Camp Should-A-Been - Season Ten
Goodness gracious, it's such a beautiful day, isn't it? Everything here at Camp Should-A-Been
seems so shiny and new – swell new judges, brightly painted cabins, a completely remodeled ampitheater,
and of course, 24 adorable young contestants with big smiles and freshly scrubbed faces who are just
rarin' to go out on that stage and sing their little hearts out,
'cause they're all In It To Win It™!! Yes, CSAB fans, it's true:
this year, we've discovered an entirely new way to nauseate you, and which doesn't even
involve meatloaf. 19E decided to ramp up both the talent and saccharine levels for Season 10, and the result
was a three-month judges' lovefest...but mercifully wrapped around one of Idol's strongest and highest-quality
competitions ever. Now that the happy pills have mostly worn off, come join us as we see whether teen sensation Scotty McCreery can hold on
to his crown, or whether cute Lauren Alaina, late-blooming Haley Reinhart, hard-rocking James Durbin or any of the other Tenners
can dethrone him as our AI10 replay gets underway. Insulin not included.
Results
Monday, June 20th, 2011
Top 24 Guys (Open)
Holy Cowcrappamoley, we hardly recognize this place! Flush with cash from a successful TV season plus a summer
concert tour that's actually selling tickets instead of earplugs, 19E decided to spruce up Camp Should-A-Been
a bit. We unlocked the gates this morning to find all sorts of goodies: neatly landscaped gardens, air conditioners and flat-screens
in the bunkrooms, and even a state-of-the-art sound system at the ampitheater. Better still, we also found all 254 former
American Idol contestants waiting for us, unlike last summer when those rats all went AWOL. Evidently, 19E did some
sprucing up on their contract attorneys, too.
Oh well, duty calls so we'll check out the new toys later. Since we're running a day late already, we figured we'd better get the
Season Ten replay started pronto. We kicked off the night with a warm welcome to rookie judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez. (Steven:
"This $%^&*# place is #$*%^& fantastic!")
Then, we sent all 24 contestants on stage to sing their first songs
simultaneously, with six randomly-selected kids told to segue straight into their Wild Card performances without pausing for
breath, followed by giving the judges ten seconds to make their Final 13 selections. We had the semifinals over and done with in
four minutes flat. That left us plenty of time to head over to the Rec Cabin, grab a few beers and catch the Phillies game on ESPN-HD,
and...uh, what's that Mr. Fuller? Those semis were too fast even by AI10's standards? Okay, okay - geez, you don't have to yell.
So, reluctantly, we trudged back to the theater and held a more conventional
Top 24 Guys
episode. Oh, how exciting, the same five contestants advanced to the Finals as in real life: Jacob Lusk (with the new season's
first 'showstopper' 90), Casey Abrams, James Durbin, Paul McDonald, and Scotty McCreery. Stefano Langone earned another Wild Card
callback, joined by our first holdover of the summer, Brett Loewenstern. Leaving us on the renovated Bus Of Shame (air conditioning,
closed-circuit HBO and Showtime, free wifi) were Clint Jun Gamboa, Tim Halperin, Jordan Dorsey, and original Wild Card invitees Robbie Rosen
and Jovany Barreto, except Dorsey's "OMG" was so bad we made him ride in the luggage compartment and didn't give him the wifi password.
Serves him right. Okay, we're done...now, what inning is it?
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
Top 24 Girls (Open)
At breakfast today, we saw Casey Abrams and Crystal Bowersox walking out of the Mess Hall together, chatting amiably with
big smiles on their faces. Now hold on one cotton-picking minute. Nobody leaves a meal at Camp Should-A-Been
smiling! Heck, almost nobody leaves walking – they're usually either sprinting to the restrooms or crawling on all fours.
And certainly not those two, whose digestive systems caused them to be rushed to the hospital so often
during their Idol tenures that they qualified for city commuter subsidies. What's going on now?
We entered the Mess Hall and nearly passed out, but not for the usual reasons. The place was spotless. There were tablecloths and
polished silverware and wine glasses and other nauseating trappings of civilization. George Huff was the master chef; we saw him
and sous chef Kris Allen in the open-air kitchen cheerily making omeletes. Maitre D' Ruben Studdard asked us how
many were in our party and politely escorted us to a table for three, right next to Steven Tyler, who
was having the meatloaf. ("This stuff is $%^&*# delicious! I gotta get the
#$*%^& recipe!") Ryan Seacrest brought us the wine list, and
Kellie Pickler roller-skated to our table to take our orders, at which point we ran out of the place screaming.
