M. Giant's
Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks


Tuesday, October 11, 2005  

Grant This

So I happened to catch a few minutes of this show called Three Wishes on Friday night. It’s a reality show where Amy Grant gets to go around granting people their greatest wish. Get it? Amy Grant? With the granting? I can only assume that they picked her because a) Cary Grant is dead, b) Eddy Grant scared the hell out of the show’s key suburbanite demographic, and c) popular Slovenian talk show host Emil Wizces (pronounced “wishes”) was unable to learn enough English in time. So Amy Grant gets to be Santa Claus. Basically, it’s Extreme Makeover: Life Edition. I hate these shows. They're just so nakedly manipulative, exploiting other people's misfortunes to get you to feel good about the network. No thanks.

So anyway. Trash had this on as I happened to be passing through the room. I stopped to mock, but found myself almost immediately arrested by the drama that was unfolding on screen. It appeared that this thirteen-year-old girl was getting a big chance to sing the national anthem. At a car race. In front of 200,000 people.

So when I happened by, Amy Grant – you know, sweet, harmless inoffensive (unless you used to be married to Vince Gill) Amy Grant – started “preparing” this chick, who up until then had seemed perfectly relaxed and confident. “The one think I’m slightly concerned about,” Amy Grant began, and then asked the girl if she'd ever sang with a PA that had a delay built in. Which she hadn't, so Amy Grant had to explain that there might be a really loud echo coming back at her of the note she'd been singing two seconds ago.

The girl looked quite a bit less confident upon hearing that.

Amy Grant then asked her what was the biggest crowd she'd ever sang in front of. She said about two hundred. Yeah, you generally don't need a delay with a crowd that size. That was the other thing Amy Grant was "slightly concerned" about.

Oh, and also of "slight concern" was the fact that the girl was not going to get any chance whatsoever to make so much as a test-peep into the microphone before being expected to belt out the Anthem in full voice. Actually, what Amy Grant said was that "We won't have a chance to sing into the system until it's time to perform." When by "we" she really meant, "You, sucker!" She summed it up as follows: "Basically, we picked the worst possible venue for you to sing at."

Okay, now I was on board. I was expecting some cynical tear-jerker of a show, but instead, here was a scenario as dark as any Fantasy Island episode. You know, one of those ones where Robert Reed's or Dennis Weaver's or Hugh O'Brian's fantasy was blowing up in their face in some impendingly fatal way, and Mr. Roarke would show up to rub in how completely fucked they were and then disappear when Claude Akins's or Barbi Benton's or Donny Most's back was turned. Except this was for real, and Amy Grant wasn't going anywhere, because she wasn't going to quit talking until she made this girl throw up.

"I felt like I was going to throw up my breakfast," the girl said.

By this point, I was sitting down.

I wanted Amy Grant to keep going, though.

"We're a little pressed for time, so you're going to have to sing after the race starts. Standing on the track. Go on."

"We decided it's just not fair to send you out there alone, so we've hooked you up with a duet partner. I'd like you to meet Gilbert Gottfried."

"Remind me to tell you some time what it's like to have your fan base turn on you."

"The only thing I'm slightly concerned about is that NASCAR fans rarely leave the house unarmed."

None of those things happened, though, and the girl took the stage. 200,000 race fans stood up in the bleachers as one.

The girl opened her mouth, and not one sound came out. At first I thought Amy Grant had won by cursing her with some form of hysterical muteness, but then the girl waved her microphone in a way that indicated it wasn't working.

"This is the BEST SHOW EVER!" I told Trash. Psyching out a thirteen-year-old girl moments before she performs in front of 200,000 people? Then sabotaging her equipment? And the backup mic too? Brilliant! I smell Emmy!

They finally got her a microphone that worked -- probably from a nearby K-Mart -- and she announced to the crowd, "I think I'm ready now." The crowd cheered supportively. There was a little interview clip where the girl said she realized everyone was pulling for her, and it made her less nervous. And then she sang the National Anthem quite competently.

I don't know what happened after that, because I got bored and left the minute the show got all inspirational again.

You had me for a minute there, though, Three Wishes. Keep messing with the wishers like that and I just might be back.

Today's best search phrase: "Make us laugh!" No.

posted by M. Giant 8:28 PM 2 comments

2 Comments:

Hilarious commentary. Didn't Amy Grant steal Neil away after promoting her Christian values?

By Anonymous Anonymous, at October 13, 2005 at 6:06 PM  

Brookings isn't really a hotbed of racial diversity.

Yeah, no shit. I *live* here, and that's the first thing I said when I watched the show. "Of all the places they could bring a black family, they're bringing them ... here? With the freezing winters? And the 99.9% white population? That's ... not the nicest way to grant that wish."

By Anonymous Anonymous, at October 26, 2005 at 2:53 PM  

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