Hey everybody. Before we get down to business, can we get a Wendy Williams "HOW YOU DOIN?"
Well hello and welcome to our blog for another stunning, flawless, amazing, side-eyeing your favorite edition of "Look at Your Year, Look at Your Choices," the Majak Kingdom's look back at all the high, lows and hot ass messes that made up the year that was 2010. On Monday, we spilled enough tea to fill the Gulf Coast when discussed a year's worth of scandals of Lohan in lockdown, Cyrus on salvia, and Gibson off his rocker; on Tuesday, we were snatching wigs of stars as we dished about all the disappointments of the year including Floptina Aguilera and Jake Gyllenfail; yesterday, we delved into all the ballots, battles and flat-out bitchfests that comprised this year in politics. We hear that "The Real Housewives of DC" Michaele Salahi was so disappointed at not being mentioned yesterday that she and her husband Tareq tried to gatecrash into this post like they did at the White House this season on their boring-ass show. Thankfully, we've got security.
Anyway, today we're turning our attention to all things guilty pleasure. Oh guilty pleasures, how we love thee. You never pretend to be spiritually fulfilling or intellectually enlightening. That's PBS's job when it's not in the middle of one of their umpteenth telethons. No, instead you are magically superficial and splendidly tacky in all ways. People may shake their head at you, may act like they are too good for you and will often times look down on others but deep down inside, even the biggest Pablo Neruda quoting hipster douche has watched an episode of "iCarly" and liked it in a non-ironic way. I mean, "spaghetti tacos" don't become a trending topic AND New York Times articles just off the postings of tweens on their iPhones.
So let us raise a toast in honor of the reality shows with vacuous personalities, to the pop songs sung by people with no idea of pitch or tone, to the YouTube stars that are making bank without the benefit of good lighting, and all the other pop culture things we're ashamed to admit to having enjoyed this year. Here's a post for you to come out and say, "I LOVE THE WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE" and be accepted.
Sit back and relax because you're about to get guilty pleasured. Isn't that right, dude from "Big Time Rush"?
Exactly.
First up, we take on one of the biggest reality show trends of the year as New Jersey became the new hot spot for camera crews in what we're dubbing . . .
"Guido State"
Probably to the dismay of any actual resident of New Jersey, reality show producers, based off the roaring success of MTV's reality show "The Jersey Show" as well as Bravo's "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," decided to leave no horrible Italian stereotype unused by filling basic cable with greasy haired dudes and orange skinned girls all trying to get a slice of that reality TV pizza pie. VH-1 had the monstrosity "My Big Friggin' Wedding" about annoying people with thick accents trying to get married in between listening to copious amounts of Bon Jovi. We never tuned into that show since we knew from the jump that nothing could ever top Charlie B's wedding day meltdown from MTV's "True Life: I'm Getting Married," because nothing says "ready to settle down" like threatening your limo driver with dismemberment.
And while others watch the baking antics of "Cake Boss" or the sewing drama of "Jersey Couture," one of our favorite guilty pleasures of 2010 was the hot mess known as "Jerseylicious."
So many ruffles and leopard prints and cankles. OH MY!
Anyway, scripted within an inch of its life, "Jerseylicious" allegedly details the goings-on at a hair salon or something. We wouldn't know since all the best stuff seems to happen outside of the place like at clubs or parties on boats or even at the nearby Sonic restaurant:
Olivia really should've just told Tracey to:
Next up, we take on our favorite delusional member of the "Real Housewives" franchise, Phaedra Parks, in what we're calling . . .
"Oh this Peach thinks she's cute."
Joining the "Real Housewives of Atlanta" for their third season, Ms. Parks had us crying out "PEACH PLEASE" from the moment she was introduced as she obsessively referred to herself as a Southern Belle, her marriage to her just recently out the clink husband Apollo, and the ever shifting nature of her due date. But all of these things paled, PALED WE TELL YOU, to the magic of one of the greatest things to ever happen to reality TV in not just 2010 but any other year as well.
Ballerinas, rhinestones on your eye lashes, a waltz with your big gay bff. We hadn't seen such an overblown production of disingenuous at best emotions since Chris Brown got his cry on during the 2010 BET Awards.
