America’s Got A Hand Up Its Ass

OMG you guys, tonight was the AGT Results show, and may I say I’ve never been more excited for a season finale in all of my life? Not because of the immense amount of excitement that has built over the course of the season or for the love for characters within my heart that has grown; oh hell no! I’m excited because after tonight I won’t have to look at Jerry Springer’s hyperbole-spitting face ever again unless I’m watching his real show. Tonight we get to find out which loser ain’t such a loser after all, and we get to bid 3 losers goodbye. (Goodbye, Piers, Sharon and Hoff!) Welcome to America’s Got Talent!
Jerry starts off the show by saying tonight’s the night we’ve all been waiting for. I’ll drink to that. Sharon’s wearing all of her finest jewels in honor of the occasion and Piers has even made it out of the hospital (for his broken ribs and inflation of ego) to be here. Which leads me to wonder, why do the judges even need to be here for this episode? They barely say three words all night. After a recap of the final 4 from last week (including the following dreaded words uttered: “The journey has been incredible”), we get to see a joint performance from the Top 10 acts, kicked off by one big flashback of the last 10 mediocre weeks. This really is a crazy sight to see, all 10 acts at once: singers here, ventriloquists there, shirtless karate dancers kicking the audience’s ass, Caribbean gymnasts over there… It really is a circus, all to the retro tunes of “Celebrate Good Times” (come on!).

Ew, creepy

Ew Ew Ew, creepy

What is with that guy and his tongue? Other than that, yeah, it’s so corny and white-bread, I feel like I should be wearing a big Hawaiian shirt and asking if you’d like a refill on your spritzer. And watching one of those PBS “My Generation” music specials.

After that very special performance, Jerry licks our collective taint by warning us not to go anywhere, because the surprise guest star that Butterscotch will be singing with is SO FUCKING HUGE. Well, I certainly can’t wait. Turns out it’s some guy named Sean Kingston? Apparently he has a hit song, but I didn’t recognize his name until they started to play his song, and then I went, “OOOOHHHHHH, yeah, they played that song on ‘The Hills’ this week.” B-scotch says they give it a new twist together, but it sounds pretty much the same. Seems to me like she’s just a backup dancer who lip synchs to prerecorded synthesized voices?

Jerry starts his interview with her off by beatboxing a little bit and making all of America cringe at once. Never knew that could be done. Then he shows her a special video message from her grandmother, who quivers and tells her that she’ll always be a star in her heart.

Sure, make the tough girl cry.

Next up to perform is Terry Fator, who says when he heard he’d be performing with a special guest, he just waited by the phone.

Lost in the land of ugly, bland colors.

Oh editors. So clever! My goodness. And when Terry found out who it is, he nearly shit his pants! So who could it be? Tony Bennett? Stevie Wonder? David Hasselhoff?

It’s not easy being a 300-year-old puppet.

Now that’s fucking precious. Together they indulge us in a light rock favorite by James Taylor, and I have a feeling ol’ Terry is capturing the hearts of every middle-aged woman who longs for her 1970s self and summer romance.

You know, somehow it’s more impressive to me when Terry sings as well, maybe because then he doesn’t look so stiff next to his puppet. (I’ve never written puppet before and made it seem so dirty, by the way.) It would be even MORE impressive if his little “James Taylor” played the guitar, but hey, procrastinating snarky writers can’t be choosers, now can we? Post-performance, Terry gets a loving message from Miss Piggy, who appears to be his ultimate fantasy, and fills his spank bank for the rest of his life. I bet he’d like to put his hand up her… well, you know.

Now we get to see another fake reenactment of Julienne Irwin when she found out who she would get to perform with, and from the looks of it she’s an Amazon woman.

Nope! It’s just a cute li’l bunny wearing a blonde wig and blue eyeshadow!

Somebody get her some lettuce to nibble on. Keep those teeth busy, hmm?

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome 17-year-old buck-toothed country superstar Taylor Swift! While Jerry Springer is blathering on about something or other, the girls share a weird moment where, I believe, Julienne gets some cooties from giving Taylor a high-five.

Hey, that happens to the best of us. Now, with all of these huge super special superstars performing on the show tonight, whom will Cas Haley get the amazing opportunity to perform with? Among some shadowy hinting montages,

“Uh, frame up, Camera One…”

… the Jerr-ster says that Cas will perform one of reggae’s all-time greatest hits with one of its greatest bands. Then Cas starts singing, “Red, red wiiiiiine….” and I puke all over the television. No biggie. Hilariously enough, with this as their only chance for a comeback, the frontman for UB40 really pushes for the spotlight, and in fact I can barely hear Cas’ mic at all.

