. It's pretty simple folks. The first four out of six people to sing a line of a song correctly wins. The band sings part of a song and when the music stops you have to sing the next line. Four people move on to the next round. Two people don't.

The next game is the one that I think is the hardest. It's called Random Shuffle. The band sings a song and while they sing words appear in random order on a screen. When the band stops singing you have to unscramble the words and sing the line correctly. This is easy if you know the words, but pretty stinking hard if you don't. On second thought, the whole game would be pretty hard if you don't know the words! Each person gets a chance to go go through this round. If you get it correct you get 5 points. If you miss, then you do not get any points. On to the next round.

Singing with the Enemy is a pretty funny round to watch. They split the remaining four contestants into two teams. The band starts singing a song and when they stop one person has to sing the next line. The band then starts again. When they stop the next time the other person has to sing. It goes back and forth like this three or four times. For each correct line a person sings they receive 5 points.

The last challenge with all four contestants is called Karaoke Challenge Time. Each of the contestants gets up and sings a verse and a chorus from a song that is on the screen in front of them. The catch is that 15 words are missing. For each word they sing correctly they receive 2 points. At this point it is still anyone's game! After the songs have been sung and the totals have been totaled, two people move on to the next round. Back to pasture for the other two.

The next challenge these two duelers face is Chorus Showdown. The person with the highest score gets the artist and year of a song and decides whether they want to play or pass. Each one has to sing the entire chorus verbatim. If they both do it, I think they go to a tie breaker. You think this would be pretty easy, but it actually is pretty hard. Over the past couple of weeks I have realized how many songs I have been singing incorrectly. At least I sound good, right? Wrong! The tagline of the show is "You don't have to sing it well, you just have to sing it right!" Agree to disagree, okay!

Whoever wins the Chorus Showdown wins The Singing Bee and will be going home with a trophy. However, they still have a chance to win $10,000!

The Final Countdown is the next challenge. Cue the equally addictive and fun Final Countdown intro, "Five, four, three, two one, it's the Final Countdown!" My words are not doing this song justice. You have to see the singers sing it live and witness the obligatory Melissa Peterman kick at the end. This is great tv! The Final Countdown involves seven songs. The band sings the songs one by one and when they stop you have to sing the next line. If you get five out of seven correct you win $10,000. If you get three strikes, you guessed it, you're out! When a person wins, everyone goes nuts. Confetti flies everywhere while the band is singing us out. We are invited back to watch again next week. I don't think enough shows do that. I took an hour of my time to watch, so I appreciate being thanked and invited back next week. I think they do this on Wheel of Fortune. Thanks Pat Sajak. Lost does not have to do this, because they have me hooked on a once a week habit already!

Anyway, if you are still reading this, you should really check out the show. It's pretty fun. Don't be surprised if you find yourself singing along. It happens to the best of us!