Speaking of batshit crazy performances, we turn out attention across the pond to a little program called "The X-Factor." While this year of "American Idol" was serving up some of the most bland contestants in its long history, ending with the crowning of Lee "I Can Only Mumble Or Scream Tunes" Dewyze as this year's "American Idol" while Simon departed in order to bring "The X-Factor" over to the United States. "The X-Factor" is like "American Idol" on a weird mixture of X and steroids as the productions are insane, the judges are more personally involved and we get guilty pleasure magic of moments like this:
And if that wasn't intriguing enough, you had the hot ass mess that was Cher Lloyd, who inexplicably lasted forever in the competition while looking like a younger version of ""Strangers With Candy" Jeri Blank.
But wait, there's more! Contestants Matt and Aiden were such a popular friendship duo that they were dubbed Maiden. And when Aiden was eliminated, Matt took to his guitar and wrote this tribute to their friendship:
Somewhere, writers of Kris Allen/Adam Lambert slash fiction are wondering why they never got something like this.
We pause for a second to have a good cry, care of "Intervention."
Next up, one of our favorite guilty pleasures of the year was Ke-Dollar Sign-ha. We've given up trying to hate her and her too-drunk-to-care-or-shower schtick because her songs, devoid of anything resembling actual quality, were some of the biggest earworms of the year. But just making it us want to dance and roll ourselves in glitter wasn't enough to make it onto the list. Watching Ke-Monetary Sign-ha try to perform live with her total lack of vocal prowess or charisma is a thing of freakin' beauty in what we're calling . . .
"Your Autotune Is My Drug"
Unlike Katy Perry, who can sing if you just restrict her backing music to an acoustic guitar, we're pretty sure that when Ke-Symbol of American Money-ha hits a correct note it's by luck and not by skill. Below, her performance of her single "Blah Blah Blah" on "American Idol."
Besides the hilariously neutered version of the song she was forced to talk-sing through, this performance isjust a hot mess of bad ideas. Plus you have 3oh!3 being unable to not run out of breath in the point five seconds they have to rap, showing they are successful graduates of the Nicole Shit-Singer School of Vocal Technique.
Unlike Katy Perry, who can sing if you just restrict her backing music to an acoustic guitar, we're pretty sure that when Ke-Symbol of American Money-ha hits a correct note it's by luck and not by skill. Below, her performance of her single "Blah Blah Blah" on "American Idol."
Besides the hilariously neutered version of the song she was forced to talk-sing through, this performance isjust a hot mess of bad ideas. Plus you have 3oh!3 being unable to not run out of breath in the point five seconds they have to rap, showing they are successful graduates of the Nicole Shit-Singer School of Vocal Technique.
Not to be out done by Ke-Money Money Money MONEY-ha, a whole wave of teen stars got in touch with their inner hooch to try to sell some MP3s this year with Miley Cyrus keeping that makeup gun turned on "child beauty pageant contestant":
Or her co-star Emily Osment wanting to make friends so she can swap some spit:
Or most hilariously, former 3LW/Cheetah Girls member Kiely Williams put out the video "Spectacular."
Kiely Williams, you need to:
Next up, one of our favorite guilty pleasures of 2010 was most definitely Oprah's final "Favorite Things" episodes.
With it being Oprah's 25th and final season, you just knew that her last "Favorite Things" special was going to be an explosion of gifts, tears and confetti and the shaking and crying-a-thon didn't disappoint at all as Oprah momentarily stopped talking about how awesome she's been for a quarter of a century and instead handed out gifts to all of her faithful subjects that included everything from a Pannini sandwich maker to a 2012 VW Beetle.
We'll give Oprah credit for somehow being able to seamlessly bland crass commercialism with New Age spirituality so that they giving out of product placement gifts is somehow a transcendant religious awaking. We're just made that Oprah couldn't decorator Nate Berkus a better personality so his talk show wouldn't be so damn boring.
We'll give Oprah credit for somehow being able to seamlessly bland crass commercialism with New Age spirituality so that they giving out of product placement gifts is somehow a transcendant religious awaking. We're just made that Oprah couldn't decorator Nate Berkus a better personality so his talk show wouldn't be so damn boring.
Speaking of talk shows, we couldn't get through a guilty pleasure post with posting OUR queen of talk shows, the fabulous Wendy Williams in what we're calling simply
"HOW YOU HOSTIN'?"
