America’s still got talent

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on August 3rd, 2010

We didn’t watch America’s Got Talent last week. We’re boycotting the show after they put through the old lady who whistles through her hands. (Her and the psycho opera singer are this season’s “Boy Shakira.”)

So we missed what one of our readers described in an email as “Chipps Cooney’s meltdown.” (Watch the full episode on Hulu.com here, or jump to the 51:00 mark, endure one more commercial and you can see Cooney’s segment.)

In the appearance, Cooney does one “illusion,” then does a Chippendale dancer routine, after confessing to having “run out of illusions.” The bit falls flat, Cooney gets three red X’s and his run on AGT ends ignominiously.

The strangest aspect of the entire run might be the inability (or refusal?) on the part of judge Piers Morgan to “get” Cooney’s act. He refers to him as an “imbecile” and an “idiot.” We’re not sure why Morgan doesn’t get the act. It’s quite clear what Cooney’s doing. And we’re doubly perplexed as to why Morgan stubbornly clings to the notion that Cooney is merely a “bad magician,” even after having it explained to him… most forcefully by fellow judge Howie Mandel.

It’s okay– perfectly okay– if Morgan doesn’t think the act is funny. But this idea that he doesn’t understand the act is mystifying.

But what we witnessed on Hulu.com was not a meltdown, but a simple case of a performer making a bad choice when it came to material. We’ve seen Cooney do the Chippendale thing. It’s part of his act. We’re not sure why he justified it by saying that he’d run out of material. (That might be the justification in his club act, but, on national television, when you’ve done a number of appearances, perhaps a better conceit could have been worked up.)

He also didn’t take the judging very well. When attempting to advance on a reality show, one must be prepared for that nearly inevitable point where one is ejected… and faces “criticism” from the judges. Taking it with grace and/or humor might mean the difference between a lasting and favorable public impression or …an unfavorable impression.

Philly comic Doogie Horner is still alive and will appear on tonight’s episode. (Amazing, considering just how autuomatically and irrationally hostile AGT crowds are to comedians.)

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