'AMERICAN IDOL' & 'THE VOICE'.....A PLAGUE ON BOTH THEIR HOUSES......

American Idol, The Voice   You don't dive any lower to the bottom of the Pop Culture barrel than TV singing competitions.......

              Networks adore these shows for being so much cheaper to produce than dramas and comedies........

              And across America, they can draw upon an inexhaustible supply of young people born with vocal cords made of vibrating stainless steel.......a nation full of kids who blast songs out of their mouths like finely tuned air raid sirens......

               We wish them well........and we especially feel sorry for the few of them who actually win whatever constitutes a grand prize on one of these monumentally phony programs (reminds us of 1950's starlets awarded  5-movie studio contracts).......it only delays their eventual slide back into obscurity........

               For entertainment value, these shows offer a slew of celebrities an opportunity take their massive egos out for a public stroll while pretending to "mentor" the auditioning hopefuls....

                We wouldn't mind these preening "mentor" performances if all the celebs involved promised to include a scene of them walking into the ocean, like James Mason in "A Star Is Born.".......since all these 'mentoring' scenes come off as staged and fictitious as any moment in the Judy Garland movie.....

                As we post this, NBC is busy bludgeoning the country with umpteen hours of "The Voice", beating it into the ground, much in the same way ABC did with "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire"....

                Meanwhile ABC exhumed the corpse of "American Idol" complete with the most odious, nausea-inducing human on television, Ryan Seacrest......

                The walking dead "Idol" may have already reached its supremely loathsome moment.....in an episode where Katy Perry, in an act of staggering Trumpian cruelty, pranked an auditioning girl group by telling its members that one of them would have to sacrifice herself and drop out.  Perry waited to reveal her little joke until the kid who volunteered to leave was emotionally crushed enough for the cameras......

                  We can only hope the viewers of this show all simultaneously put their hands together and solemnly prayed for karma to catch up to Katy Perry......quickly.

                   As for the Fox Network "The Four" (which it no doubt threatens to revive)......too hateful, sickening and wretched to even describe......to hell with it.

                 In fact, to hell with all TV talent competitions, and all their celebrity "judges" and hosts....

                 Consider yourselves judged.