We still hadn't stopped twitching when the
Top 24 Girls
took the stage after dinner. Sanjaya Malakar sang the national anthem in several different keys, earning a standing ovation from the judges.
Come to think of it, all twelve girls earned standing ovations too, and David Archuleta and Aaron Kelly presented each with a bouquet of
roses as they left the stage. Well, at least Pia Toscano earned it; her Pretenders debut earned a massive 93 rating from the
Idolsphere to rate as one of the best-liked Idol performances ever.
Thia Megia also reached 5-stars and Lauren Turner just missed; however, to no one's surprise, she easily earned the chair in the Finals
that she was inexplicably denied in March. Rounding out the Top 5 were defending runner-up Lauren Alaina and Naima Adedapo.
Four ladies were invited to tomorrow's Wild Card showdown, but it came at a potential cost to Haley Reinhart. She's a shoo-in to
advance, of course, but it will require her to use her first projected rating early – that could come back to haunt her if she survives
to the Finale.
Wednesday, June 22th, 2011
Wild Card (Open)
We look tired today, you say? Brilliant observation, Sherlock. You'd be tired too if Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler
had led two hundred eager, vocally-trained campers in a singalong outside your bedroom window until 3 AM. We're
not entirely convinced
that Tyler really knew the lyrics to all the songs ("Someone's $%^&*# laughing, Lord,
Kum-Ba-$%^&*#-Yah!"), but we are sure that if we don't figure out a way
to turn this place back to normal soon, we're going to go stark raving mad by the weekend.
At least tonight's show
gave us ample opportunities for some much-needed snark. First though, let us refresh your memory on how we handle
Wild Card
replays here at Camp Should-a-Been. If a contestant sang in the real life episode, he or she must reprise
their original performance to its actual rating – that part is simple. However, contestants who weren't in the
Wild Card show require projected ratings, which are based solely on their semifinal performances to date.
Which means that Finals performances are not considered. Which is how we've always done it around here. Which, uh,
kind of sucks this time because it means Haley Reinhart is out. More on this in a minute.
Stefano Langone and newcomer Kendra Chantelle advanced easily into the Final 13 thanks to their excellent real-life numbers.
Karen Rodriguez, whose Idol forté was to sing a verse of each performance in Spanish, decided that she wasn't taking
any chances tonight: she rattled off songs in one world language after another until we begged for mercy and told her she'd made it
through. Reinhart pulled out all the hard-rock stops, including pyrotechnics, fake blood, and her entire extended family onstage
as her backup band (note to posterity: Grandma R. can lay down some bad-ass riffs on her axe.) Alas, not only was it
not enough, she actually finished a tenth of a point behind Brett Howardstern, or whatever his name was. Bringing up the
rear was original 13th-place finisher Ashthon Jones, tohnight's finahl pahssengher on the Buhs Of Shamhe.
The early departure of Reinhart makes this summer's already wide-open race even more unpredictable. Incidentally, the
rationale for using semifinal ratings exclusively for the Wild Card round is because the CSAB charter is to replay
the competition one episode at a time, without any prejudicial knowledge of what came afterwards.
In past seasons, this has produced very satisfactory results. This year, not
so much. Still, keep in mind that at the time of the real-life episode, Reinhart had turned in the 13th-strongest
semifinal performance – 14th, actually, since Loewenstern was fractionally above her, too. Lesson: here at
Camp Should-A-Been, late bloomers often fare very well...provided they don't start blooming too late.
The CSAB Final 13 for Season Ten are:
- Casey Abrams
- Naima Adedapo
- Lauren Alaina
- Kendra Chantelle
- James Durbin
- Stefano Langone
- Jacob Lusk
- Scotty McCreery
- Paul McDonald
- Thia Megia
- Karen Rodriguez
- Pia Toscano
- Lauren Turner
Newcomers in italics. Failing to qualify: Ashthon Jones and Haley Reinhart (but, oh yes, we'll certainly keep an eye out the next couple
weeks for what might have happened had Reinhart gone through.)
