The Suite Life on Deck

So I watched the premier of the Suite Life on Deck.

It's... really bad.

Like, it's so bad I'm not sure I can convey in mere words. Let's go to the points system:

• Sightly Better Sprouse is still kind of darling, and Slightly Worse Sprouse has actually improved somewhat! +2
  
• Brenda Song is still incredibly adorable! +1
  
• Somehow, though, they've removed everything endearing about London -- she was always shallow and dumb, but mostly oblivious and not selfish. Now she's just horrible on every level. -2
  
• Cody is still adorably, awkwardly gay, barely subtextually gay. +1
  
• Zach is still really, incredibly, extraordinarily hateful. -1
  
• Carrie has been written off! Thank. God. +1
  
• She's been replaced by an awful wacky teacher, who is somehow a worse actress, and more annoying. -1
  
• No Ashley Tisdale to hold the show together by falling down a lot. -5
  
• No Arwin or Esteban. Who knew I liked them until they were gone? -1
  
• The old mediocre peripheral characters gone, replaced by entirely new mediocre peripheral characters. 0
  
• The occasional actually amusing, well-delivered line: +1
  
• Moseby! Oh, come on. He's always been the best thing about the Suite Life. +2
  
• The Suite Life continues its tradition of plenty of farting, burping, and pooping jokes. -1k
  
• All the sexism from the original Suite Life made the jump to sea. -1million
  
• Plus a heaping helping of racism, with potential for plenty more as the twins explore wacky foreign cultures! -1bajillion
  

...Like I said. It wasbad. Why can't we just have a wacky show where Brenda, SBS, and Phil Lewis (Moseby) hang out being endearing? I'd watch that!

Miranda Wrongs

We don't often mention the Nickelodeon side of the tween world on this blog, but I am actually a bichannel girl. While Disney is the one I'm more likely to leave on in the background, since my hatred of the Naked Brothers Band is possibly even more violent than my hatred for the Jonas Brothers, I was a hardcore Drake and Josh fan, and have been attempting to keep up with my iCarly as a lingering show of loyalty to the Schneiderverse (although nothing can make me sit through an episode of Zoey 101).

Reasons I watch iCarly:

1. Jennette McCurdy. So cute!

2. Jennette McCurdy's hair. So pretty!

3. The theme song. So bouncy!

4. The aforementioned lingering show of etc.

As you can see, I did not list the show's star, Miranda Cosgrove. Now, I like M-Cos. She seems like a sweet girl. She's very pretty, she's got a lovely voice, and she gave Drake Bell a kitten.

But holy guacamole that girl cannot act. She can't even stand in front of a camera without looking incredibly, incredibly awkward. On Drake and Josh she was always putting her hands on her hips in a pose that might as well have been subtitled "I don't know what to do with my hands." On iCarly she's perfected what I call Jokeface; those subtitles would read "I am about to tell a joke. I am telling a joke. Did you laugh at the joke I just told? I am laughing! Ha ha." Because nothing is funnier than a sitcom character who is aware of the joke.

And check out her new (I assume) music video:



I kind of like the song. There's something charmingly retro about its cheery take on teenage romance, like an Archie Comic. And Miranda can actually sing quite well, unlike many young actresses who put out albums.

But could she look more embarrassed and uncomfortable to be there? As my friend Mackenzie pointed out, she comes off like she's never been around children her own age - like an adult trying desperately to be cool for the kids. This is one of the many perils of bus school!

Miranda, sweetie, perhaps a career where you have to look comfortable and relaxed in front of many people is not the career for you. Perhaps you would be better off as a telemarketeer, or miner! I only say this because I care.

And in conclusion: Jennette McCurdy's hair! So pretty!




[Image from Totally Jennette.]

Important IM Conversations

Jess: Mitchel. No more tank tops.
Jess: Or bangs.
Becky: mitchell, a shirt, put it on IMMEDIATELY
Jess: This is not appropriate sandwich-getting attire!
Jess: HAIRCUT. OH MY GOD.
Becky: seriously.
Becky: Emily looks so hilariously intent and focused in the close ups
Jess: It's like he's wearing a bob wig that belongs to a giant.
Jess: SHE ARE SERIOUS EMILY. THIS ARE SERIOUS SINGINGS.
Becky: it kind of makes me hope they're real life BFFs, though.
Jess: Who fight crime!

As the Who Whats?

So... Apparently Tony Oller a) exists and b) has a song and music video on the Disney Channel.

Turns out, Tony Oller is one of the kids from ASTHEBELLRINGS (that's the closest I can come to approximating the yelly voice you have to say that in -- have to, like a compulsion). I recognized him, but didn't know his name until I googled it. I must confess: I don't hate ASTHEBELLRINGS. But then, I don't like ASTHEBELLRINGS, either. I have no feelings on it one way or the other, unless, "What the hell just happened my the television?" counts as a feeling.

So here's the weird part: I actually don't hate it. I don't hate Tony Oller's voice, which is not nearly as digitized as it might be. I don't hate the style, in as much as there's a style -- sort of Disney pop meets Virtual Insanity. I will say, though, that if there was a fantasy boyband draft a la fantasy sports, I would totally pick Tony Oller for the role of "Guy who's kind of deep (for a certain definition of "deep" that means "probably writes bad poetry in a journal somewhere")."

