Sunday, September 13, 2015

Miss America

Tonight the Miss America pageant came on tv. This is NOT the Miss USA pageant, which is another kind of pageant animal. Donald Trump is in charge of that one, so that says a lot. No, I'm talking about good old Miss America. You know, the scholarship pageant.

Growing up, watching this show was a huge deal. We would even have ballots to vote for our favorites. Of course, most of the top ten would be women from the South. Just take it from Suzanne Sugarbaker ...

       

Anyhoo, back to tonight's show. I was flipping through the channels and happened upon the broadcast. It was a few minutes into the program, so I missed Vanessa William's song, but I did get to see a Miss America Official Dude apologize for the organization that took her title away a long time ago (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're probably too young to fully appreciate the pageant anyway). Well, once I started watching the show, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It was amazing and odd and mesmerizing. I didn't have my ballot, but I really thought it would come down to Miss Mississippi or Miss Tennessee. Miss Mississippi got first runner up (in case Miss America cannot perform her duties, Miss Mississippi will take over) and Miss Georgia won. Anyhow, if you didn't get to watch it, you missed a lot, so I thought I'd share my highlights ...
  • Vanessa Williams apology - she deserved it. It's just too bad it came so late.
  • The judges - I didn't know several of them. Thank you google!
  • Every few minutes, the camera would pan to a face of a judge. And every time, that particular judge looked like he/she was in pain. Except for the Shark Tank dude - he was always smiling. Zendaya, who is a Disney Channel star, had on the enormous glasses - maybe she was trying to look smart (she's 19, so she probably has no idea what Miss America is about).
  • They had a short segment where a bunch of former Miss Americas were on the stage. As a former Miss America watcher, I wanted to see each one of the introduced. Instead, they had a camera fly-over with no names mentioned. Maybe they weren't even Miss Americas, but some residents of a local assisted living community.
  • Talent - my favorite part. There were singers who could have chosen better songs, Miss Mississippi played some fancy fiddle song - where was "The Devil Went Down To Georgia"? - there were a couple of dancers , a pianny player who played some Opus Something, and the nurse who told a story (and then got ripped by the ladies on "The View", who then got a  whole lot of backlash over their stupid remarks. Oh, and there were a couple of ladies who didn't get to perform their talent, which leads me to ...
  • The elimination process. So there are 52 to begin with. Then they whittle it down to maybe 15. Then they strut their two-piece swimsuits, and knock off three. These 12 walk in their evening gowns and then they get ready for talent. Except they only call 10 to do talent - two more are off the list.Then it's time for the scary questions, but only seven get to answer a question, so three more get eliminated. Finally they announce the runner ups, and three are left - two will get nada while the other will be Miss America.
  • Everytime a girl got announced as a finalist, she would bend her knees and bend down like she was doing a squat. Which I'm sure she did plenty of to get her body is Miss America shape.
  • During the question phase, each judge had a question to ask. Too bad some of the judges didn't bother reading their questions. So maybe then the judge would have a chance to ask someone or google what the question was about. So maybe the judge would understand the question he/she was asking.
  • Apparently Phyllis George came out to crown the new Miss America, or so they said. They used their fly-by camera to show some woman walking out on the stage - who knows who it really was.
Anyhow, the show was fabulous. I texted Maribeth, Molly, and Lynnette during the entire show, because it was so fascinating that they needed to hear about it. Although none of them bothered to turn it on.

No matter - I taped it, and we're having a Miss America rehash party on Friday!!

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Thankful today for: First Watch with MB, Everley, Net Net, and Lindley; Everley and Lindley time; safe trip home for Steve; watching Miss America

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