See you tomorrow night when the Finals commence.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
Final 13 (Personal Idol)
"That was flawless singing! You're definitely in it to win it!" crowed Randy.
"Just beautiful," added J-Lo, dabbing tears from her eyes
as she spoke, adding "I feel like I'm already at one of your concerts." "#$*%^&
^$*#%-ity #@^$&% !!!"
yelled Steven, though that might have been because he stubbed his toe on a tree stump.
Were our trio of judges raving about Pia Toscano's outstanding 84 approval rating on "All By Myself"? Er, not exactly. That's what they said
after Karen Rodriguez's performance, all 28 points of it. This despite the fact that Rodriguez had sung it in Esperanto, so nobody at the
ampitheater had any clue what the hell she was saying. The critiques got progressively more fawning from there until Toscano took the stage, at which
point Randy began speaking in tongues, J-Lo collapsed sobbing onto the floor, and Steven spontaneously combusted, setting off the sprinkler system.
(*Sigh*) This is going to be a long summer.
Still, though we weren't quite moved to self-immolate ourselves, we had to admit this was a really good episode. Eight of the 13 finalists
scored above 50, and Lauren Alaina missed by only a point. The singing was so strong that Paul McDonald wound up in the Bottom Three
despite a 3-star rating. Holdovers Kendra Chantelle and Lauren Turner both advanced easily, though we find their choices of Personal Idol
to be a bit less than sincere, perhaps. Oh well, a little bit of judicious brown-nosing rarely hurts. Rodriguez was eliminated,
but her problems only started there, because instead of New York, Bus Of Shame driver Jason Castro dropped her off in downtown Nome, Alaska. Moral: never give
someone driving directions in Esperanto.
Friday, June 24th, 2011
Final 12 (Year You Were Born)
The annual Camp Should-A-Been craft show was held today, and although the misshapen clay pots, oblong pine cone wreaths, and
comically bad wood carvings were no better than in previous years...well, you guessed it. Pollyanna, Pollyrandy, and Pottymouthy
couldn't stop raving about them. They were particularly enamored with a blue ceramic ashtray in the shape of the American Idol
logo, but no camper took credit for making it. That was odd. (Incidentally, Siobhan Magnus
won the grand prize for her 500:1 scale, hand-blown crystal replica of Fenway Park, circa 1975, with
a tiny glass Carlton Fisk waving his famous home run fair. Show-off.)
Nobody reached five stars on the evening's
Year You Were Born
replay. Pia Toscano notched the top rating for her third consecutive outing, with Stefano Langone not far behind. Still, there were a few
low points tonight. Multi-instrumentalist
Casey Abrams reprised "Smells Like Teen Spirit" while accompanying himself on tuba. Paul McDonald's vibrato-heavy version of "Blues"
got several goats from the petting zoo unnaturally excited. And, Naima Adedapo produced the first one-star
performance of the Finals with her ska spin on the Tina Turner classic. None of this slowed down the judges' effusive praise one iota, of course;
in fact, they spent most of the night flipping through a dog-eared copy of Roget's Thesaurus pulling out synonyms for "magnificent", with Steven
finding a few interesting ones for "#@^$&%", too. Sheesh.
But as the curtain came down on Adedapo's sing-out, a mysterious, shadowy figure appeared in the wings. Taking a drag from his cigarette and
flicking it into the brush, he intoned in a British baritone, "Those were the sort of performances I would expect to find in a Portuguese cabaret!"
And with that, he disappeared silently into the woods. Who could it be? Well, we can probably rule out Smokey The Bear....
Saturday, June 25th, 2011
Final 11 (Motown)
Saturdays are usually our day off at Camp Should-A-Been, but because we got started a day late this summer, we're putting
in a little overtime this first week. The buzz around the campground today centered around the enigmatic man with the British
accent who appeared at the end of last night's replay, offering some unexpectedly trenchant commentary on the night's performances. Our crack
team of disciplinary counselors, Rocco, Viktor and Serge, undertook a thorough search of the area, but found precious little in
the way of clues: only a tight black pullover shirt, a gold cufflink engraved with the initials "S.C.", and sixteen pocket mirrors
of various shapes and sizes. Oh, and Simon Cowell walked into the Mess Hall at lunchtime today and announced, "It was I, you
imbeciles!" before storming out. But have no fear: we'll get to the bottom of this yet!
