AMERICA'S GOT TALENT RETURNS TONIGHT

The eighth season of America's Got Talent (AGT) begins tonight with a two-hour program on NBC.  Anyone remember that the winners last year were the Olate Dogs?  Yes, a bunch of dogs jumping around.  Unlike American Idol, any kind of act of any age can qualify.  Previous #1's were all singers, with the first being Bianca Ryan when she was only eleven, and the judges were David Hasselhoff, Piers Morgan and Brandy Norwood, with Regis Philbin as host.  Cowell, himself, then, because of his American Idol involvement, could not serve as a judge for AGT, so he created yet another survivor reality series, The X Factor in 2011.

AGT is the brainchild of Simon Cowell, who started Britain's Got Talent, but, interestingly enough, while AGT appeared in 2006, BGT did not show until 2007.  Their first year for BGT saw judges Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden.  The 2012 series was won be Ashleigh and Pudsey, a girl and, yes, her dancing dog.  She won 500,000 pounds ($765,000), but the award has been dropped to 250,000 pounds this year.

The highlight program of any of these shows was, no doubt, the BGT Year 3 (2009) first audition of then 47 year-old Susan Boyle (left) from a village in Scotland.  You just got to click on it to watch the reactions of the judges.  This will be the best 5 minutes and 50 seconds of your day today.  You might even shed a tear or two.  Boyle only came in as runner-up, but her first album that year debuted as the #1 best-seller in charts around the world.    Here she is to the right above at the age of 52.  The winner in 2009 was Diversity, a dance troupe that essentially went nowhere, but still does tours, and can be seen later this year in Limitless.

Similarly, my favorite contestant, then 10-year old Jackie Evancho (right) in Year 5 (2010), only came in as  #2.  However, she that year became the best-selling debut artist of the year and the youngest to both do this and attain platinum status.  Jackie's first live audition on AGT.  She qualified via You Tube.  To the left is Jackie at twelve going on thirteen in January this year.  Winner in 2010 was Michael Grimm, a Mississippi Southern Soul Singer.  He never really hit it big.

The AGT award is $1 million over a 40 year annuity, plus a headline act in Vegas.  The judges this year will be Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Howard Stern and Mel B, the Scary Spice:

Nick Cannon continues as host.  Auditions are eventually followed by the live shows, this year from the Radio City Music Hall in New York City beginning on July 23.

Incidentally, there are something like 52 countries now doing "Got Talent" TV shows or the equivalent:

Among the promising performers on night one were Anna Christine (another 10 year old superstar?) singing "House of the Rising Sun" and "B Double O T Y."  Why BOOTY?  Tone the Chiefrocca wants only to be a one hit wonder with this tune, which he wrote.  He and his brother will only perform this song if they keep going up the ladder.  How novel.  They want BOOTY to go viral like the Gangnam Style (which, by the way, has been viewed more than 1.6 BILLION times on You Tube--at this writing, BOOTY shows 265 pings) Guy.  Both Anna and Tone gained four votes, so on to Las Vegas.

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