AGT: Congratulations OLATE DOGS!

Audition:



Quarterfinal:



Semifinal:



Final:



AND THEY WIN!

AGT: 9/12 The FINALS

Here we go.  What we have been building to for for four months.  The finals.  The best of the best, and one douche.  Oh, and NO SINGERS!

Let’s get right to it.

First up, David Garibaldi and his CYMK’s.  The act started off with a Who song, and the guys danced around and did their thing with the paint splashes and whatnot.  It ended with an upside down Einstein, and sideways C M Y K.  They of course were flipped to the correct way, and pronounced to be amazeballs by the judges.  It was a little slow to me, and it felt a bit recycled, similar to what they did in their audition, maybe?

Next was Tom Cotter, who went with the die of randomness, as opposed to Howie chosing for him, and it comes up with Poor Examples.  Tom goes on a riff about the weirdness of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and it was freaking hilarious.  Tom capped it all off with the number two written across his bare chest, and even that was funny.  Tom was great.

After that came The Untouchables.  Unfortunately for them, they didn’t live up to their name this week.   The danced quickly to Proud Mary, and their technique was not nearly as good as it normally is.  They had a random sheet that only seemed to cover them up for no real reason, and then they were done.  For a final performance, it was really lackluster, and not at all what they needed to even think about winning.

Douchy Mc Doucherson, aka Joe Castillo, came next, and managed to squelch most of his douche tendencies for the evening, but you could see it oozing out of his every pore, from his slight nod and half salute, to his brown-nosing the judges.  Again, even if I didn’t hate him, his performance tonight was not strong.  He made the judges faces after starting with a caricature of Nick.  It was super lame, and not something that would get him votes anyway, so good riddance, I say.

And then: amazing.  William Close and the Earth Harp collective come out, and they won the whole thing.  He started off with a bit of Canon in D, and was joined by violins, his crazy drums, a girl with chimes on a curved bar, and a singer who sang an alternate tune version of America the Beautiful.  And then, the chime girl flew up to the rafters on aerial silks!  That, folks, is how you win a million dollars, and preview a show that is going to make that group more money than they even know what to do with.  That act was amazing.  It hit all the right beats, brownnosed subtly to the American public, and was incredibly professional and well done.  If the earth harp doesn’t win, I’ll eat my (non-existent) hat.

Finally, Olate Dogs came out.  They had a lot of new tricks, a few old ones, and more stage presence than you can shake a stick at.  Britain, this is a dog act that should win the show.  And they would too, if it weren’t for that meddling earth harp.  They even ended the show on a high note, with Sharon threatening to dognap the dog that ended up in her lap.  It’s almost too bad, this act could have won it easily in a previous season, but the Earth Harp is so far and above the rest of the competition, it’s almost unfair.

Anyway, to sum up:  Fantastic show, nearly all the acts deserved to be on the stage for the final, and yay for a non-singer winner!

Here’s my ranking for the night, with #1 being my winner:

1) William Close and the Earth Harp Collective

2)Olate Dogs

3)Tom Cotter

4)David Garibaldi

5)The Untouchables

6)Joe Castillo

Tune in tomorrow to see how I did!

AGT: Semifinals 2 Results

And we’re back with the results!

We jumped right into the same format as last week, with only three going through, with the third being judges choice.  That means we’re finding out top four again, and then cutting from there.

First out, we had Shanice and Maurice, All That,  and Lightwire Theater.  So, this was a pretty obvious choice.  Sharon tried to make it seem like there might be a contest, but then she completely forgot Maurice’s name, so there was no way.  Lightwire Theater was the obvious, and correct choice to move on to the top four.

We then had David Garibaldi, Jacob Williams, and Sebastian.  Another group of three, another obvious choice.  Howie came right out and said poor Jacob blew it, and he was so sad standing there, it was really uncomfortable.  Sebastian had this hopeful look on his face, but there was no way.  He didn’t even make it out of his first quarterfinal, how exactly does he think he’s going to go on to the finals?  Of course, David Garibaldi moves on, and so do we.

The third group consisted of Clint Carvalho, Olate Dogs, and All Wheel Sports.  Again, this was completely without surprise, as Olate Dogs sailed through to the top four.

Finally, we had Tim Hockenberry, The Untouchables,  and the Magic of Puck. This was the first suspenseful group of the night, but America gave me surprise:  the singers are ALL gone!  After five of six seasons being won by a singer, there will be no singing in the final, woohoo!  (Terry Fator, the ventriloquist who won season two, is the only non-singer to have done so.)  Anyway, The Untouchables are through, and crying girl that made it possible now has some attitude.

