C-A-C-O-P-H-O-N-O-U-S

JUST FINISHED WATCHING - oh, sorry for the shouting - the debut of ABC Family's Spell-Mageddon. And as you might guess from this entry's title, the show was louder than seventy-six trombones leading the big parade, with a hundred and ten cornets close at hand. At least they got the right host for the show, the stentorian Alfonso Ribeiro. That guy never learned how to turn down his volume control.

The premise is simple. Put-upon contestants try to spell words while getting squirted, doused, dunked, shocked, steamed, swirled, handled, strobe-lighted and the Game Show God knows what else. This leads to endless screaming, screeching and shrieking. One by one the screamers, er, contestants are eliminated until a lucky pair faces off for ten grand, which seems cheap compensation for all their troubles.

To be honest, I got some evil chuckles watching the poor contestants endure one indignity after another. I've always had a sneaking love for stunt shows that put people through stuff nobody should be put through. Still, after a while - like five minutes - a certain sameness crept in. Yes, I know that it's tough to spell words when you're getting slammed and whammed. You don't have to tell me 99 times. There's also a fair amount of padding with lots of replays.

Oh well, the show is pitched at an audience maybe a half-century younger than this ancient blogger. The kids might like it.

UPDATE: The show doesn't make much Nielsen noise: 337K total viewers, 169K 18-49 viewers. The numbers are way below ABC Family's usual standards.