America’s Got Talent S3.E9 The Top 40 (August 7th, 2008)

In this episode the final 40 are chosen. I wasn’t able to get names for all of the acts so I tried to describe them as best as I could.

Top 40

• Joseph Hall (Elvis Impersonator)
• Kyle Rifkin (R&B Singer)
• Nottin’ But Stringz (brother violin group)
• Guy that lay on bed of nails (no name provided)
• The Russain Bar Trio-The act where the two guys flip the girl in the air while balancing on the pole
• The old school/new school singing group with the dj
• The Tina Turner Impersonator
• I believe the family band that was shown during the audition stages
• A voice impersonator
• A musical group of three children that have yet to be shown on the show yet
• The singer who played the keyboard in his audition (one of the feel good stories)
• The absolutely terrible dancer is somehow put through despite absolutely sucking
• Indigo (singing foreign female group that almost wasn’t moved on in the first place)
• Paul Saylos (Frank Sinatra Impersonator)
• Kaitlyn (the 4 year old singer)
• Daniel Jens (the army singer)
• The magician with the floating cards from last week.
• The fire breathing guy
• The Kung Fu girl who acts out fight scenes
• The man who dresses up as a woman opera singer
• The drumming group that is like Stomp
• A female country singer (not sure if she was on the show already or not)
• A variety act guy (he was shown in the previous rounds but I don’t remember exactly what he did)
• Jonathan (The trombone playing dancer)
• Queen Emily (the mother who had to give up singing to take care of her kids)
• Jonathan Burken (the baton twirler)
• Jessica Price (singer whose father left her and she was using the show to make her father proud)
• Derek Barry (Britney Impersonator)
• Zooperstars (the dancing mascots)
• The dancing group that were wearing the prison suits in the last episode
• A female clogging group
• The Dallas Cheerleaders (who are professionals so I don’t think they should be able to be moved on)
• Sidestep (A male street dancing group that was never shown before this)
• The father dancing group
• The old school female dancing group (did riverdance in performance)
• The stupid dancing cowboys
• Beyond Belief Dancing Group (female dancing group)
• Michael Strello Smith (the opera singing teacher from last season)
• Neil E. Boyd (opera singer)
• Either one of them weren’t shown or I missed it since I only got 39 acts.

The Russain Bar Trio got hurt after the competition so they had to withdraw from the competition. The replacements that America gets to vote on to replace them include Donald Braswell (vocal cord injury singer), Victoria Jacoby (the contortionist), Junior and Emily (tango dancers), Lil’ Countrie and Page 1NE (The New Orleans dancers), Dan Meyer (sword swallower), Miss Pussykatt (the grinding lady), Kyle Rifkin (R&B singer), and Xclusive (robot dancer). Hopefully America will right the judges wrong and move Lil’ Countrie and Page 1NE onto the top 40. Isn’t it odd that essentially all these are the acts that the judges really messed up on not moving through in the first place.

13 Singers
10 dancers
4 Impersonators
3 Musicians

Yeah I don’t think that is a fair distribution when 3/4 of the acts are music based. I guess according to America’s Got Talent you pretty much can only have a talent it it involves music in some way.

Not in Top 40

• Brian Cheatham (R&B Singer)
• Dan Myer (sword swallower who was too hard to watch and there isn’t much to improve on)
• Southern Bells (dancing clogging group)
• A singer and keyboard player that was never shown on the show
• Holly (Another female singer who was never shown)
• The grinding lady
• The autistic boy singer (Way better than Kaitlyn in my opinion)
• Junior and Emily (Tango Dancers)
• Lil’ Countrie and Page 1NE (the amazing New Orleans dancers) The judges are a bunch of morons since they might have been the best act in the competition but I guess they would rather put some more average singers through than some actual real talent.
• Xclusive (robot dancer)
• Donald Braswell (the singer with the vocal cord injury)
• Sterling Silver Cloggers (male and female clogging group)

My Thoughts

As you can probably tell I am not particularly happy about who was moved on. I think this show really showed that the show should be cut into two parts. They should have a singing and dancing group and a variety group and pick a winner from both groups. That will never happen though since NBC will keep trying to shove singers down our throat since has been proven time and time again. So here are my good, bad, and ugly choices by the judges.

Good:

• Zooperstars-They might be weird but they and unique and very entertaining.
• The Russain Bar Trio-They were one of the best acts till they had to pull out due to an injury.
• The Magician-He looked pretty good in the 2 second clip they showed of him.
• The Kung Fu Girl-She is obviously quite talented at staged fights despite her age.
• Jonathan Burken-The baton twirler who is probably one of the best acts remaining.

The Bad:

• Way to many similar dancers and singer put through. Almost 3/4 of all acts are either singers or dancers. That is not right what so ever since singers and dancers have several other shows that they could compete on besides America’s Got Talent.
• The following acts not being put through: Junior and Emily, Dan Myer, the grinding lady, and Donald Braswell.

The Ugly:

• The absolutely terrible dancer that has zero talent whatsoever as a dancer. If he can move on this season I should try out since I can probably dance like a bigger idiot. Maybe I can win $1 million for acting like a complete idiot.
• Lil’ Countrie and Page 1NE not moving on. Easily the biggest travesty of them all. they were the most talented act and yet the judges decide to not move them on.
• Xclusive not moving on. He is one of the best dancers on the show and at least he has some originality in his act which is sorely lacking from the rest of the act.
• Indigo moving on. I guess you don’t actually have a talent (since they obviously can’t sing) if you are willing to show some skin.
• Katilyn moving on. I know I will get some hate messages for this but there is a limit where age shouldn’t be taken into consideration. She is an average 4 year old singer. I guess the judges think she should move on just based on the fact that she says some cute things. If that is Katilyn’s talent she would be better on Kids Say the Dardest Things not America’s Got Talent.
• Derek Barry. If you are going to be a good impersonator you seriously need to be able to impersonate every aspect of the person so if they were a singer you should have to sing. Until Derek can actually sing like Britney Spears good luck on thinking that you are a good Britney impersonator.

What are your thoughts on the episode? Also if you remember the names of any of the acts from above that I don’t have names for feel free to leave their names in the comments section and I will update the lists.