Wacky wigs, questionable wardrobe choices, a fantastically campy theme song and more D-List celebs than a T-Mobile party in Hollywood, Wendy Williams became our daytime TV crack this year as she relentlessly said what she thought about different celebs in her Hot Topic segment. Below, Wendy Williams goes after Pam Anderson:
And below, Wendy Williams hot messes her way through an homage to "I Love Lucy" in her Halloween special:
Let's see Oprah and Gayle stop scissoring long enough to do that.
Next up we take on . . .
OMG, stop crying Michaele Salahi. Jesus. We'll talk about you if gets you to stop with the faux water works.
"The Real Housewives of DC" was pretty much a dud this year as the housewives did nothing of interest aside from watch the Salahis make total asses of themselves in front of the viewing public. It's a fine hobby but good television it does not make. But then the reunion came around and everybody, probably realizing something not snore-inducing had to happen in order for the show to get picked up for another year, decided to go after the White House gatecrashing duo of Michaele and Tareq. And it was a freakin' thing of reality TV guilty pleasure beauty:
You know what this needs? MORE HELICOPTER HAIR care of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Kyle Richards:
We interrupt this post to watch Iman insult somebody's fashion taste on "The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection."
Oh "The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection." And oh Kelly Rowland, too basic for even this "Project Runway" rip-off that they had to replace you in your second season. Go have a seat next to "Top Chef" season one host Katie Joel and console each other.
2010 saw the end of one of favorite guilty pleasures since college. And we're not referring to binge drinking. We're still all about that. We're referring to that great scripted reality show "The Hills."
Without the show, we wouldn't have been introduced to the magic of Justin-Bobby, the delusions of Spencer Pratt, or the blandness of Whitney Port. After six seasons of fake jobs, fake apartments and sometimes real drama, "The Hills" came to an end in true WTF fashion that was one of our favorite guilty pleasure moments we're calling
"More Fake Than Reality, More Real Than 90 Percent of Heidi's Body"
Without the show, we wouldn't have been introduced to the magic of Justin-Bobby, the delusions of Spencer Pratt, or the blandness of Whitney Port. After six seasons of fake jobs, fake apartments and sometimes real drama, "The Hills" came to an end in true WTF fashion that was one of our favorite guilty pleasure moments we're calling
"More Fake Than Reality, More Real Than 90 Percent of Heidi's Body"
We end this look back at guilty pleasures by turning our focus to all of the teen shows currently populating Nick landscape in what we're calling:
"16 and Not Pregnant (Yet)"
Since Jamie Lynn Spears got herself knocked up, Emma Roberts is trying to have a film career, Kenan Thompson is currently playing every Black person in the world not Barack Obama on "SNL," and Amanda Bynes has somehow gotten genetically crossed with a chipmunk (HAVE YOU SEEN HER FACE LATELY), Nick has decided to replinish its well of teen stars with a whole new crop of folks. And while Amber and Gary are busily punching each other on "Teen Mom," over in the comparatively squeaky clean land of Nick, we're being treated to awesome guilty pleasures in the form of "Victorious," "Tru Jackson VP," "Big Time Rush," and the queen bitch of them all "iCarly."
We unabashedly love these shows as they somehow manage to balance juvenile humor with total adult entertainment moments, harkening back to the Golden Days of Nick when Clarissa was explaining it all, Pete and Pete were the flyest gingers on television and "Ren and Stimpy" were slaying your favorites.
You've got to give these Nick shows credits for being able to rope in people like "Glee" star Jane Lynch to make guest appearances.
Out of the group of shows, our personal favorite is "Big Time Rush" and it's not just because of moments like this:
The show does everything that the Jonas Brothers couldn't manage to do in two seasons of their stinkfest on the Disney Channel: hilariously promote while simultaneously lampoon teen phenoms.
We don't care if it's 2010 and not 1999 so people really are NO1CURR about boy bands at this point. It's big ole nostalgia fest for us. Plus, we haven't enjoyed watching a group of Minnesotans move to California this much since the Walshes came to "90210."
And that's all we wrote kiddies. Check back tomorrow in for our last "Look at Your Year, Look at Your Choices." We're detailing our Faves and Nays of 2010. Janelle Monae better get her acceptance speech ready while T-Swift need not worry.
"X-Factor" winner Matt Cardle bids you farewell.
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