Don't Forget The Whatsitsname

by MATT QUARTERMAINE

MOST people these days are preoccupied with getting more memory for their computer. Barbara Streisand told us about "misty water-coloured memories". If that's the case then the water colours of my memories have run together into a murky splurge of grey trickles as I try to recall a television program I watched the other night. It was Don't Forget The Lyrics!, Wednesday 7.30pm on Channel Ten, a quiz show that tests the memory of contestants for song lyrics. This is one of those shows that if I stumble across it, I can't stop watching. It's a quiz show that zeroes in on the cultural flotsam and jetsam occupying too much space in our brains, as contestants try to remember 10 lyrics from 10 songs to win a million dollars.

The exclamation mark in the title is there for a reason; contestants belt out songs and scream with joy at every correct answer without provocation. It is a format which works best using fist pumping Americans that must have Australian quiz show producers drooling with envy at the vigour and enthusiasm of the Yank audiences, who do most of the work for comperes and the warm-up guys. The show taps into that primeval urge in humans to imagine themselves gripping a microphone and thrilling thousands, when in reality they are clutching the soap-on-a-rope and irritating the rest of the family from the shower.

The show is hosted with energy and wit by former comedian and stalwart of the improvisational program Whose Line Is It Anyway, Wayne Brady. The look on the handsome dark-skinned Brady's face and a African American contestant was priceless as Big Jim picked the category of America's favourite songs. Without missing a beat Brady declared they were "two songs that are hits with brothers all over the world, I'm A Believer by the Monkeys and The Gambler by Kenny Rogers."

The show uses inoffensive popular songs, but it could get a lot more interesting if they tapped into the improper side of modern lyrics; Brady could have a lot of fun asking "The Sex Pistols declared I am the anti-?", or "Niggaz with Attitude wanted to what the Police?"

Don't Forget The Lyrics! also reveals how few of the lyrics of our favourite songs we actually know. There were dozens of "senior moments", when I was sure I knew the lyrics to a popular tune, but I was so far off the mark it produced embarrassed giggles from this portly middle-aged rock star wannabe. It reminded me of a friend who thought the lyrics of The Sweet's Love Is Like Oxygen was "Love is like hot chicken, you get too much, you get too high, not enough you're gonna die...".

Don't Forget The Lyrics! is sure begin an avalanche of shows that test our overburdened memories. Watch out for a show for mathematicians called Don't Forget Your Calculators, a show for new Australian immigrants called Don't Forget Your Wisden and a show for amnesiacs called Don't Remember To Forget.

6 February 2008

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