Susan Boyle-Over Night Fame

Lately one of the most popular YouTube videos is titled Susan Boyle. This is a clip from the reality elimination show Britain’s Got Talent. This is Britain’s talent show which would compare to our American Idol. Simon Cowell judges this show as well.
Susan Boyle was a contestant on this show. She is a short and stout, homely 47 year-old. She is currently unemployed and looked rather out of place when she stepped out on the stage. As she made her way across the stage in front of the judges you could hear snickers in the audience and people rolling their eyes, thinking this was going to be a joke.
She performed I Dreamed a Dream which comes from Les Miserables. As soon as she opened her mouth the whole crowd was still and drawn. Simon had a look of shock and awe on his face as he had to double-take to see if her talent really was what it seemed. Sure enough it was and it was so great that Susan Boyle received a standing ovation from everyone in attendance that show.
The judge Peirs told her, “"Without a doubt that was the biggest surprise I have had in three years. When you stood there with that cheeky grin and said 'I want to be like Elaine Paige' everyone was laughing at you. No-one is laughing now, that was stunning. I am reeling from shock".
The other Judge Amanda agreed, “"I am so thrilled because I know everyone was against you. We are all so cynical but that was a complete wake up call. It was a complete privilege".
And finally, the famous statement by Simon Cowell, who played everything off as if he knew what was coming, he said, “Susan, I knew from the minute you walked onto the stage that we were going to hear something extraordinary and I was right".
She had yeses from all three judges and can compete in the next round.

Party Dad

I am going to write about my favorite show Jon and Kate Plus Eight again. Jon Gosselin, the father of eight children, has been in the tabloids a lot. They show him partying and try tell readers that he is cheating on Kate. This is easy for them to do because Jon is young and did miss out on this stage of his life due to the surprise of eight kids.
I have found lots of articles saying this is not true. He said he is just like everyone else and has lots of male and female friends and just because he is on TV it’s bad that he is out in public with a female friend. He also realized that being out late with them was poor judgment on his part and makes him feel extremely bad for what state it is putting his family in. His family is the most important thing in his life and it kills him to see these allegations hurting them.
This incident happened April 18, when he arrived at Legend Lounge in Pennsylvania, near the couples home. Kate was in Bellevue, WA promoting her new book “Eight Little Faces: A Mom’s Journey.”
The alleged incident involving the “mystery woman” occurred a few weeks before TLC announced Jon & Kate Plus 8’s fifth season will premiere on May 25.
This incident followed an alleged February incident where Jon was seen partying with college girls at a Huntington, PA, bar that is located three hours away from the 1.3 million dollar home his family recently bought.
While at that bar, Jon reportedly met some girls from Juniata College, who invited him to a house party where he played beer pong.
I feel bad for Jon because he was too young to have so many kids. He missed his glory days pretty much and now he cannot do the things he is craving because he has a huge family and to make it worse they are taped by a camera crew pretty much every day of their lives.

Speidi Married Once Again

Heidi and Spencer got married….again! I really don’t like the thought of this. I like Heidi for the most part, but Spencer makes me want to puke. He is a horrible boyfriend and person in general. On the episode that airred on MTV in December, when they got married for the first time in Mexico, it seemed to me that he got her drunk and then asked her to marry him on purpose because he knew she’d say yes for sure if she was intoxicated. Then when she told him she wanted a big fancy wedding rather than to make it final in court it took him forever to finally give into something she has dreamt about all her life.

I get frustrated with Heidi when I think about this too. She lost most of her friends because of Spencer, including her very best friend Lauren (LC). Even though I thought Heidi and Lauren were starting to get somewhere with their friendship again none of that matters anymore because there is no way Lauren will take her back with Spencer as her husband.

Spencer and Heidi were married officially for the second time at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Pasadena California on Saturday. They exchanged vows in front of 200 guests including: Audrina Patridge, Kristin Cavallari, Brody Jenner, and Frankie Delgado. Lauren Conrad who initially said she would not attend the ceremony had a change of heart and was in attendance also. Heidi was draped in about 1.2 million worth of Neil Lane Jewelry and wore a $19,000 custom-made dress by Monique Lhuiller. Heidi’s sister, Holly was the maid of honor and Spencer’s sister, Stephanie was a bridesmaid.

Neither Spencer nor Heidi shed any tears. They also didn’t say their own vows, instead they had the minister do it.

On the wedding day Heidi had wrote on her Twitter page “Thank you God for Spencer” and she also described her wedding dress as “amazing—like a swan princess.”

I’m not sure if this marriage is going to work out or not. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be tough for them to keep it alive because they could barely be together as a couple. But they have been dating for a long time and they have found ways to make it work this long, so they will probably be okay.

Too Many Kids!

Lately, my new reality TV show obsession has been on TLC. It’s actually several different shows with the same theme. The most popular one, and my favorite is Jon and Kate Plus Eight. Several other shows like it are 18 and Counting and Table For Twelve.

