Welcome back to Hit Me Baby 1 More Time, the show that brings back artists that sing songs that nowadays only get played on Jack. We’re coming to you from an unnamed theatre, possibly the one where they filmed the head-to-heads for Last Comic Standing. Assuming they left the “high tech” voting devices there, anyways. Your host is Vernon Kay, whose teeth may end up blinding half the audience by the end of this.
Anyways, before I start, I’d like to apologize for the lateness. Genius that I am, I programmed my VCR last Thursday, and it recorded just fine – except that it recorded CTS (channel 9) instead of NBC (channel 10). Simply brilliant. But luckily, we were flipping channels on Tuesday and what shows up but the first two eps of Hit Me Baby. So, lucky you – you still get a recap of this show.
Let’s get to it!
The Knack
Signature Hit: My Sharona
Random Notes: I tend to associate this song with “Reality Bites”. Which was kind of a shitty movie. But beyond that, “My Sharona” is still one of the biggest selling singles of the rock era. And I even remember Hong Kong singer Alan Tam covering it (well kinda – it was in Cantonese).
The first thing I notice is that Eric Idle looks pretty good. Then I realize that it’s not Eric Idle, and the lead singer just resembles him a bit. Anyways, the song sounds great.
Vernon’s softball question is what happened to Sharona. The lead singer says that she’s a real estate agent and a mother of two. So we’ll probably see her on The Apprentice at some point. The Knack will be singing Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” later.
Haddaway
Signature Hit: What Is Love?
Random Notes: Song is best known for the “Roxbury” skits from SNL, which in turn is known for giving Richard Grieco work in the “A Night At The Roxbury” movie. He’s apparently still popular in Europe. But so is David Hasselhoff, so go figure.
Nice corporate synergy, including a bit of SNL into his intro. I think that was from the Martin Short/No Doubt ep. Anyways, the song is pretty decent, and I have to restrain myself from jerking my head to the left.
Vernon notes that it was a “cheeky” performance – I think he had a good view of the dancers from his POV. He asks about the SNL spoof’s impact on the song – Haddaway says it was huge. Haddaway will be singing Britney Spears’ “Toxic” later.
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I’ve notice that Vernon’s arms are unusually long. Long arms, glowing teeth… this guy’s starting to scare me.
Tommy Tutone
Signature Hit: 867-5309/Jenny
Random Notes: Probably the most desired number in the phone book. And also the least – I’m pretty sure you’d get a lot of crank calls. Hit Me Baby’s capsule review shows about half the video in order to get enough filler. That pretty much says it all about these guys, I think.
The performance, as has been par for this ep, is pretty good. Not surprising, considering that it’s their only hit, ever.
Tommy Tutone’s cover song will be Blink 182’s “All The Small Things” (called “Small Things” by Tommy).
The Motels
Signature Hit: Only The Lonely
Others: Suddenly Last Summer
Random Notes: Were recently reunited on VH1’s “Bands Reunited”. And, um, don’t stay at a Motel 6 unless they have interior halls – they’re newer and better maintained.
This version of The Motels seems to consist of Martha Davis and a stage band, as she’s the only one that comes up the platform. Regardless, it sounds great.
Vernon asks Martha about male groupies. She says she’s got some in the back. She’ll be covering Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why”. Oookay…
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Vanilla Ice.
Signature Hit: Ice Ice Baby
Others: Play That Funky Music
Random Notes: Is to rap music what Avril Lavigne is to punk. That is, nothing at all. Ice was on the second season of “The Surreal Life”, where all he apparently wanted was some Jimmy Dean sausages. Anyways, despite all the processed crap, the guy can rap pretty well.
Ice dresses like Fred Durst now, but still raps incredibly well. And his dancer is pretty damn good too. He really gets the crowd into things.
Vernon asks Ice what happened to the parachute pants – Ice says he burnt them. Heh. Ice lets us know that he’s covering “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child. Um, what?
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The lead singer of The Knack is much more relaxed now. He’s always thinking of writing new songs. “The Knack – you can’t kill it with a stick”.
“Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” – This isn’t too bad, except for the chorus. The chorus just sounds painful when they reach for the high notes. 6.5/10
Haddaway’s into sports now, and apparently lots of people thought he was white.
“Toxic” – Well, that just seemed wrong, with Haddaway crawling around the stage like that. The dance beat works for him, the singing, not so much. 5/10
Tommy Tutone is now an IT professional. He writes code for a financial company. It’s one of those fun jobs where you’re on call 24/7. Poor bastard.
“All The Small Things” – Not good at all. For some reason, it just seemed to be missing a little je ne sais quoi. Didn’t really suit Tommy’s voice either. 4/10
Ad Break – FF trailer. Chilkis makes for a great Thing – right down to the “It’s Clobberin’ Time” line.
Martha Davis is now in some sort of Broadway on Tour thingie.
“Don’t Know Why” – Well, the words are the same, but the music is entirely different – it’s been remade into a rock song. A good effort, really not what I expected. Overall, not too bad, but not great either. 6/10
Vanilla Ice is enjoying life in Dallas, messing around and recording songs.
“Survivor” – On one hand, it didn’t sound too bad – it was Limp Biskit-esque. Hmm, maybe that IS a bad thing. Also, this bears no resemblance to the Destiny’s Child song except for maybe the title, but then again, Arrested Development did something similar with “Heaven” last week. 6/10
It’s time for the audience to vote. We’ll find out who wins after the
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We’re back, and the winner by a landslide is… Vanilla Ice!! Not surprising, really. $20,000 goes to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Next week: Wang Chung!! Sophie B. Hawkins!! Cameo!! Howard Jones!! Irene Cara!! But that’s it for me. Come back for the (allegedly) final episode!