For once, Pia Toscano didn't post the highest rating of the night when we held the
Motown
replay. She, Jacob Lusk, and Lauren Alaina all turned in fine 4-star numbers, but this time it was James Durbin leading the way
with an excellent 84. Afterwards, we presented Durbin with a plaque for having delivered a milestone performance: American Idol's one
billionth Stevie Wonder cover. Most of the other contestants were decent enough, with holdovers Lauren Turner and Kendra Chantelle
choosing a pair of songs that highlighted their experiences at CSAB thus far. Thia Megia was in the Bottom Three for the
third time in as many Finals episodes, but she survived yet again. That's because Stefano Langone foolishly said "Hello"
and we couldn't say "goodbye" fast enough. We had David Cook escort him to the Bus Of Shame while explaining why that might have been the worst song
choice of the 2011 season.
But before the Bus could leave, our Mystery Brit made another sudden appearance: he said the remaining ten
contestants reminded him of the cast of a dreadful theme park variety show. He also passed out autographed
8-by-10 color glossies of himself,
along with trifold brochures advertising the upcoming debut of The X-Factor this fall, before strolling back into the woods.
It's gotta be Paula, doesn't it?
Sunday, June 26th, 2011
Final 10 (Elton John)
Obvious signs of strain could be seen around Camp Should-A-Been today. Our campers, after a week of nothing but
sweetness and praise, were clearly rattled by the unvarnished, no-holds-barred critiques of the anonymous British interloper.
At today's volleyball tournament, for instance, Justin Guarini and Taylor Hicks had a brief, slightly testy exchange over
whether one of Guarini's serves was out or in, as well as whose post-Idol career tanked the fastest. Then at dinner,
LaToya London asked Melinda Doolittle to pass the salt, and Doolittle made her say "please" first. Look, "strain" is relative.
Meanwhile,
we summoned our extraordinarily easy-to-please judges to the Head Counselors' cabin and asked them, pretty please, to start earning
their bloated paychecks by offering some constructive criticism to the Season Ten contestants. Alas, it was to no avail. During tonight's
Elton John
replay, they compared Lauren Alaina to Ella Fitzgerald, Jacob Lusk to Enrico Caruso, and Pia Toscano to Andrea Bocelli, whom Steven mistakenly
thought was a girl. To be fair, though, even our mystery critic had a hard time finding much fault with tonight's performances.
The average rating was nearly 58, with Alaina reaching a fifth star for the first time in the competition. Kendra Chantelle's fourth projected
rating dropped her into the Bottom Three, suggesting that her solid run was nearing its end. Thia Megia joined her, but for the fourth
time in as many Finals episodes, she lived to tell the tale. That's because Paul McDonald was the only
contestant who failed to reach 3-stars, albeit by just one point. We sent him rocketing back to Alabama on the Space Shuttle of Shame.
Monday, June 27th, 2011
Final 9 (Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame)
"Yours was a totally indulgent performance," he sniffed at one devastated camper. "A complete and utter mess," he told another.
"Not only aren't you living up to your early potential," he sharply informed a third, "but you're sitting in my seat!" Randy Jackson,
needless to say, appeared crestfallen at this. Yes, after three days of insulting the singers, the secretive English talent critic trained
his guns tonight on our panel of judges, and he held nothing back. All of our best efforts to unearth his identity have failed. Oh, sure, he
produced a passport from the U.K. in the name of Simon Phillip Cowell, plus notarized fingerprints and a retina scan, and then there was the
positive DNA report, and did we mention he had Il Divo and Leona Lewis following him around the campgrounds? But aside from all that
circumstantial evidence, nothing conclusive has turned up....
Our nine surviving contestants, meanwhile, continued to step up their games. Nobody fell below three stars on our
Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame
replay. Pia Toscano reprised her 86-rated triumph on "River Deep, Mountain High", except this time without the plane ticket home from the voters.
Toscano's projected ratings begin tomorrow night, and it will be very interesting to see how long they'll keep the highest-rated contestant
of AI's first 10 seasons here at Camp Should-A-Been. Coming in second place tonight is defending champ Scotty McCreery, who has
otherwise been keeping such a low profile this summer that several campers have mistaken him for the pizza delivery boy. At least he's earning
good money in tips. To express our
deep contempt for Cleveland's infamous Mistake By The Lake, we had our three holdover contestants perform songs by superstar artists who not only have
been snubbed for the Hall, but haven't even been granted the courtesy of being put up for a vote yet. It was close, but Jacob Lusk slipped past
Kendra Chantelle by one point, thus ending her stay at CSAB in ninth place. She took the Bus Of Shame back to Tennessee...via Chicago, of course.