All these shows have to do with families who have more than the average amount of children and how their lives differ from the average family. You can tell exactly how many kids each has by the title of their show.

In this blog, I am going to talk about Jon and Kate Plus Eight because I am most familiar with this one and because it is my favorite. This show consists of parents Jon and Kate, fraternity twin girls, and fraternity sextuplets (three boys and three girls). A camera crew follows them through their daily lives focusing on the challenges of raising multiple children.

Jon and Kate met at a picnic in 1997 and were married in 1999. When the couple decided it was time to start a family Kate was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, which turned the couple to fertility treatment. In February of 2000, Kate became pregnant with twins. Cara and Mady were born.

They began thinking of having another child, so they turned to fertility treatment once again. Five weeks after she found out she was pregnant for the second time they told her it was sextuplets. The six children were born May of 2004. They were nicknamed the “Hershey’s Kisses” since they were born in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Their more recent episodes have been them upgrading into a new, much bigger, beautiful home. They also have a “Go Green” episode, where they are taught how to make their home as energy efficient as possible. They install electric solar panels, solar thermal panels, and solar powered lights along the driveway. This is educational and fun for the kids because they help out and learn a little about the environment.

Interesting Idol

I know American Idol is a very popular reality television show and I have barely even touched on it at all in my blogs. I really enjoy watching the show, but for some reason I have always had a hard time keeping up with it. I think this is mostly due to the channel it is on. It’s not one of my most watched. But this week I will blog about what I have seen and some interesting things about the show that I have researched.

A very liked and favored contestant, Scott MacIntyre , has recently been voted off. Those of you that watch the show already know that he is legally blind. He was voted off by a split decision on the judges part. Paula Abdul and Kara DioGuardio were in favor of keeping him on the show, but the other two judges said no, and gave him the boot.

"I was actually very thrilled to know that it was a split decision between the four judges, and that was something very nice for me to walk away with knowing that the decision was split, it wasn't unanimous," MacIntyre says after finding out he was eliminated. The elimination also made it easier for him when he was told that the cold hearted Simon Cowells vote was not an easy one for him to make.

In the end, he was happy with receiving eighth place on American Idol.

The finalist group of contestants is way different than past groups. They seem to be the only group that laughed and joked just minutes before going out to perform, while past groups were silent and serious before their performances. This group is all about having a fun atmosphere.

You can tune into the final episodes on Fox.

Pussycat Dolls

Last Friday, I went to the Britney Spears concert in Minneapolis where the Pussycat Dolls opened for her. This experience was insanely amazing! It was like the best circus I have ever seen times 20 plus Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls. After going to this, I thought I would write about the previous Pussycat Doll reality shows Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll and Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious.

The Search for the Next Doll looked for another girl for the group to sing on their next album and go on tour with the group. A group of girls who want to be the next Pussycat Doll go through a pop star boot camp while living together in Los Angeles. The winner of the show was Asia Nitolanno. After the judges announced she was the winner she decided she didn’t want to be a part of that group and instead try a solo career. The creators of this show had to re-think their concept and came up with looking for a whole new group instead.

This lead to the show Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious. Originally the show was planned to lead to a group of the three girls, but by the final decision of creator Robin Antin it ended up being a quartet. They have received more attention from Canadian and Brazilian audiences than the US. They were nominated for “Breakout Group” and “Reality: Music Competition” at the Teen Choice Awards. Rather than wearing heels and fishnet tights, this group as a different, more urban look. They kind of wear work out type of clothing. This show was created to give the audience a feel of what it takes to be a pop star, and feel their sexiness, empowerment, and to learn about singing and dancing.

I absolutely love the Pussycat Dolls, especially the lead singer Nicole. I haven’t got into the Girlicious group at all though.

College Life

The next level of reality TV is being introduced to MTV called “College Life”. It is even realer than reality TV they actually call it “real” TV. This show has no producers, directors and the cameras are given to college students to tape and tell their own college stories. The stories are shot at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, it will give viewers a coarse and original look at college kids telling their stories their own ways. It involves lots of hookups,breakups, pressure to get good grades, and homesickness.

The cameras have been given to eight sophomore and freshman students to capture their high and lows of the college experience to share with the world. The excitement of the new freedom these young men and women have just got a taste of will be revealed.

I think this show will give kids in high school an honest idea of what to expect when they start living the college life. Since it is taped by the students and there are absolutely no scripts it will be great examples.

Alex, Andrea, Anna, Lindsay, Kevin, Jordan, Josh, and Dan are the names of the eight students doing this project. You can read biographies on the MTV website. You will find that they all come from different backgrounds and each have experienced different amounts of freedom in the life they had before college.

The question is, how real do people act when they know they are being filmed? Most people aren’t comfortable enough with the way they are so that when the cameras come on they are truly being themselves. Even when the producers and directors are gone most of the kids will act differently knowing they are being filmed and might end up on TV for all the world to see.

“College Life” will air April 13th at 9:30.