As always, Ali and I had to watch Miss America last night, also known as “The Princesses of the States” – which were thankfully much more classy Princesses than the last pageant we watched.
Besides my fast forwarding through the unbelievably-looking-like-bra-and-panties swimsuit competition (really, there ARE ways to make bathing suits so that they don’t look like lingerie), Ali, as always, enjoyed the Princesses.
As did I.
From the very beginning when they all introduced themselves, it was high quality entertainment.
“From the largest producer of Ethanol, my state gives you gas!! I’m Miss Iowa!!”
Classy, honey.
“From the state with the most Dunkin’ Donuts per capita, I’m Miss Rhode Island!!”
“From the state that touches more states than any other, but never inappropriately, I’m Miss Wyoming!!”
(Which, by the way, Miss Wyoming needed to do her research – Wyoming touches six other states, while Tennessee and Missouri each touch EIGHT other states. Even Ali could have helped her with that fact..)
There were a few other introductions that were notable…
The cheesiest: “From the state that means colored red, I’m tickled pink to be here!! I’m Miss Colorado!”
The most ironic: “From the home of the Biggest Loser, I’m Miss Mississippi!!”
The You-Coulda-Surely-Thought-of-a-Better-State-Characteristic-Than-That: “From the state that brought you everyone’s favorite store, Target, I’m Miss Minnesota!!”
There were, of course, other moments of awesomeness, such as when they asked all of the women, in their matching-teeniny-barely-covering-their-butts-silver-mini-dresses to sit on the couches on the stage, which all of two of them obeyed, while the rest stood around awkwardly trying to figure out how to manage to do such a thing without flashing America in Britney-Spears-Getting-Out-Of-A-Limo fashion, and Miss Oklahoma’s quote from the interview portion, “EVERYONE can be Miss America in how they conduct themselves everyday!” (which thrilled Chris to the core – that even HE could be Miss America!!!), but the best moment of the night was Miss Arkansas’ talent.
Oh yes, she did ventriloquistically YODEL during her hit number, “I Wanna Be a Cowboy Sweetheart.”
AND, with a talent like that, who could blame the judges for awarding her the title of first runner-up??
Ultimately, though, I made sure that Ali understood that there are TWO ways to get to the Miss America competition.
You can either go the “Toddlers and Tiaras” way, complete with spray tanned babies and getting your eyebrows waxed at the age of five…
OR you can become a geeky accountant like your Mommy, get a job with Ernst and Young, and be an official Miss America scoring tabulator.
And, if I know my daughter, she will choose geekily counting things over eyebrow waxing ANY day.
Wow! I missed it but seriously, the post caught me up to date on pretty much everything I would have wanted to see and/or hear.
Way to go, Miss Iowa. She is every man’s dream.
I didn’t see it but, I loved who won! What was the deal about miss washington though? and the introduction for Miss Alabama? jw…
Rachel – Christen S used to work at my school and through her connection to you, I found your blog about 2 years ago. I found your writing style and wit quite entertaining and added you to my google reader list. But today’s post on the Miss America pageant seriously made me laugh out loud – because I was debating writing almost an identical post myself. As a former pageant girl myself, the very things you highlighted in your commentary were the things that made me almost hurt myself laughing as I watched last night. Rather than type my own post, I am just going to link your post to my blog and direct people here to read your spot on commentary. Hilarious.
Thanks so much!! I’m glad you enjoyed it, and that we were thinking alike!!
Thanks for catching me up on the parts I missed–intros, “swimsuit” portion, and silvery minis. I did see the talent and loved the Irish step dancer as much as the ventriloquist! But at only 17, the winner is a bit of a Little Miss America. Oh, and I enjoyed seeing the formers, too.
Yes, the formers were quite fun to watch. But don’t you know they were all comparing themselves to each other? It was so weird how differing they all looked in age – even in the back to back years!
I missed most of it….aw darn….but the Twitter conversations alone were GOLD! I am so glad that my 8 y.o. is a boy! HAHA!
Oh those are funny. I didn’t watch it. I cannot believe one did ventriloquism. Seriously? Wow.
I saw part of the beginning of the show last night, but am so sorry I missed Miss Arkansas’s talent…if I had to stretch that much to find a talent I would take it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to be in the pageant :)
Those are some funny introductions, think some of them might need to fire their pageant coaches.
I gasped when the eyebrow waxing 5 year old mom said so nonchalantly (sp?) and somewhat annoyed that her daughter had a bad experience ONLY 1 time where the wax was too hot and RIPPED her skin off. Geez! That would be traumatizing to me at my age. Poor little girl…why would you take her back??? Isn’t one bad experience with wax enough? Ouch.
It was so seriously wrong – child abuse, I believe.
Those intros are absolutely ridiculous!!!!
Found your blog through the Mom Jeans post linked from somewhere else. I’m an accountant with E&Y so it thrills me that I have a chance in the Miss America Pageant :)
Oh yes, definitely!! It’s the way to get there!! :)
This was the first year in the last few that I actually tuned in, and only because I was personally rooting for Miss Delaware, as she has alopecia.
She definitely seemed amazing! She was very open and brave, I thought, to share everything she did. I was really impressed and glad she made it in the finals!
good grief I missed it! Can’t believe it, but I’m glad to have the recap from you and Ali. I’d pay money to see that non-lips-moving gal…
surely it’s on youtube by now.
I’m pretty sure you can find a video of it – I’ve seen a few floating around!!
Just started reading your blog last week and I’m thoroughly enjoying it! I grew up in Nebraska, so it was exciting to see someone from my home state win (it seems like NE is never in the top ten!). :)
Thanks so much!! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I thought Miss Nebraska was awesome – and I went to her blog that night, and wow she has some really great stuff on there! I was really impressed with her – especially for being just 17!
Usually, it seems like there are a ton of girls from the South in the finals, but there were hardly any this year! So I had no one to root for. :) So I’m glad that Miss Nebraska won, because she certainly seems very classy and poised.
I am so glad I’m not the only one watching the Miss America Pageant. During the state intros, I was wondering how much they pay their script writers. They came up with some very cheesy descriptions this year.
I loved Miss Arkansas’ talent – yodeling is not an easy talent and doing it with dummies is even more impressive. And the winner did an amazing job with her piano playing too. Did you know that the youngest MAP winner was only 15 1/2?
Oh, after reading your post about the Miss USA pageant, what did you think of the Miss America people on the street questions?
Seriously – they were terrible intros!!
Chris said the same thing about Miss Arkansas – despite the hilarity of her talent, she actually WAS quite talented.
What is MAP? 15.5 is crazy!
The on the street questions were actually decent, although I must say their answers, were, as usual, not really answers. Oh well…
I’m shocked that some of these women aren’t embarassed for themselves. I mean really, you think Wy shares the most states with it’s borders?
I can’t wait to read the upcoming posts about Ali’s first pageant (sarcasm).
Hmmmmm…..when I saw the title of this post on FB I remember wistfully thinking awwww, too bad, I missed the pageant and my all boy BOY is not about to watch it but now…I’m thinking it was not such a bad thing. Thanks for the recap.