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Viewers Showing Very Little Interest In Discovering Mentalists, Rock Bands

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 21, 2007

America apparently doesn't care about finding the world's next great mentalist or the next great rock band.

The word "great" is relative here. Some achieve greatness. Others have it thrust upon them. And winners of reality shows just get the title as part of the hype.

Ratings have not been great, or even good, for NBC's "Phenomenon" or Fox's "The Next Great American Band." There is zero buzz on these shows.

"Phenomenon" winds up its short six-episode run at 8 tonight, and you don't need psychic powers to predict that it won't be back.

Co-hosts and judges Uri Geller and Criss Angel may be skilled at pulling off illusions, but they have been dreadfully dull without their props.

Still in the competition is Eran Raven, an Internet security expert from Tampa who moonlights as a "mentalist" performer. He could emerge with the $250,000 prize and a new career even though "Phenomenon" has seen ratings drop each week and has failed to crack the top 60.

But the winner will probably be Angela Funovits, a former beauty queen and the only female competitor. She already has an offer to join a Las Vegas act called "The Pussycats of Magic."

Meanwhile, the Clearwater rock band Tres Bien! is still in the competition on "The Next Great American Band." The results of another round of voting will be revealed on Friday's episode at 8 p.m.

The field will be cut from eight to seven bands.

The Tres Bien! (French for "very good") band members include Mikey Bostinto on lead vocals, keyboards and guitar; Cody Wilson on bass and backup vocals; Michael James Crowe on lead guitar and harmonies; and Ryan Parker Metcalf on drums and harmonies.

They are getting national exposure, but this show is nowhere near the success of the other musical talent hunts such as "American Idol." Fox is coming in fifth place on Friday nights behind CBS, NBC, ABC and The CW.

MENTAL QUESTIONS: Just who is the world's greatest mentalist? Geller and Angel might disagree about the title. And then there is The Amazing Kreskin, 72, who is still performing and doing amazing things on stage. He is billed as the "World's Foremost Mentalist."

Kreskin (George Joseph Kresge Jr.) has acknowledged that he doesn't have paranormal powers. And he says he has predicted the winner of "Phenomenon."

On Oct. 30, he presented a sealed steel box to New York radio host Joey Reynolds. It will be opened after the series finale tonight.

"I am sure that when it is opened, the correct name of the winner will be revealed," Kreskin said in a telephone interview.

He also says he was approached by the producers of "Phenomenon" to participate in the show but declined after he learned that "the program would be based on trickery."

He declined to go into details, saying only that what viewers see on television may have been staged for the cameras. He says the contestants were assured their performances would always work.

What he does, he says, is based on his mental skills, which include a keen awareness and sensitivity to the people around him and his powers of suggestion. And sometimes he fails.

Kreskin has no use for magicians and illusionists who pretend to have psychic powers or the ability to talk to the dead, but he doesn't discount the possibility that humans could have these abilities.

"We need something in our culture that thumbs its nose at science," he says. "Especially during times of war, there is an unconscious heightened awareness of our own mortality, and we long for something beyond what can be explained."

He says this accounts for the popularity of reality shows such as "America's Psychic Challenge," "Ghost Hunters," "Psychic Detectives" and "John Edward Cross Country" and dramas based on the paranormal such as "Ghost Whisperer and "Medium."

Comic magicians Penn & Teller and illusionist The Amazing (James) Randi have, in the past, performed successful sealed envelope predictions. They said there's nothing psychic about their tricks.

They have even less tolerance for those who claim to have paranormal abilities.

Penn & Teller have debunked psychics on their Showtime cable series, and Randi has a standing, never-claimed $1 million offer to anyone who can "prove" he or she has supernatural powers.

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