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TV talent competitions are generally regarded as the lowest shared experience of human society. It's easy to think you're better than someone who texts in their vote to
American Idol, because you are. That person is going to die alone, and it will only make Adam Lambert stronger.
But if you get over yourself, these shows have the most genuine hilarity on TV. Watching desperate people volunteer to suck... it's the greatest gift they can give us. True, unstaged failure is a joy for every part of the human mind. I've selected the 10 best from the premiere shows:
X-Factor,
America's Got Talent,
Britain's Got Talent,
American Idol and
American Inventor.
What makes a great failure? Aside from a terrible performance, each audition has to tell a story. A story of delusion... of irrational dreams that slowly, slowly get crushed as the judging panel's criticism eats through their fantasy world. It only sounds tragic on paper--when done properly, it's like a comedy dream.
10. Dave Allen
Britain's Got Talent
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One of the things I love about
America's/Britain's Got Talent is that they only allow magicians on if they're terrible. And if the casting directors screw up and let a good magician on stage, the judges just fucking hate wizards anyway. If he knew this, he didn't care, because magician Dave Allen comes to them with one trick: Duck to the Future. It's a cannon with flames that shoots ducks through time. Which should be a big help for people trying to finally check off that last box on their scavenger hunt.
The trick fails in three ways: First, magic is supposed to make you wonder how it's done. If a duck impossibly teleports across a room, I'm going to guess I'm dealing with a duck look-alike, not a violation of spacetime. So if Dave Allen came to me looking for credit for his duck shopping skills... kudos, asshole. You picked out two ducks that look like ducks. I would have been more impressed you hadn't.
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