Ok, so we have our top four, so now it was wittled down to the two moving on, and the two voted on by the judges.  The Untouchables were the first group called through, in a complete surprise to me.  I thought for sure they would be one of the bottom two, but tears must be even more powerful than I originally thought.

Next on to the finals were Olate Dogs, in a completely unsurprising result.  If anyone was surprised at that, they really havn’t been paying attention.

So it came down to Lightwire Theater  and David Garibaldi.  They made their pleas to the judges, and Joe Castillo should take note:  that is how you beg for votes without being a total tool.  “We did our best, and will bring the wow factor to the final” paraphrased a classy David Garibaldi.  The guys agreed with me, and sent him through, and Lightwire Theater was sad and dejected, though I was really distracted by the blond Mike Myers.  That was strange.

Anyway, I did much better on my guesses this week, I was 2/3 on both counts, and so I ended up at 50% for the semis.

Next week is the finals, and I think I’m going to rank them, so we’ll see how I do on that.

AGT: Semifinals Part 2

And we’re back with the second half of our semifinals, and again, only three groups will go through, though apparently, on Thursday instead of Wednesday, so whatever.

Anyway, we get right to it tonight, and the first act to come out is…

All That.  Yay for getting the death slot!  I have made no secret of my loathing of this act, now only second to the sand man.  They shouldn’t be here due to their making top three in season one. Period.  It was funny, though, they had the gall to say “and apparently, America likes us!”  Did they forget about the fact that Sharon saved their sorry butts twice?  America clearly hates them almost as much as I do.  But anyway, lets get on to the act:  it sucked.  And this isn’t even due to my bias(okay, maybe a bit due to my bias, but I was proven right by the end of the show).  Their trick of fire on the shoes was lame, only bested
in lameness by clogging in water, which was weird.  Their act is BS, and they can leave my screen yesterday, thank you.

Sebastian and the rest of his Spanish name came next, and he was boring and off again.  You would think after seven seasons of this show, America would understand the concept of cute=/=talented, but kid after kid making it to the semis blows that out of the water.  He tried to make it interesting with dancers, but all it really did was make it painfully obvious the narrowness of his ‘talent.’

We had the first of the YouTube winners next, Puck. He did a bigger trick this time, but it was still rather pedestrian compared to other magic tricks that have come before.  I did laugh as he said, ‘don’t take your eyes off the handkerchief, and promptly covered it with a sheet.

Clint Carvalho, the second YouTube act, came back with his supposedly amazing birds.  Apparently, getting a bird to hop is amazing, because that’s what we got for the first quarter of his act.  Also, his bird can put mail in the mailbox…assuming you’ve cut a hole in the top of the mailbox.  OHOHOH!  The bird can also fly, and through hoops, to boot!  I really don’t know what America was expecting with an act that previously consisted of a bird…flying.  I think I said this before, but jumping off a building when you have FREAKING WINGS naturally is not a stunt, or a trick…it’s nothing, and this act was not good.

My favorite, Jacob Williams was next, and I had such high hopes.  Unfortunately, they were dashed when his fake nervousness and stilted delivery made way for actual nervousness and poor delivery.  It really didn’t help that his material was not as strong as it had been in the past.  He spent way too long on set up, and not enough on actual jokes.  Also: ‘I don’t have a girlfriend’ isn’t really a joke, or a punchline, and yet, the entire set consisted of jokes that ended in that.  Too bad for him.

Shanice and Maurice Hayes came out, sang their cute little song, and vanished just as quickly.  During their performance, they were drowned out by the backing chorus, and were difficult to understand.  And another singing group bites the dust, I am not sad.

After that, we had All Wheel Sports.  In a weaker season, they would have made it through no problem, but there are such strong acts still upcoming that I don’t think they really have a chance.  The biggest issue, though, wasn’t with the competition, but their opening.  They had three people bouncing around on a wall, and while it would have been neat for a few seconds, it went on for a full twenty, and they only have ninety seconds to do their thing.  When their thing is WHEELED SPORTS, they really should use that massive bike…trick thing to do some tricks and what not.  They also had a fall, but it wasn’t really too detrimental to their act as a whole.

And then, Tim Hockenberry. He may be a dark horse, swooping in behind all the variety acts to win the whole thing.  His voice is really good, and he is a polished performer, for sure.  He sang Imagine, and did an excellent job.  I am really hoping he doesn’t go through, but America seems to love them some singers, so he may do it.

The Untouchables were next, and again, if this were a weaker season, they would make it to the finals with votes to spare.  They had a great act, doing a fantastic tango, and even incorporating a quick change, but I really don’t think it will be enough.  The only thing that may save them is the adorable crying girl.  If enough people enjoy/feel sorry for her, they could move on.

