Star light, star bright
While it may have been an occasional guilty pleasure for Gretchen, I've never liked American Idol and its ilk. But this weekend the TV in the hotel gave us something much better: three different versions of the German-speaking equivalent. And lest you think the humor is solely a function of having to sing in English, rest assured that much more of the humor was a result of inability to carry a tune (and I should know, because I couldn't carry a tune if my life depended on it).
GERMANY: Deutschland sucht den SuperStar. Obviously part of the American Idol family since they use the same music, design, etc. If you think the casting shows on American Idol are funny, you should watch them in German. I only understood maybe a tenth of the German and was rolling on the floor. Still, the overall quality, while bad, is clearly light-years ahead of its other German-speaking neighbors.
AUSTRIA: Starmania. Whereas the German version was just finishing casting specials, we got to see the final three in Austria. You had Nadine, the ultimate winner, who actually had an excellent voice (I liked her version of "Get Here") but in most other ways looked like the high-school student that she presumably is. Plus she looked vaguely ethnic (i.e., not-so-stereotypically-Austrian) and comes from the Tirol (Alps), so that was going in her favor. Then you had Gernot, who finished third and who did an awesomely bad version of "I Get a Kick Out of You". Finally, you had Tom, the runner-up and possibly the most flamboyant Austrian since Brüno (and if you don't believe me, just watch his scorching rendition of "Goldfinger"). All in all a step down in quality from Germany, but higher entertainment value.
SWITZERLAND: MusicStar. Unfortunately we only saw the last 10 minutes or so of this one, but it definitely had the highest comic potential--it's not good when you're laughing at their performances and they're the finalists--the ones we saw would have been casting rejects in Germany and possibly even Austria. And they get bonus points for having someone named Muhammed (diversity! and from near Basel!), someone named Börni (I see this name taking off in the States!), and judge Detlef D [correction...Detlef D!...I hadn't realised there was an exclamation point] (you can't make this stuff up), who must be on at least half of the German music shows Gretchen watches.
As if that wasn't enough, we were watching CNN and Larry King had a program featuring American Idol performers.
Alas, we won't be watching the Austrian or Swiss versions since we don't have the TV channels (and the former is finished anyway), but Gretchen is already starting to plan her week around Deutschland sucht den SuperStar. If she starts casting votes, that's when I'm going to start to worry...
GERMANY: Deutschland sucht den SuperStar. Obviously part of the American Idol family since they use the same music, design, etc. If you think the casting shows on American Idol are funny, you should watch them in German. I only understood maybe a tenth of the German and was rolling on the floor. Still, the overall quality, while bad, is clearly light-years ahead of its other German-speaking neighbors.
AUSTRIA: Starmania. Whereas the German version was just finishing casting specials, we got to see the final three in Austria. You had Nadine, the ultimate winner, who actually had an excellent voice (I liked her version of "Get Here") but in most other ways looked like the high-school student that she presumably is. Plus she looked vaguely ethnic (i.e., not-so-stereotypically-Austrian) and comes from the Tirol (Alps), so that was going in her favor. Then you had Gernot, who finished third and who did an awesomely bad version of "I Get a Kick Out of You". Finally, you had Tom, the runner-up and possibly the most flamboyant Austrian since Brüno (and if you don't believe me, just watch his scorching rendition of "Goldfinger"). All in all a step down in quality from Germany, but higher entertainment value.
SWITZERLAND: MusicStar. Unfortunately we only saw the last 10 minutes or so of this one, but it definitely had the highest comic potential--it's not good when you're laughing at their performances and they're the finalists--the ones we saw would have been casting rejects in Germany and possibly even Austria. And they get bonus points for having someone named Muhammed (diversity! and from near Basel!), someone named Börni (I see this name taking off in the States!), and judge Detlef D [correction...Detlef D!...I hadn't realised there was an exclamation point] (you can't make this stuff up), who must be on at least half of the German music shows Gretchen watches.
As if that wasn't enough, we were watching CNN and Larry King had a program featuring American Idol performers.
Alas, we won't be watching the Austrian or Swiss versions since we don't have the TV channels (and the former is finished anyway), but Gretchen is already starting to plan her week around Deutschland sucht den SuperStar. If she starts casting votes, that's when I'm going to start to worry...
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