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'Celebracadabra' keeps former VIPs from vanishing act
By Rich Heldenfels
Published on Tuesday, Apr 22, 2008
Before we talk specifically about the very peculiar Celebracadabra, which premieres Sunday, it's worth remembering how very, very peculiar is the grasping for contemporary fame.
Much has been made over the years about people who are famous for being famous. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
If you're content to be famous without actually doing anything, then we don't have to listen to dreadful CDs some fast-buck artist has persuaded you to release. We don't end up sitting through your movies after they've gone direct to video or ended up in a late-night loop on a premium-cable channel. You're on a magazine cover and a Web site, on your way to and from a club or rehab or jail. That's good for you, and fine with me.
Unfortunately, there's this whole other class of celebrity that insists not only on being actors or singers or comedians but showing off nonperforming skills and issues. Usually, this is a result of that acting or singing career not going all that well on its own. But whatever the reason, it inspires people to appear on Celebrity Fit Club or Celebrity Apprentice or Secret Talents of the Stars (which proved a viewing secret, canceled after a single telecast) or Celebracadabra.
Premiering on VH1 at noon and 9 p.m. Sunday (after a late-night preview last week), the reality series trains semi-celebrities to perform magic tricks. They then have to do them for audiences, and are judged, and eventually one of them will be declared a winner.
But the premise of the show is just a way of getting the performers outside their comfort zones, succeeding or failing at something other than their careers. And audiences will either be impressed by their skill or amused at their ineptness, or stunned when tempers flare.
If, that is, viewers care at all.
Certainly this, like VH1's Celebrity Fit Club, is not offering top-shelf personalities. Oh, I like Lisa Ann Walter, an able character actress on TV and in movies like Shall We Dance? But I'm less engaged by Ant, C. Thomas Howell, Carnie Wilson, Pussycat Doll Kimberly Wyatt, Hal Sparks or Chris ''Kid'' Reid (of Kid 'N Play fame). And I have no awareness at all of their magician mentors, including David Regal, Simon Lovell, Asi Wind, Derek Hughes, Silly Billy and one-name wonders Rocco and Murray.
So while it's momentarily interesting to see people learning card tricks and other stunts, it's not exactly a character study. Only such weirdness can lead to stardom. Jeff Conaway had faded into deserved obscurity, only to gain notoriety for his meltdowns on Celebrity Fit Club.
But Conaway would have been better off being famous for nothing.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com. You can find more columns, questions and answers at http://www.ohio.com/entertainment/heldenfels.
Before we talk specifically about the very peculiar Celebracadabra, which premieres Sunday, it's worth remembering how very, very peculiar is the grasping for contemporary fame.
Get the full article here.
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