Still not cute

What, no Bob Marley? No “No Woman, No Cry”??? All this brings to mind for me are images of a bunch of drunk 45-year-olds wailing on a karaoke machine and lifting their glasses in praise of this wretched song. However, it does get a standing ovation from the Hoff (not kidding) and Cas gets a message from a special guest too.

Omigod, it’s Nicole Richie’s dad!

Looks like he’s had another eye lift. After a break, Jerry schmoozes with some members of the audience, and hey! There’s Bill Bellamy! And he’s already equipped with a lav mic and everything! What are the chances?

You know, one thing I love about Jerry Springer is how he describes every act as “mind-blowing” or “incredible.” You know, if it all was so fucking incredible, we would just start calling it normal. One such filler act is Quick Change, and right off the bat the woman falls on her ass.

Mind-blowing!

They seem to do some kind of magic act where she changes clothes a lot. And they didn’t win last year? You know, I usually just call this sort of thing “The Ten Minutes Between 8:50-9am Every Morning.”

After yet another montage of this season, we learn that one performer will not make it to the Top 3. I thought it would be Terry Fator or Carrots Julienne. I was right. Here’s a shot from her goodbye montage.

“Oh my gosh! How did you ever let me out of the house with my hair like that?!”

Then Creepy Uncle Jerry gives her a kiss. *Shudder* So then…. ugh wait ****shudder shudder*** Nasty.

Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move things along by introducing another filler act! They’re “household name” (again, Jerry’s words, not mine) Stomp Out Loud!

How does he do this aerobic activity every day and still have that belly?

I like to call this Garbage Beatboxing and I’m pretty sure it’s the world’s last use for those old-school tin garbage cans.

Now we get to say goodbye to one more loser. I’m betting it will be Terry. Let’s get it on! Wait, how can Cas be both on stage AND in the audience?

And when did he grow a soul patch?

Turns out the loser is… Butterscotch???

BUTTERSCOTCH?!?!?!??!?!?!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I screamed this while kneeling in the rain and pumping my fists into the air, defying the gods, whilst an arial camera spun around me, capturing the essence of my grief. It was all pretty intense, but it’s fucking BUTTERSCOTCH, man! What the fucking fuck? Unlike Potatoes Julienne, Butterscotch looks truly disappointed. I totally feel her.

Our elfin princess has come so far!

After that I stopped watching. Well, at least my heart did. What better way to follow up that kind of bullshit than with a circus performance of the worst of the worst acts? That’s right, the muffled-singer girl, the weird “Don’tcha” dude, some drag queens, and even that chick that spanked her own bare ass in front of the judges come out and do one big shitfest for America! Wa-hoo! Most of them seem like they should be characters in a Christopher Guest movie, but who am I to judge? They have a modicum of fame, at least.

Next, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for, especially since “Baywatch” went off the air. No, they’re not announcing the winner. We still have one more filler act to suffer through. And it’s the Hoff. David Hasselhoff. Singing.

It’s exactly what you think it would be like.

As I’m watching him humiliate himself, I think to myself, “Holy Christ in heaven, THIS is one of the three people who have been choosing the talented and fame-worthy for the last 10 weeks?” I mean, not that that thought didn’t occur to me immediately the moment I was asked to recap the show, but the sentiment never really hit home until I endured the three longest minutes of my life watching him sing. I mean, so bad that even Paula Abdul would laugh him off the stage. It’s not even a fast and fun song where he can at least bury his voice into a disco routine, for God’s sakes, it’s a goddamn ballad!

This is the moment… when I finally kill my television

Piers even declares his love for the Hoff. I promptly draft a letter to Piers expressing my concern about his Vicodin addiction.

Okay, everybody, we’ve survived that, and we’ve done it together. We get to see more montages about each remaining performer’s “journey” and then Jerry utters that… the winner…. of…. “America’s…. Got…. Talent”…. is….. well, someone with a bad case of blue balls, because they drag it out for twenty minutes and another commercial break. When we come back, we finally get to see who it will be. Imagine my face totally agog when this dude was announced as winner:

Are you SERIOUS, America???

I can’t even believe it, but I do have to say it’s adorable to see him shaking and crying with happiness. I mean, he really has worked a long time for this and probably endured ridicule from tons of people. Now it’s finally paying off! To the tune of $375,000! Well, that’s just fucking great, I’m very happy for him, but I still wish Butterscotch would have won. Who do you think should have won?

As always, recapping this show has been fun (though weird), and I’m glad to have shared the highs and lows of Piers’ and the Hoff’s feuds with you… all three of you. Hope to see you on the boards for this and the next show I recap! love, O.Snapp