Appeared as an article in the Weekend Today (I think) but it doesn’t seem to be widely discussed online.
One of the biggest draws of the 2nd episode of Singapore Idol was the masked man known as Banana Man (or more correctly called Watermelon Man). Singapore Idol episode one was a smashing success judging by ratings and everyone expected more of the same with episode two. Afterall, everyone loves to see people embarrass themselves in public (come on admit it, after seeing all the “malu” cases, we quickly lose interest).
When episode 2 came along, it was, shall we say, mildly entertaining at best. Nowhere near the 1st episode. But the appearance of Banana oops Watermelon Man made it worth it. In fact the show devoted about 5 minutes of airtime on him (talk about your 5 minutes of fame!).
Then it was exposed that Watermelon Man didn’t even make it past the 1st round and never got to see the 4 judges! Then how did the infamous line by Ken Lim (roughly “take the mask off or get out”) happen? Well, apparently the studio made a recording and let the 4 judges watch it, then record their reactions and manufactured the whole scene!
If Mediacrap is capable of this, makes you wonder if they are capable of more, such as plants, to jack up the ratings. Afterall they must have paid mucho pesos to get the franchise rights, they are definitely wanting to get the investment back.
Really puts so much doubt into Singapore’s attempt at reality TV, when in reality, it’s not.
