Lazy Legs and the Plus-sized Pussycat Dolls

Lazy Legs and the Plus-sized Pussycat Dolls by Roxanne McDonald

You might think there’d be nothing new in the way the judges critique the kinds of typical contestants for “America’s Got Talent.” But the fourth installment had a couple of intriguing if not evocative twists.

I am on record as finding “America’s Got Talent” to be a horrible hybrid, a pitiful impersonation, an unnecessary knock-off of Idol + Gong Show.

But treatment number 4 not only surprised me but brought me to that place usually reserved for really good reality TV

talent, romance, or drama.

So there was a contortionist who was so skilled that he elicited several eeews from the crowd as well as the judges.

There was seductive singing group one, who fell short, and seductive singing group two, who wowed the hell out of us with their outfits matching their mutated style (shoo-bop meets hip hop), and a few really bad and another few quite good solo singers.

A comic doing pc commentary bits made it through. A twin duo (named something like Shadot) get the no from what Sharon calls the “gruesome twosome”. And an egomaniac who is serious when he says he wants every record label to bow at his feet (and I’m not sure record labels promote b-boys) is so ridiculously un-talented I recall the gong and again ask myself why I am subjecting myself to such undeserved torture. The only saving grace is watching Jerry Springer as he stares, horrified, and hearing him say to us in a giddy whisper, “They’re gonna kill im.”

But then this group of guys approaches, one of them in those permanent metal crutches. I don’t pay much attention to the blah blah blah hope and dreams interview, but am absolutely riveted when they begin their bit: the others are all very talented, but the kid self-named Lazy Legs is unbleepingbelievable.

He puts all his weight on his upper body, in a position for, say, a push-up, then spins and undulates and wings those legs about as if they were extraneous props. The routine he does fits seamlessly in the choreography of the rest of the

fully physically functioning group, and while it does not elicit the very pity he doesn’t want to begin with, it does showcase his superlative skill.

And it does give us goosebumps. PHE-NOM-EN-AL.

The group, whose name I saw flash on-screen but am surely off on the spelling of [Illinatic Smiles?] gets a unanimous tsunami of a standing O. David calls them inspirational; Piers says they personify America; and Sharon says it not only shows you can’t keep a good man down but speaks to how all of them are equally talented and work so impressively as a unit.

After the Three Redneck Tenors, who are pretty funny in their quirky, unappealing way, after a bad singer (I mean BAD in the pre-80s sense of the word) argues with Hasselhoff, after Leonid (or whatever his get-sympathy-votes for ostentatious talent and weeping onstage instead name is) gets strangely moved forward again, after a good country singer, a bad septuagenarian juggler, a good illusionist and a bad revererend cum magician all do their ho-hum stuff…the grand finale is a four-top group of absolutely goose bump-rendering singers:

They call themselves The Glamazon Girls. They are super-sized, but still super-sexy (getting more looks from the others backstage than Annabelle from Idol got hits on those half-dressed pics pages). And can they bring the sound (of “Lady Marmalade”), harmonizing, reaching several ranges, and doing a dignified though simple choreographed number.

David, who had called them the Plus-sized Pussycat Dolls, says it just goes to show you can be sexy at any size. And Piers stretches the boundaries of his typically conservative public persona (this is how impressive they were) by telling them he is one of those Englishmen who tends toward the plus-sized lassies.

What a stimulating edition.

Yeah, the little kids with the large voices are adorable and all that. But save them for the grade-school talent show fundraisers. What will raise the funds (among other things) here is more unique fare of American personification—with a heaping side of skill, if you will.

SirLinksAlot America’s Got Talent links

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