DC ExtraTime: Queer Eye's Lip Sync Battle Takeover

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Ask the MTV Challenge fandom about who had the most successful 2018, and they'll give you varying answers. Maybe it could be the two ladies who took all the $1.5 million from the two Challenge seasons that went down last year in Cara Maria on Vendettas and Ashley M. on Final Reckoning. Maybe, it's Tony for him continuing on that torrid run with a finals berth, winning Champs vs. Stars II and scoring an engagement. Perhaps, it's his partner Bananas for him taking his talents to hosting 1st Look TV, The Miz in hosting CvS and having his own reality show, or Cory for appearing on two Challenges, Ex On The Beach and Teen Mom.
   But it's likely that you might overlook a person who, fifteen years ago, came to The Real World Philadelphia house as reality TV's first African-American gay man, and who has become one of the most-successful alumni in the franchise's history. After doing that season, a Challenge and an Are You The One? spinoff -- achieving a triple crown of doing shows relating to all three jewels of what we call the MTV Trifecta, Karamo Brown has become a bigger name in the pop culture landscape in the past twelve months, and it didn't involve him with doing something with MTV.
   A year ago, Karamo joined Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Booby Berk and Jonathan Van Ness as the new "Fab Five" on Netflix's revival of Queer Eye. Karamo serves as culture and lifestyle expert while the others focus in on food & wine, fashion, design and grooming, as they continued the proud tradition of the original Bravo series of the same name of over a decade ago. Queer Eye scored three Emmy Awards including Outstanding Structured Reality Program, all part of a historic night that saw them present one of the many awards to another LGBT pioneer, RuPaul's Drag Race.
   Along with that, Karamo was honored by the Human Rights Campaign with their Visibility Award, and took the stage at March For Our Lives weekend in Washington, D.C. when he shared his personal link to last year's school shootings in Florida: a friend of his was one of the victims killed in that Valentine's Day tragedy at Parkland High School, Brown's alma mater. He also joined with the Creative Coalition to lobby Capitol Hill for increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and got to meet President Obama. And last May, Karamo became engaged to his longtime partner, director Ian Brown.

Also last year, a cable channel that began as The Nashville Network and then became The National Network and Spike TV evolved once again... this time as the Paramount Network: Viacom's first dive into premium-style programming. It's the home of one of last year's most-talked about dramas in Kevin Costner's Yellowstone, Younger with How Far is Tatttoo Far? co-host Nico Tortorella, and screened documentaries on Treyvon Martin and Paul Walker. But it didn't mess with Spike's biggest content: Cops, Bar Rescue, Ink Master, Bellator MMA, and a show that turned an often negative part of the music industry into a viral sensation.

   For a place that once hosted country music programming before CMT took over, Lip Sync Battle has become most-popular series in the long history of the network. The series concept may have been first conceived in the '80s, but Jimmy Fallon brought that idea into the streaming & iPod age to create a celebrity version of it, which became a staple of his Late Night talk show before he took over The Tonight Show. The idea is simple: two A-list celebrities facing off in a lip syncing battle of chart hits and classics over two rounds, and the winner being determined by an audience vote, gaining the LSB championship belt and bragging rights.
   Jimmy and creators of Lip Sync Battle, Stephen Merchant and John Krasinski, pitched their show to NBC and their cable suite, but after the Peacock passed on the idea it found a home at Spike, as it was going through another rebranding. The rest is history: with over 2 million viewers an episode, it became the network's most-watched series, and it helped to relaunch Paramount Network a year ago this past week with a live episode from the home of the Oscars, the Dolby Theater. Digitally, the LSB YouTube channel has amassed over 600 million views by its 2.7 million followers, and it has also become an global sensation being franchised in 16 overseas countries, plus a kid-friendly spinoff on Nickelodeon.
   The show is hosted by LL Cool J and Crissy Teigan, and those who've performed on LSB reads like a who's who: John Legend, The Rock, Emily Blunt, Mike Tyson, Queen Latifah, Justin Bieber, Deion Sanders, Iggy Azalea, Swaggy P. Nick Young, Eva Longoria, Jason DeRulo, Snoop Dogg, Chris Paul, Shaq, Wilmer Valderrama, Laverne Cox, Jay Leno, Ray Lewis, Sarah Hyland, Ricky Martin, Nicole Richie, Zendaya, David Spade, Fifth Harmony, Tara Lipinski & Johnny Weir, Pentatonix, Rob Schneider, Luis Fonzi, Charli XCX, Rita Ora and Pete Davison.
   Lip Sync Battle is only part of the latest revival of TV music programming: American Idol returned last year to try & regain the buzz from the one show that overtook it years ago in The Voice; the new buzz hit of the moment in The Masked Singer on FOX, and the other big musical staple of late night, the similar must-see Carpool Karaoke on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

Last week, Lip Sync Battle kicked off its fifth season by welcoming back Karamo into the Viacom fold for one night along with the rest of his Queer Eye Fab Five. The group gave ode to two divas: they performed to Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again" including her famous red cat suit, and did their very best to bring us back to last April and Beyonce's internet-breaking performance at Coachella. In case you missed it, the Queer Eye Five's performances are below for your enjoyment, along with the guys preparing for the big night and post-performance analysis.

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