And then, what everyone had been waiting for: Olate Dogs.  They had tons of tricks again, including a couple we hadn’t seen.  Three of the dogs went across the stage on a scooter, the backflipper was back, and they had a dog using a jumprope.  But the best was the over under trick the tow gus and one dog participated in.  They somersaulted over and under one another in quick succession, and it looked awesome, though just a hair under their normal polish.  Other than that, the act was very quick moving, and polished, they did a really fantastic job.

Lightwire Theater held the penultimate spot, and again the act just didn’t do much for me personally.  I can definitely see the incredible talent and effort that goes into the act, but I just can’t see myself watching it for more than the ninety seconds we get on this show.  They should and will go through, but I just don’t see it.  Their act this time was a couple of dinosaurs that had a lightsaber fight with a tiger.  There was a couple of slo-mo movements that were neat, but the nature of the lights and the costumes made the people in blacksuits very obvious, and very distracting.

Our final act of the evening was David Garibaldi and his CMYK’s.  Does anyone know what the ‘K’ stands for?  I get Cyan Magenta Yellow, but I am completely mystified by the K.  Anyway, they did their thing with the painting and the dancing and the crazy music, which all added together to make a crazy show.  Their canvases were a neon green, and only black and cyan were used on the four rectangular sheets.  They kept on moving them around, and first it looked like a river of some sort, but by the time they finished by hanging them in a row, the Statue of Liberty appeared.  It was pretty great, but if there is going to be a dark horse act getting through, it will be on this act.  It just seemed smaller than in previous episodes, I think because they only used the two colors.

So, on to expected results.  My shoulds and wills are the same this week, so I’ll be quick.

Shoulds/wills

Olate Dogs

Lightwire Theater

David Garibaldi

We’ll find out on Thursday if my predictions are correct! 

AGT: 8/29 Semi Final Results

Oh, my goodness.  I am seething right now, and it’s not even because I failed miserably at both the shoulds and the wills.  I’ll get to the reason why in just a bit.

First off, we have a bit of a procedure change for these semi-final rounds:  the top four acts will be spotlighted, but only three will actually go on.  The top two vote getters, and then a judges pick.

Let’s get right down to it.

First off, we had Turf, Joe Castillo, and The Scott Brothers. It was fairly obvious who was going through in this group.  Turf and the Scott Brothers did not do what they needed to, and Joe Castillo and his stupid knowing grin can suck it.

Kitter says: Don't be a douche!

Ok then.

Next, we had Andrew DeLeon, William Close, and Academy of Villains. Again, the choice was obvious, if William Close didn’t make it through, there would have been riots on the streets, booing in the audience, and a shoe or four through my TV.  But luckily, we didn’t have to resort to that, and William Close is in the top four.

Next, we had a grouping that was actually tricky to decide.  Donovan and Rebecca, Todd Oliver, and Edon were next.  Edon had the sad face of ‘I know I already lost, please don’t drag this out any further,’ but the other two were much more anxious.  I was pulling for Todd Oliver, and he pulled through!  I was so glad he was in the top four, but I really worried about his chances with the other groups.

Lastly, we had Dittelman, Bria Kelly, and Tom Cotter.  Again, this was a two way race, and Bria Kelly in her ugly dress knew it.  I was pulling for Dittelman, just because I enjoy the illusions more than the rapid fire double meanings.  But Tom Cotter beat my man out, and we have our top four.

All four acts then made their way to the stage, and Nick did his usual drama wait, in order to tell us that William Close was in the top two.  They didn’t mention if he was in first or not, but I’m assuming he was.  We then went on to the remaining guys, and *dramatic pause* Tom Cotter was also in the final!  That left Todd Oliver and Joe Castillo. 

Nick asked the guys why they should move on:

Todd: “People seem to like us, and we have nowhere to go but up!”

Joe: “I’m a major douche face, and everyone should bask in the glow of my amazing uniqueness that totally wasn’t stolen from a woman in Ukraine or anything!  Also: why would you see a [funny]ventriloquist over someone that plays in dirt creates beautiful[lly pretentious] pieces of art, amirite?”

Yes, my enjoyment of his act HAS been diminished by his entitled, pretentious douchyness, why do you ask?

The judges vote, and Howard sets the voice of reason:  “Todd’s act can grow, and go places we haven’t seen, Joe’s act has probably hit a plateau.”

I was then in for the biggest shock of my life, as Sharon didn’t vote for the animal act!  WHAAT???

It was down to Howie, and both judges tried to influence him, and somehow, Sharon won out, and Howie put through doucheface, probably to spite me.

Anyway, my should and wills are both sitting at 1/3, so go me!

Next week, a much weaker field, and three singers.  I’m hoping for the shut out again, so we can have a singer free finale. 

Who’s with me?!