A 21-year-old dancer who calls herself Lady Shiva; a girl of 11 with a voice like R&B legend Aretha Franklin; former “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff; and a 33-year-old man in eye makeup and angel wings doing a balancing act with dagger and sword – this is the stuff of which television’s hottest summer shows are made.
As flamboyant and sometimes bizarre as the lineups for Fox TV’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” might seem, the ratings say the two Wednesday-night reality-show competitions are scoring a bull’s-eye with millions of mainstream viewers.
Through two weeks of the head-to-head warfare, “So You Think You Can Dance,” a copycat of last summer’s hit ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” and “America’s Got Talent,” a hyped-up vaudeville for the age of the short attention span, each have attracted audiences of more than 10 million viewers per episode.
Last week, the new NBC series – hosted by the old Regis Philbin and featuring such offbeat contestants as a man who balanced a 300-pound stove in his mouth – was the highest-rated primetime entertainment program of the week. It finished second with the prized 18-to-49-year-old demographic.
Not surprising, more talent shows are on the way. CBS just launched “Rock Star: Supernova,” in which 15 hopefuls compete to become the new lead singer for a rock group created by Tommy Lee of Motley Crüe. On July 18, ABC will launch “The One: Making of a Music Star” – a 20-episode series that will follow 11 contestants as they train and compete for a recording contract with the label that includes Sting, U2 and Sheryl Crow.
Seen by 12.4 million viewers, the debut of “America’s Got Talent” drew a larger audience for its premiere than any of those three series that went on to become ratings powerhouses.
Produced by “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell and featuring a copycat three-judge panel, “America’s Got Talent” certainly looks like the show that made Cowell a household name – at least, the first half of each “Idol” season, when the focus is on auditions.
But industry executives and pop-culture analysts say the appeal is based on more than just imitation. “America’s Got Talent” reimagines vaudeville for the channel-surfing mind-set of viewers today – and does so in a freewheeling style that speaks to a summertime sensibility.
“Variety is the key here,” Cowell said in a telephone conference. “In the space of 15 minutes (of the first show), we saw a juggler, an acrobat, a great boy band, and an amazing 14-year-old singer followed up by an 80-year-old male stripper. It’s variety under the best possible scenario.”
“Best” hardly seems the word for a juggler who dropped every item he threw up in the air at least once, or a tenor who was greeted by boos and the sound of the judges’ buzzers trying to end his act four notes into his song. Many of the acts are more suited for “The Gong Show” than “American Idol.”
Cowell acknowledged that there are performers who are “so staggeringly bad” that viewers must wonder, “What has your mother told you?” But others say the early ratings success for “America’s Got Talent” is not so much a matter of content (good or bad), as it is form – the frenetically changing lineup and the ability to follow the show while tuning in and out.
“It’s the perfect kind of show for people who use their remote control to watch more than one program at a time,” said Shirley Peroutka, associate professor of popular culture at Goucher College.
Vaudeville, a dominant form of popular entertainment in the early 20th century prior to the ascendancy of radio and TV, is the old showbiz formula that matches up best with that new mind-set.
“America’s Got Talent,” which promises $1 million to the winning act, hits the same notes in opening with Hasselhoff, one of the judges, announcing: “I’m looking for the American Dream.”
Ditto for Cowell: “If I didn’t think we could find a star, I wouldn’t do the show. It’s as simple as that.”
