Celine Dion’s family melts down on TV
What you may not know about international superstar diva singstress Celine Dion is that she has a pretty extensive family. Also, they’re all musically inclined. They’re not all good, mind you, but being a Dion means you have some love for performing onstage.
In the province of Québec, the Dions are the equivalent of the Kennedys. A more down-home, neighbourhood-type Kennedy family, but the comparison still stands. The matriarch, who is commonly referred to as “Maman Dion,” is constantly on television and is a superstar in her own right. But it seems to me that every six months or so, she ends up on talk shows where people there start fawning over her Mad Motherhood Skillz™. She’s become the archetypical Québécois mom for raising all these children and getting them involved into music (although only one did it with any success). These spots always end up in some kind of tribute where a couple of Maman Dion’s children come out (never Celine because, you know, she’s busy) and gurgle through a tacky song.
So they did it again this past Sunday night on a Québec talk show. Maman Dion got on the show and another little tribute song was on its way. Desperate to avoid repeating a set-up that had already been done, the genius producers figured it would be a good idea to have THE WHOLE CLAN come on to do a song, all in perfect harmony. This time, the dowdy tribute song would be seen as a major, mind-blowing event.
The end result: miscues, restarts, microphone mishaps, off-key singing, on-the-air-frustration: the worst produced segment I have ever seen on television. The Dion clan were laughable, but the production team also dropped the ball. Doomed to failure, this one was. Let me tell you, there are people on public access who pull tighter stuff off.
It’s hilarious and sad, all the way to Celine showing up “live” on screen (*cough*pretaped*cough*), to the bunch of them in the studio fiddling around with their ear monitors the very minute the song is done. You gotta love live TV.
I didn’t think it was that bad. The way you talked it up I thought people were going to be falling down and throwing their mikes to the ground and stomping on them. I once they got to the ensemble part it worked itself out.
How many goddamn kids does Quebecois Barbara Bush have though?
Not that bad? Dude, they start the song over because the first one missed her cue (after wiping her nose on camera), then she misses it again, then the producers start fading mics in and out live… they really only start getting their shit together at 2:38 into the segment, with a guy who can’t even hold a tune. That’s sad.
Also, as you could tell, Maman Dion used Celine’s famous-person contacts to get the suit that Jack Ruby was shot in.
Ok Ok. The beginning was cringe worthy and when the song restarted the wrong mics and miscues were amazingly bad and also the “singing” but from the way you built it up I thought it was just going to snowball into some type of amazing disaster and I was getting very excited for it, but once they all hit the middle of the stage and were singing together nothing especially hilarious happened. Their haphazard performance was amusing but I’ve definetly seen worse. I was just expecting everything to fall apart and break at the seams with like… I dunno, one of the Dion’s imploding or something.
Hello from Halifax.
My girl who is from PQ just got me to watch this… oh man.
Ok I have officially s**t my pants laughing at Mike’s comments …and the funniest part IS that woman practically picking her nose to start things off… man that is some kind of nervous tick she has there.
Anyway - what a mess - I actually would have to say that this one is really on whoever produced that. I swear that there is some sort of digital delay - that screws that woman up who starts it because she appears to stop - when she hears another voice.. I was listening to this and though someone else who was supposed to come in after her had come in on top of her… who knows .. but it was really srewed up.
Then again singing with that many people in those short segments would be hard for a semi-pro - nevermind this besieged Dion family.
Man. That too bad. Better luck next time on this.
JC