Here we have the "Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards 2011" and the title is pretty telling what to see and expect here. However, one thing that it does not say is that this was already the 24th edition, so it all started back in the 1980s. I have seen some of those, at least the newer ones. As for this one here, it will have its 10th anniversary next year already, been a while. Now for the basics: The director is Beth McCarthy-Miller, pretty prolific in the industry and she has also scored many Emmy nominations and when she worked on this project here, she was mostly successful with "30 Rock". This one we got here runs for slightly over 70 minutes only, so this clearly takes kids' attention spans into account, but also given the quality (or lack thereof), this minuscule running time was a good choice, even if the full ceremony on television included commercial breaks and probably ran for 1.5 hours in total. Now as for the specific show: The host is Jack Black and I do not really like him, at least not when he goes fully over the top (the way he has to here) in his comedic approach. I actually think he is not a bad actor when there is some dramatic tension to his material, but here I found him fully annoying. The worst moment as probably when he was making these fart noises with his arm in the presence of a symphonic orchestra. But yeah, almost everything he did here was really unfunny, so I was glad when he was out of the show for 10 minutes or so. Of course, he expectedly also gets the slime shower at the end. But yeah, I cared so little for his hosting here that there was also no schadenfreude involved from my side. I just would have loved for them to go with somebody else. Now as for the show itself, I thought it was alright at the start and they even had some pretty big names there like Johnny Depp and Eddie Murphy and it's difficult to really give a very low rating in the face of stars like those, even if I do not like the idea that some of the really big names get to enter the stage from behind and not from the audience like everybody else, but maybe that is just me wondering about stuff like that. Another example would be Timberlake. And he is one aspect where the struggles start really. I mean it is alright what he did with that hospital, but still I found his inclusion with the "good human award" and also the video that played before his acceptance speech highly cringeworthy and over the top. But what followed afterwards was even worse, namely said acceptance speech. Be it him telling the audience to stand up, what he said about the kids' sisters (or the noise he made) and finally what he said about parents and the heart was genuinely unbearable. So full of himself. I just hope he never gets any kind of lifetime achievement award anywhere else, so we don't have to sit through such an ordeal again.
Now, as for the competitive winners: A show that gives a Best Picture award to a film that is headlined by Will Smith's son and also nominates him for his acting is one to be very careful with. Pretty telling that Jackie Chan clearly didn't care at all. Selena Gomez and Miranda Cosgrove (okay, her show, but she is particularly bad) are nothing I can approve of whatsoever. There is just no valid explanation for that. Entirely undeserving. I don't oppose Miley's win though. She is alright. Still an interesting difference between Depp winning on the guys' side and Miley from the girls. And her nomination for television actress it was I think was cool too, the Spielberg quote was actually really hilarious. I still remember watching that from Hannah Montana. Apart from that, the show had a lot of slime to offer like every year and some of it was alright and entertaining. Heidi Klum got the full load. They also came up with all kinds of different ways how the winners were eventually announced, some of it worked fine, others not that well, like the pantomime at the very end. Come on, you are a friggin' pantomime. You have to do one thing: Keep quiet! Putting your hands to your mouth after announcing the winner does not make things any better. Okay, what else can I say? Oh yeah, the spectacular outdoor action. Well, that was okay. Kinda fun how the big mmonster truck crashed into the huge pool of slime. Sure you can argue if the effort justifies the outcome, especially how briefly it was shown, but I still think it was among the better moments of the show and I hope the kids liked it. As for the wrestler there, I couldn't care less. Still he was not as bad as Black. I guess most kids who watched this show did not even have a clue what wrestling was. Nonetheless, they could have put a little more effort in to make this seem not as rushed as it was and also, more importantly, try to hide a bit that it was all pre-recorded. The really quick replay made it peinfully obvious. Just show the jump and hitting the slime from different positions and angles. I still wonder if this is actually included in the Guinness Book of World Records. Okay, I think I am getting closer to the end now. I also wanna say that really young audiences who watch this show should not exposed to the Kardashians really and their awards announcement as also pretty embarrassing the way they presented it. As for the music, BEP early on were quite nice, Will Smith's daughter I see no talent in and I am really sure that neither her nor her brother would only be mildly known without their influential father. Ah yeah, finally the advertizing I am not too fond of. It already starts with Nickelodeon being mentioned in the title here and there was more promotion like Duhamel (Transformers) was among the worst and I see no talent in him either. And of course Jack Black with the mani inclusions of the Panda, another pre-recorded sequence there how the panda gets slimed. Well, it wasn't bad, but could have been considerably funnier too. Overall, it was only early on a question for me if this was just weak or really bad. The second half made it very obvious that ten outcome here is easily on failure territory. Highly not recommended. Not for you and also this is not a program you'd want your children to watch and grow up with if you are a caring parent. And again, a problem with many awards shows is that many awards are just left out of the broadcast entirely. For example Shaq could have defiinitely been a nice inclusion. But there they messed up too. Just like pretty much everywhere else. Fat thumbs-down! And Cuoco and Vergara are also starting to get really annoying, even if I like their shows.