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
Final 8 (Songs From The Movies)
Don't let Thia Megia's sweet and innocent outward appearance fool you. As we've learned this past week at Camp Should-A-Been,
the little daredevil is a heck of a lot closer to Girls Gone Wild than Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She never waits an hour
after a meal before she goes swimming. At craft hour, she runs with scissors. She saves her most death-defying feats for the
ampitheater, however. Every night since the Finals began, five times in all, she'd sung herself into the Bottom Three. All five times,
she somehow escaped the axe. In the music world, Megia's astounding high-wire act of unlikely sustained survival is topped
only by Keith Richards.
Make that six nights running. In a surreal
Songs From The Movies
replay, we witnessed several moments that left us shaking our heads. For one, the highest-rated performance of the show was
on a projected rating: Pia Toscano's 73. For another, only two other contestants broke par...one covering
Sammy Hagar, and the other Miley Cyrus. Then there was Jacob Lusk, who chose to sing Bridge Over Troubled Water in a gospel arrangement,
as if that had never been done before. (And while we're on the subject, why in blazes do AI choirs always have to wear purple? Don't
choir gowns come in any other colors? But we
digress.) All three of our holdover contestants had a little trouble comprehending the theme, though we ultimately had to concede that we'd
indeed heard all of those songs at the movie theater. Even though Megia's song is an instrumental, and even though it drew the first
bit of slight criticism from the judges all summer (Randy: "I think one of the pops in the second chorus might have been a teensy bit sharp"), she managed
to squeak through once more. Tonight's victim was Casey Abrams, whose smooth jazz rendition of the Nat King Cole classic didn't go over very well
with the Idolsphere. We sent him home on the Bus Of Shame, with all 82 of his instruments in tow on the U-Haul Of Shame.
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Final 7 (21st Century)
Mr. Cranky, the British talent critic who'd caused havoc at our replays the past few nights, and who masterfully kept his identity
a secret throughout his stay, disappeared from camp overnight. Rocco found a handwritten note nailed to a tree stating, in full:
"I've had enough. New judges are absolutely horrid. Catching an aeroplane to Hollywood to resume X-Factor auditions. Tell
Fuller and Lythgoe that I look forward to crushing their antiquated show into irrelevancy this fall. Sincerely, Simon Cowell."
See, we told you it was Paula!
Still, his departure left we head counselors concerned. What could we do now to keep Randy, J-Lo, and Steven from coddling our
remaining AI10 contestants into mush? After a brief discussion, we hit upon one of our most devious, über-Machiavellian plans ever, and that's
saying something....
"That was a terrible song choice, and it was pitchy from start to finish. Just keepin' it real, girl," Randy grumbled.
"I'm gonna need Mark to stuff gauze pads in my ears tonight to stop the bleeding.
Who told you that you could sing?!" demanded Jennifer. "#@^$&% !!!"
yelled Steven, except this time we're pretty sure it wasn't a compliment. The target of their vitriol was none other than
Haley Reinhart, whom we lured back to camp this afternoon under the pretense that Lauren Alaina had re-sprained her vocal cord
and might have to drop out of the competition.
Despite the fact that her Adele cover was once again the highest-rated performance of the evening, the judges invoked their authority under the
Special Emergency Powers clause of the Camp constitution to send her home once more. Afterwards, they even managed to find a few flaws in the other
seven performances, which we took as progress.
In other news: among the official competitors, James Durbin rode an appropriately over-the-top Muse cover to a first-place finish. Our three holdovers decided to
try their hand at some
21st Century
glam rock as well, to mixed results. We were sure we'd finally be rid of Thia Megia tonight, inasmuch as
"Black Parade" doesn't exactly work well as a Disney-fied ballad, but it was not to be. In the first big shocker of the Season Ten Finals,
defending champ Scotty McCreery, who tried skirting the theme with a 30-year-old song, wound up swingin' only a bus ticket home to North Carolina.
