TVSquad

(S01E05) Well, that was a bit of a shocker tonight, eh? Who would have thought that Dicko would propose marriage to the lead singer of Dot Dot Dot? I surely didn't see that coming, did you?

Okay, I'm lying. I just don't want to mention the band voted out before the jump in case folks reading the main TV Squad page recorded The Next Great American Band for viewing at a later time. Then people would be yelling at me and I'm sensitive, y'know. But I can't have blank white space here, so I should say something.

Read on for the lowdown on the tonight's episode ...

Shocking news from the world of American Idol. While Taylor Hicks was the first to sign his recording contract because he actually won the contest, a handful of the other finalists are right behind him with recording contracts of their own. According to TMZ.com, RCA Music Group (which signs all the Idols) has already signed runner-up Katharine McPhee and is reportedly in negotiations with Chris Daughtry and Ace Young. Third placer Elliott Yamin is reportedly being wooed by Hollywood management company The Firm.

At this point, I'd say it's a crapshoot. Who can guess which contestant will be most successful? So far, the only really successful non-winner seems to be Clay Aiken, who sued to break away from the Idol contract. And the only really successful winner is Kelly Clarkson, and that's because she split from 19 Entertainment, the management company that mis-manages all the Idol winners.

On May 16 at 10:30 MTV will premiere Jamie Kennedy's Blowin' Up, a quasi-reality series in which Kennedy and his pal Stu Stone (who met when they worked on the animated series Da Mob) try to score a record contract with their quirky rap songs. They've been showing a pretty lengthy trailer for the series on both MTV and MTV2 and you can also watch the first part of the premiere episode over on MTV's site.

The show doesn't seem all that interesting, but it has me intrigued nonetheless. While it is ostensibly about Kennedy wanting to get a record deal, the show actually seems built around the fact that he's not a very good rapper. Stu Stone, whom Kennedy describes as the DJ Jazzy Jeff to his Fresh Prince, knows how to spin, but his rap skills aren't much better than Kennedy's. So, rather than making a "serious" show, they make one about being turned down constantly in their quest to secure a record deal. It's an odd mix of "please take me seriously" and "I'm just having fun with this," and it could be interesting to watch Kennedy try to inhabit the skin of both a "serious" rapper and a self-deprecating comedian. It might not be Breaking Bonaduce, but it could open a tiny window into the inner machinations of Jamie Kennedy's brain, for whatever that's worth.