Now, as for the competitive winners: A show that gives a Best Picture award to a film that is headlined by Will Smith's son and also nominates him for his acting is one to be very careful with. Pretty telling that Jackie Chan clearly didn't care at all. Selena Gomez and Miranda Cosgrove (okay, her show, but she is particularly bad) are nothing I can approve of whatsoever. There is just no valid explanation for that. Entirely undeserving. I don't oppose Miley's win though. She is alright. Still an interesting difference between Depp winning on the guys' side and Miley from the girls. And her nomination for television actress it was I think was cool too, the Spielberg quote was actually really hilarious. I still remember watching that from Hannah Montana. Apart from that, the show had a lot of slime to offer like every year and some of it was alright and entertaining. Heidi Klum got the full load. They also came up with all kinds of different ways how the winners were eventually announced, some of it worked fine, others not that well, like the pantomime at the very end. Come on, you are a friggin' pantomime. You have to do one thing: Keep quiet! Putting your hands to your mouth after announcing the winner does not make things any better. Okay, what else can I say? Oh yeah, the spectacular outdoor action. Well, that was okay. Kinda fun how the big mmonster truck crashed into the huge pool of slime. Sure you can argue if the effort justifies the outcome, especially how briefly it was shown, but I still think it was among the better moments of the show and I hope the kids liked it. As for the wrestler there, I couldn't care less. Still he was not as bad as Black. I guess most kids who watched this show did not even have a clue what wrestling was. Nonetheless, they could have put a little more effort in to make this seem not as rushed as it was and also, more importantly, try to hide a bit that it was all pre-recorded. The really quick replay made it peinfully obvious. Just show the jump and hitting the slime from different positions and angles. I still wonder if this is actually included in the Guinness Book of World Records. Okay, I think I am getting closer to the end now. I also wanna say that really young audiences who watch this show should not exposed to the Kardashians really and their awards announcement as also pretty embarrassing the way they presented it. As for the music, BEP early on were quite nice, Will Smith's daughter I see no talent in and I am really sure that neither her nor her brother would only be mildly known without their influential father. Ah yeah, finally the advertizing I am not too fond of. It already starts with Nickelodeon being mentioned in the title here and there was more promotion like Duhamel (Transformers) was among the worst and I see no talent in him either. And of course Jack Black with the mani inclusions of the Panda, another pre-recorded sequence there how the panda gets slimed. Well, it wasn't bad, but could have been considerably funnier too. Overall, it was only early on a question for me if this was just weak or really bad. The second half made it very obvious that ten outcome here is easily on failure territory. Highly not recommended. Not for you and also this is not a program you'd want your children to watch and grow up with if you are a caring parent. And again, a problem with many awards shows is that many awards are just left out of the broadcast entirely. For example Shaq could have defiinitely been a nice inclusion. But there they messed up too. Just like pretty much everywhere else. Fat thumbs-down! And Cuoco and Vergara are also starting to get really annoying, even if I like their shows.