Quite honestly, we were ecstatic to see him go. Not because we disliked his singing – truth be told, he was the one contestant this season
who we thought was consistently a bit underrated by the Idolsphere – but because a fairly normal 16-year-old whose only real quirk on AI was holding
the microphone funny is next to impossible to parody effectively at Camp Should-A-Been. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, kid.
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Final 6 (Carole King)
Haley Reinhart drove through our gates around 3:00 this afternoon. She said she was sorry to hear that Lauren Turner had contracted
diverticulitis and might not be able to perform, but that she was happy to have another chance here at Camp Should-A-Been.
"Maybe the third time will be the charm!" she said excitedly. Um, yeah Haley, go rehearse a little and have your hair done.
(Look, we know it's cruel, but we have to do something to keep the judges from reverting to Barney The Dinosaur mode!)
At any rate, Carole King Night turned out to be a mixed bag. James Durbin produced the highlight of the
night, and virtually the season, with a monster 92 on "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," even though one of his pyrotechnic
effects went a bit awry and burnt off Ryan Seacrest's eyebrows. To be honest, it's an improvement. Pia Toscano was still in 4-star
territory despite being three steps down her decay curve. Our holdover trio all went with fine songs that King and Gerry Goffin wrote for
the Monkees – maybe it wasn't the Byrds covering Dylan, but as 60's pop music goes it was still pretty good stuff.
Thia Megia filled in for the departed Scott McCreery on "Up On The Roof," after unsuccessfully trying to convince Lauren Alaina
to switch to "The Porpoise Song". Bringing up the rear by
a fairly healthy margin was Jacob Lusk, whose unfortunate penchant for oversinging simple, pretty songs finally caught up to him.
It took nearly an hour for Rocco, Viktor and Serge, serving much like those famous sumo wrestlers on Tokyo subway platforms,
to stuff Lusk and his entire choir onto the Bus Of Shame. All you could see through the windows as it drove off was a big blob of purple.
As for Reinhart...well, Mission Accomplished once more. "I wouldn't have chosen a Carole King song. She's not the right artist for your
voice," scolded Steven, who had forgotten the theme again. "Muy fuera de tono!," cried J-Lo over and over. "Haley, dawg, you're just
not in it to win it," said you-know-who. Evidently, five stars don't go as far as they used to, though they did earn Reinhart another one-way
redeye ticket to Illinois. All this nefariousness is killing our travel budget.
Despite all the survival issues that the Season Ten girls had in real life, they make up 80% of our Final Five this summer. Joining James Durbin
for the stretch run are
Lauren Alaina, Lauren Turner, Pia Toscano, and HOW IN #@^$&% BLAZES IS
THIA MEGIA
STILL IN THIS #@^$&%
COMPETITION??!! Whoops...heh-heh, sorry about that. Just channeling our inner Steven.
Friday, July 1st, 2011
Final 5 (Now and Then)
"Lauren! Lauren Alaina! You're on in 30 seconds! Come on, Lauren, put down the teddy bear and blankie – haven't we been
through this enough times? The stage fright before every performance is getting old, and besides, you're scheduled to do well tonight
with your Now And Then songs.
Rocco, Viktor, Serge! Kindly escort Miss Suddeth out on the stage, and if she starts screaming again, be sure it's more or less in
the tune of 'Unchained Melody'....
"James, you and the marching band are up after Lauren and...HOLY CRAP!! Is that a tank?!? Geez, when you asked for
permission to use an Abrams tonight, we thought you meant Casey! Get that thing out of here before the Army finds out it's missing!
We've got to have a little chat after the show regarding your choreographies and special effects, young man,
before you get us all thrown in jail....
"Oh, hi Haley! Yes, it's great to see you again too. We know! – who'd have expected that Pia Toscano would be called for
jury duty? And on a Friday night no less! Now run off and warm up for 'House Of The Rising Sun,' since that's the performance of
Season Ten that everyone can't wait to hear again – even the judges. Um, no, we don't know why they have a box of
rotten tomatoes at the front table. Okay, bye, see you on stage soon! Hmm...you know, that kid is a fine singer, but we're beginning to wonder
if she might not be the brightest bulb in the pack....
