You Knew It Was Coming!

I have a few guilty pleasures... A decadent chocolate dessert, a full body massage, an afternoon nap. Last night, I indulged in another one. I watched the Miss America pageant.

Now, this year, Miss America had a 4 episode build up because they are trying to change the image of Miss America. They want her to be more modern, less robotic. More fresh, less made up. More real, less artificial. And, of course, I watched every episode. I didn't want to miss out on all of the fun! So, I tuned in last night to see what all the hubbub was about. All I have to say is, I took notes, people!! It was delicious!

First of all, they had the pageant at the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Vegas. That's where Andy and I stayed when we were there in September. It is very "cool", very Hollywood..very much like us. ;) The first change you notice in the souped up pageant is that the girls came on stage first in jeans and (gasp!) tank tops! There were no clever state costumes. No Statues of Liberty, no Mt. Rushmores. The first big cut came immediately and then they invited the top 16 parents to sit on the stage and watch the show. It was so intimate despite the neon background and DJ spinnin' some tunes.

Next up...the bathing suit competition...every girls worst nightmare. On the episodes before the big show, they taught the girls how to walk like supermodels, really. They no longer want them to do that pageant-robot walk. So, here come the beauties. They were struttin' their stuff in their barely there bikini's and for a minute I thought I was watching the Miss Coppertone pageant. Right after that, another round of girls got eliminated. How bad would that be? Show all of your goods on TV and then get eliminated. The poor girls will probably never recover. The worst part of the whole thing was once they got eliminated, the host, Mark Steines, told them to go sit down and eat some carbohydrates. It's just too good.

Brace yourselves for the talent competition. Oh Lordy. Basically you have to be able to sing (kind of) or do pointe ballet to be Miss America. The absolute worst talent was Miss Michigan who butchered my "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." She had arm moves and everything. Don't worry too much about her though. She won the whole gig.

For the interview portion of the show, they asked "strangers" off the street to ask Miss America something they've always wanted to know. This was so great. The people totally read questions they were given. Yeah, I'm sure a 50 year old man wants to know how Miss America will be a better role model that Lindsay Lohan. Do 50 year old men know anything about Lindsay? Do they care? You are not fooling me, Miss America creators!!!

A couple other things that need mentioning are the DJ that was spinnin' tracks during the show, the pop up comments during the talent portion ala Blind Date, the co-host mentioning he had a "wedgie", the ladies finishing their costume changes on stage, and the host telling the eliminated girls to go eat a donut. I wish I could make this stuff up but, of course even I'm not that good.

Now, you know I kid. If Miss America wants to sass it up a bit and bring back some viewer ship, I'm all for it. I know it used to be a big deal and families would watch and root for their home state. I think that's a lovely idea but, isn't part of the fun looking at the dresses and big earrings, seeing all the make-up and hair do's, and watching the ladies do the pageant wave? Call me old fashioned. Maybe it's just me.