But I think my favorite thing is that Disney apparently only has one costumer who has very few ideas (or resources), because at various points, Tony Oller up there is wearing outfits I recognize from Hannah Montana: Rico wears that horrible white thing in the opening credits somewhere, and Jackson wears the cowboy getup in flashbacks to when he first moved. And I can't swear to it, but I suspect the 60s gear was taken from the "Club Twin" episode of the Suite Life.

So I think the moral of the story tonight is that a) I now know Tony Oller's name, and b) Disney could probably be talked into hiring an assistant costumer, if you're interested.

ETA: Wait, what??? ASTHEBELLRINGS just came on and it was starring DEMI LOVATO? Wow, that shows you how little attention I've paid to it generally. Also, let's talk production values, Disney: get some, please?

Also, Miley is like a puma.

(Watching an episode of Hannah Montana...)

Rachel: So Rico's cousin is a terrible actress? Like, did they tell her to laugh by going "Moo ha ha?"

Rebecca: Well, yeah, I think.

Rachel: So she's tricking him?

Rebecca: I don't think so? I think that's just how people in Rico's family laugh.

Rachel: But "moo ha ha" implies evil! That makes no sense!

Rebecca: ...

Rachel: Right, Hannah Montanna.

ETA: WHAT NO THERE WILL BE NO RICO/JACKSON JOKES ON THE SHOW THAT IS WRONG WRONG WRONG.

I'm slightly ashamed, but...

Though The Suite Life on Deck seems like the worst idea ever -- and also, hey, the Sprouse twins' voices finished changing! And they grew a couple inches! They look less like weird mutant children now! -- I will admit that Cody standing on the bow of the cruise ship yelling, "I'm the king of pre-calculus!" actually made me giggle.

HSM3 Badness Alert Level: Pebbles Flintstone Pink

Two lovely things to share with y'all.

First:



(Via HSM3: Graduation News) I know I'm late, but... RYAN IN A SHINY BLACK JACKET AND BRIGHT PINK PANTS. And then a white tuxedo. And the SHEER LEVELS OF BITCHFACE. The second half of the video is, I hope, badly cut scenes from elsewhere in the movie, but how excited am I? THIS EXCITED. Ryan bitchface is, like, one of my most favorite things ever.

Second:



(Via Molly.)

TINY CHAD AND TROY! SQUEE! Seeing as how Corbin described the movie as "a bromance" between Chad and Troy, and this appears to be a Chad and Troy duet (in a junkyard? with a headband and flannel? I am so excited for whatever the hell is going on!), I am forced to wildly guess that this is a flashback to how Troy and Chad met. Or else something EVEN CRACKIER than I can imagine.

I can not wait, y'all. For serious.

Disney Channel Games

So this blog may be having interesting effects on my life, because I'm paying a lot more attention to the various Disney kids than I used to. Which means, in short, that when I watched the Disney Channel Games, I not only knew who most of the kids involved were, but I also had a serious preference for which team I wanted to win.

Specifically, the red team. Because first, their captain was Brenda Song, who is like my favorite ever. They also had Jason Earles and Mitchel Musso Sandwich Boy, both of whom I enjoy quite a bit. On the down side, they had the HaraGossip Girls from Camp Rock, but like in Camp Rock, they had basically no screen time. Not even inexplicable songs at the end! And, of course, they were saddled with a Jonas. But at least it was Least Detestable.

The team I liked least was the green team, which featured both Most Detestable Jonas and Slight Worse Sprouse. There was no one else I cared about either way on it -- some sidekicks from various shows, including Guy Whose Hair Goes to the Right (Jason Dolley), but since only Most Detestable and SWS ever appeared on camera, there was nothing to redeem the team.

Everyone else was split up pretty evenly. The blue team had Demi Lovato. Once upon a time, the amount of irritation Demi causes me would have been canceled out by adorable Alyson Stoner, but I'm still mad at Alyson for sucking as hard as everyone else in Camp Rock. But on the up side, they had Shin Koyamada, who is absolutely adorable and costarred with Brenda in Wendy Wu, which is one of my favorite DCOMs. And they had Slightly Better Sprouse, who was just as awkwardly non-athletic as you would imagine.

Yellow had less to it: Selena Gomez and her Scary Pageant Baby Face -- though I've become oddly somewhat fond of her, Extra Jonas, Kyle Massey (who I fail to find charming, but I don't detest), and Moises, who seems less detestable as himself than when he's playing a character.

For me, the highlight of the game was definitely Sandwich Boy and Jason Earles pattering at one another (Mitchel playing guitar, and Jason complaining about it) because I have long maintained that I really like all of the non-Hannah or -Robby Ray characters on that show, and by extension, have become fond of the actors. Then they teamed up to score four goals (or something like that) in human-sized foose ball. (Then they got their butts handed to them by the French guy, which was pretty awesome, too.)

Lowlight of the games was the sibling rivalry game, where the Sprouses, Jonii, and Cheetah Girls ('cause... they're siblings, I guess) had to play against one another. Most Detestable and SWS were on a team together and won, and proved in the process that they were just as horrible as they always come across. Yuck.

Overall? The games try to hard to be charming and zany. I miss the HSM kids, who are now too good for this shit, and wish there had been fewer performances by the Jonii, because, well, my feelings on the Jonii are well known. But on the other hand, if they had Disney Channel Games every week, I would totally tune in.