"OK, where are our three holdover contestants? Ah, here they come. We see you all also decided to go with 'Then' songs by the Animals tonight. Yeah,
we know, whatever works. Pia, your projected ratings are still above 50, which is pretty amazing. Um, by any chance did James help you
with the special effects for your Rihanna cover? No? Good. Lauren Turner, you're up to
eleven performances now, which is ten more than 19E deigned you to give you. Go all-out on the Mumford & Sons cover – we've gotten
really good at bleeping out curse words on the fly, thanks to Steven. But, uh, do the abridged version of 'Sky Pilot' please; we have a midnight
curfew.
"What's that, Thia? No, Jacob Lusk isn't in the competition anymore, so he won't be reprising 'No Air' tonight. No, sorry,
John Stevens isn't singing 'Crocodile Rock' either. You're finally going home, dear, after surviving a ridiculous eight straight trips
to the Bottom Three. That's a streak that even Cal Ripken and Joe Dimaggio couldn't touch. Do you realize that if Reinhart had made it out
of the semifinals, you'd have finished in 13th place?! Hmm? No, Thia, Danny Gokey can't do a duet with Steven on 'Dream On'! Give it a rest
already!
"Okay, Haley's just finishing her performance of 'House'. Just look at that huge standing ovation from the audience and...oooh. Oh, man. Ouch!
Wow...who knew that J-Lo had such a good arm?"
Sunday, July 3rd, 2011
Final 4 (Inspirational / Lieber and Stoller)
HUGE EXPLOSION ROCKS CAMP HOOFIN'-IT
Dancing With The Stars fantasy campground heavily damaged in late-night blast
By B. Dunkelman, Post reporter
An unexplained explosion shook Camp Hoofin'-It tonight, the popular tourist attraction in the
mountains on the north side of town. No injuries were reported, but the facility's cafeteria was destroyed
as well as three bunkhouses and a storage hut. Camp officials have suspended their reenactment of
Dancing With The Stars' twelfth season
and relocated their celebrity tenants until the cause of the blast could be determined.
"It started as a perfectly normal evening," said former NFL star Kurt Warner, a former DWTS contestant.
"We'd finished our show a little early and were all ready to hit the sack when Mya noticed that they were
having a pre-Fourth Of July fireworks show across the lake at Camp Should-A-Been. So, we all went down to the beach
to watch."
"It's a lucky thing we did," added ESPN's Erin Andrews. "Otherwise, those bunkhouses would have been full and
we'd be pulling bodies out of the rubble!"
Eyewitnesses reported that the fireworks seemed to be synchronized to two songs from the American Idol
campground: Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and The Searchers' "Love Potion #9".
Earlier, loud applause had been heard after renditions of "Anyway" and "I (Who Have Nothing)", though
three loud voices of dissent could be discerned after the latter. Other performances
received less enthusiastic reactions, particularly Michael Jackson's "Earth Song" in which considerably
more than three people were left groaning. Loud boos and catcalls were heard upon the opening notes of
"Against All Odds", followed shortly by the distinct sound of a bus door slamming shut and an engine roaring off.
"The fireworks climaxed at the end of 'Potion'," said a visibly shaken Bristol Palin. "We could
see rockets going up in all directions. Big Roman candles, smaller bottle rockets, just a ton of rockets everywhere you
looked. And then...nah, it couldn't have been...," she finished, her voice trailing off.
Real-life defending champ Hines Ward chimed in, "It sure looked like a Saturn rocket launch to me. I mean, the plume was
unbelievable. A few seconds later, something came screeching out of the sky and landed on the other side of our camp. I swear it
had 'United States' printed on the side! But what psychopath could possibly get hold of one of those things, let alone
use it as an entertainment effect?"
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Final 3 (Idol's / Jimmy's / Judges' Choice)
After we disposed of those pesky investigators from the FBI and NASA this morning, we kicked off our annual Fourth
Of July celebration at Camp Should-A-Been. Here are some of the highlights from the afternoon picnic.
Jessica Sierra and Jacob Lusk, both of whom have ample experience walking around with leg restraints, easily
won the three-legged race. Anoop Desai finished first in the sack race when Chris Daughtry, just yards from
the finish line, stopped to pose triumphantly for the photographers. Somebody needs to teach that guy how to close the deal.
Megan Joy won the inaugural bird-calling contest – she was the only entrant – while Trenyce, Hadas
and Chikeze teamed up to win the scavenger hunt. Now if they could only find the rest of their names.
