Monday, January 25, 2010

Consider Me Entertained

Did you check out "Entertain Me" Saturday night  on KHON?  It's a new, locally produced variety show like in the "old days" (i.e. when there were no remote controls and you had to stand up and change the channels).  No voting or judging, just plain entertainment: singers, dancers, jugglers, comedians, etc.'  Yay, no mindlessly hitting "redial" over and over for 2 hours.  Huh, what?  Not me, why would I waste my time doing that?

If you're over "a certain age," and grew up in Hawaii, you might recall "Televi Digest" with Barbara Kim.  Oh my goodness, I haven't thought of that show in ages!  "Televi Digest" was a similar variety program featuring Hawaii's amateur performers.  When I was 11 or so, I, along with a couple of other students, performed a tap dance on the show.  Sadly there was no videotape or youTube in those ancient times, so I have no "proof" that I performed on TV.  *LOL*  And maybe that's a good thing, since I don't think we were exceptionally good.  Oh well, at least I can say I appeared on local television a few times.  [FYI I just learned that "Televi Digest" went off the air in 1965, the very year we performed on the show.  Remember my blog post about all my former employers going out of business after I quit?  Spoooooky, huh?]

My favorite performer on the debut of "Entertain Me" was Grant Uchida.  I'm not sure if there's an official genre label for his music--he does parodies of popular current songs as well as his own original compositions--but let's just say he does music comedy like Weird Al Yankovic.  Possibly because he's part of the younger generation, his lyrics are a bit edgier than Al's, I think.  Nevertheless, I thought he was funny and liked his style.  Check out this video.  It's not quite as good as his television performance because it was done on his friend's porch, complete with someone sneezing, friend's laughter, and other extraneous noises.  Das ok, still funny to me....



The rest of "Entertain Me" was "alright". I want the show to succeed because it's good for the performers to have the exposure, and it's good for us viewers to see Hawaii's talent. I still can't get over one performance, not because the singer pretty much butchered "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, but because there was actually a scrolling caption on the screen as he sang with an apology and a long explanation of why they didn't edit this guy out of the show (he's a nice guy, he told us he had a good range, he had to wait six hours to perform, on and on).  Whaaaat?!  I sat there wondering if it was a cruel joke. and I felt bad for the guy.  He would have been better off performing on "Televi Digest"-- no scrolling captions in those days or any lasting public evidence of his performance to haunt him later!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting Grant Uchida! It sure was funny!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're welcome! Go look for more Grant Uchida videos on YouTube. I think he performs regularly at Hawaiian Brians.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for this extremely wonderful review!I cant tell you how much it means to me. Once again Thank You!!

    (I'm Grant Uchida and I approve this message.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're welcome Grant! Thanks for stopping by! Shucks, I missed "Entertain Me' this past Saturday...except for the very end. And damn if it wasn't that guy Steve singing again!! (He was the one who had those captions at the bottom of the screen last time). I'm glad to say he did much better this time! Whew!

    ReplyDelete

I welcome and appreciate comments because it's great to know someone is reading. Thank you!

SEO posters: All comments are moderated for spam content so please don't waste your time placing irrelevant links.