You think I’m kidding? As we settled in to finally listen to Mario Lopez deliver the news on who won the majority of 38 million votes, Trinity crossed his arms and had a terse look on his face. I laughed at him and asked him if he was preparing himself for bad news. He said, no, but if JabbaWockeeZ doesn’t win, he’ll never watch America’s Best Dance Crew again — which is already slated for a second season to air this summer.
I’ve got some choice quotes. Asian Week gets a little sappy, but I still like it:
And then there was JabbaWockeeZ, without whom the show’s success could not be had. Boys that were separated by distance were not separated by heart, and though their heart was initially hard to see behind their off-putting masks, and they flew under the popularity radar, they seemed to find their hip hop stride and showmanship with each consecutive week. Though they claimed the masks were “to help the audience see the way we articulate the music,” the real articulation came from their drive to honor their fallen seventh member, Gary. We fell in love with their generosity. The urban free-style crew who knew what it meant to be a team, who was perfect, ingenious, unique, innovative and visionary, deservedly won the youthful and joyous hearts of America.
Zap2it had a great play-by-play of the whole show, plus this awesome quote about Randy Jackson’s appearance:
After Status Quo does their post-loss interview and collects their fallen banner, we reach the worst part of the show. Randy Jackson comes out and speaks. Shudder. Everytime he spits some sort of slang, I want to poke him with something sharp.
The show even warranted acerbic, genius observation from New York Magazine:
It’s like You Got Served or Step Up 2 the Streets, except without all the interludes of terrible acting. Or Dancing with the Stars, except without Emmitt Smith doing the waltz in a tuxedo. Instead, you get moments like this one, when the mask-wearing crew Jabbawockeez faced elimination and responded with a high-energy street-dancing master class that ended with a 25-second head spin that had us slack-jawed and rewinding our DVR three times.
Below is the routine the New York Mag writer is talking about. It truly was awesome.
In the end, I’m glad the winner wasn’t based on race or coast or any particular attribute. I really think Jabba was the best crew and most often had me sitting up, going, “what?? rewind that!” They also made me laugh and they even made me cry with their thanks to God and their tributes for their fallen team member. Isn’t that what the best of shows and movies do to you?
Photo lifted from MTV.com