Regrettably, tonight's
Final 3
show turned out to be an anticlimax. Fully half of the performance ratings fell into the 30's, including all three
by holdover Pia Toscano, who tried her hand at three patriotic country songs to no avail. Haley Reinhart was
exhausted after a week's worth of back-and-forth airline travel, but how could she say no when she learned that Lauren
Alaina might be disqualified for her alleged role as a British spy during the War of 1812? (*Ahem*...Like we said: bulb, brightest, pack....)
Anyway, Reinhart's dad wasn't available to accompany his daughter on "What Is...", so we had Scotty McCreery's grandparents
fill in, mainly because they were so adorable. For once, the judges had nothing bad to say after her performances –
they just sat quietly at their table reading the copies of People and Billboard they held in front of their faces.
In the end, it was James Durbin (164 points) and Lauren Alaina (146) advancing to the Season Ten CSAB Finale over
Toscano (95), who was too deep into her projected ratings to take advantage of Alaina's rare off-night.
It should be noted that Durbin's trio of song choices had our Head Counselors scared out of their wits, but the
choreographies turned out to be tame by his standards. A little dry ice here, some sparklers there, and what's a few sticks
of dynamite among friends? Particularly since we really weren't going to need the restrooms until next summer anyway – we
can all use the woods tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
Finale
We tried everything to coax her back. Honestly, we did. We told Haley Reinhart that James Durbin had torn his anterior vocal-cord
ligament in a freak pottery-wheel accident, and that Lauren Alaina had a previous obligation tonight to babysit her cousins in Louisiana, and
even that Led Zeppelin had offered to reunite and serve as her backup band, including John Bonham on drums. Nothing could convince
Reinhart to return to Camp Should-A-Been for the Season Ten Replay
Finale.
Before hanging up on us, however, she did mention bitterly what three songs she would've chosen to perform for the judges:
Sara Bareilles's "King Of Anything" to Randy, Taylor Swift's "Mean" to J-Lo, and...ah, let's just say that Steven Tyler and
Cee-Lo Green make an apt pairing in more ways than one.
Still, even without Reinhart, it was an entertaining night. Alaina and Durbin put on a good show for the crowd, with no performance falling below
three stars. Durbin's reprise of "Tomorrow" scored very well, but it couldn't quite wrest the High Rating honor from "Like My Mother Does,"
Alaina's coronation song by way of none other than Kristy Lee Cook. Under the circumstances, we figured it would be fitting to assign Durbin the
coronation song originally performed by AI7's other Cook (and which, no lie, is the first, last and likely only Original Winners' Song™ that
our Head Counselors actually liked.)
Unfortunately, the three hits to his projected ratings in the Final 3 were too much for Durbin to overcome, particularly when his opponent was as
superhumanly consistent as Alaina. Of her 20 performances on AI this season, a staggering 17(!) scored between 55 and 81 – she was
rarely spectacular but, one missed key-change aside, was never cringeworthy. By a final score of 179 to 160, 16-year-old
country belle Lauren Alaina is the youngest champion thus far at Camp Should-A-Been!
Whoops! Hold on a minute folks, we've jumped the gun. Even though we know it will score a projected 41, Durbin still hasn't given his final
performance yet! Given the innovative music and wild choreographies he introduced to American Idol over the past six months, the young man surely
deserves his one last moment on the CSAB stage. Hmm, it seems he's chosen a medley of songs from...(*gulp*)...the, uh, classic 2004 album by Irish legends U2.
Well, heh-heh, what are we worried about? True, his special effects are often way over the top and occasionally go awry.
But, come on now – even James Durbin himself couldn't have gotten his hands on a real, working atomic bo--.......
Camp Should-A-Been
Vaporized For The Winter
Thanks For Visiting!
Reopening Summer, 2012.
— The End —
Camp Should-A-Been – Season Ten Results
- Lauren Alaina
- James Durbin
- Pia Toscano
- Lauren Turner
- Thia Megia
- Jacob Lusk
- Scotty McCreery
- Casey Abrams
- Kendra Chantelle
- Paul McDonald
- Stefano Langone
- Naima Adedapo
- Karen Rodriguez
-- The staff of WNTS.com
If you are interested in how the AI10 replay would have unfolded had
Haley Reinhart not been eliminated in the Wild Card show, check out
our
Season 10.1 Replay.
