Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT One Flea Spare
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 03.29.2005
A-Fed's wearing this silly green shirt with weirdly-grouped buttons that would probably look great -- it fits him really, really well -- but the color is just remarkably hideous. His hair is…we've got to do something about that, people. The weight lines are growing out weirdly on the sides and it looks very Blind Supercuts. ("They said she'd never get her cosmetician's license back after being blinded in a routine walk-in, but she's out to prove them wrong!") Why would they want him to look bad? It's all he's got going for him! Nobody but me likes his voice, and tonight even I can't enjoy it. It's "Something About The Way You Look Tonight," okay, which is smurfy anyway, but the arrangement is sort of, like, rollicking, while still totally boring, so you can't even groove to it as a generic Elton song, and he's belting his tiny ass off, and the general effect is that of being yelled at by my tiny blond dad for dressing slutty on my way out the door to Let's Bolt. It's startling and not fun. And I'm kind of pissed because I'm too classy to howl at the fact that one of the repeated lines in the song is about how something about the way you look tonight "takes my breath away."
The belting is harder to take, also, without the glasses. Elton John carries this off because he's kind of internal as a performer, really -- I think he's always hid behind the props and wigs and glasses and shoes so we wouldn't see him -- so when this belting and yelling comes out of him, it's just like he's on a fire escape somewhere with his feelings all over the place, instead of this…shouting at me. Anthony also looks really old, without the glasses, which is nice in some ways because it's closer to the real, which is that he's a totally popular hottie, but also confirms my early belief that those would be coming off right around this round to increase his support. It's just fine, you guys: the song, the performance. He's…whatever, he's Anthony. I'm not complaining. He's a nice boy and about five minutes from smokin' hot and a sweet little pumpkin with the power to level buildings using only his voice. The song is just…there, sitting in your face and staring up at you like, "What are you going to do with me?" Here are some of the other excellent and sometimes disturbing Runners-Up for the A-Fed Thred:
Kalai: "Brought To You Through The Power Of MAGIC!" and "Alive! Singing! In English! Anthony! Fedorov!"