{"id":78959,"date":"2014-11-03T15:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=78959"},"modified":"2019-04-02T12:26:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:26:38","slug":"danke-schoen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/","title":{"rendered":"Danke Schoen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If I need to, I can date my periods of depression by the corresponding enthusiasms for terrible TV shows. <em>Enthusiasms<\/em> is maybe the wrong word: let\u2019s say <em>commitment to<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, at the best of times, I can be sucked into watching almost any show\u2014give me a marathon and I\u2019m yours for the next twenty episodes, and I genuinely mourn the passing of\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bravotv.com\/most-eligible-dallas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Most Eligible Dallas<\/em><\/a><\/em>\u2014but when I think of the other times, the bad times, my devotion had a different quality: resigned, enervated, yet obsessive. It was sort of coaxing a tepid crush out of boredom; with a little care and a lot of time, you can create something that approximates a genuine interest.<\/p>\n<p>And I was willing to put in the time. There was my relatively respectable\u00a0<em>Upstairs Downstairs<\/em>\u00a0fixation after I moved into my parents\u2019 house after college, when I\u2019d spend my days crouching by the mail slot, waiting for the red Netflix envelopes to arrive with my fix. Even now, I see those weeks in 1970s BBC yellow. Less defensible was the obsession with the Australian soap\u00a0<em>McLeod\u2019s Daughters<\/em>, which could only be watched (a) during the day and (b) on Lifetime. This one crept up on me. Did I enter a\u00a0<em>McLeod\u2019s Daughters<\/em>\u00a0contest to try to win a trip to the outback? Maybe. Let\u2019s just say that when the booby prize, a faux-silver cowboy-boot key\u00a0chain, arrived in the mail, it felt like a wake-up call.<\/p>\n<p>But by any measure, the nadir came in the summer of 2005. I know the date because it was the one and only season of\u00a0Wayne Newton\u2019s<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0433288\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Entertainer<\/em><\/a><\/em>, which aired on E!. Wayne Newton\u2019s <em>The Entertainer\u00a0<\/em>was part of the spate of copycat programs that followed the early success of\u00a0<em>American Idol<\/em>, and the talent-show premise was similar. Ah, but here was the twist: <em>The Entertainer\u00a0<\/em>was not restricted to singers\u2014it sought to give exposure to all kinds of Vegas-style razzle-dazzle. As such <em>The Entertainer<\/em>\u00a0was composed not merely of singers, but of ventriloquists, magicians\u2014sorry, \u201cillusionists\u201d\u2014and comedians, too, all vying for the grand prize: opening for \u201cMr. Vegas\u201d himself. (Apparently Wayne Newton is called that, though I\u2019m not sure by whom.) <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In the grand tradition of such programs, the contestants\u2014each of whom was given a nickname like The Showstopper, The Sexy Diva, The Magic Man, or The Ice Queen\u2014also lived in close proximity to one another. There was some low-grade flirtation between an aspiring singer (The Country Girl) and The Joker, a prop-comic. One guy, I think he did impressions, halfheartedly tried to mess with people\u2019s heads. There was always some kind of challenge: putting on a lounge act, throwing together a wedding, working as a team to mount a full-scale show. (I distinctly remember a manic and disorganized rendition of \u201cCelebration\u201d from the finale of that one.) Wayne Newton\u2014looking like a walnut-stained baby-doll in a Roy Orbison wig\u2014presided over everything. He\u2019d often impart wisdom\u2014\u201cthe lounge show is the soul of Las Vegas\u201d\u2014and when someone was on the chopping block, he\u2019d imperiously demand, \u201cEntertain me!\u201d At which point the contestant had a chance to win a reprieve, as from an arbitrary monarch.<\/p>\n<p>The show was premised on Wayne Newton\u2019s status as a showbiz legend; by dint of contractual obligation, madness, or brainwashing, all the contestants seemed to subscribe to the view that Newton was an unquestionable luminary. Their awe when they saw his house\u2014Casa de Shenandoah, with its \u201cseven-hundred-year-old piano\u201d\u2014was matched only by their enthusiasm for the macabre rendition of \u201cDanke Schoen\u201d he croaked out in episode three.<\/p>\n<p>One arc concerned the two-episode rise and fall of a human beatbox (nom de guerre: The Wild One) who was initially perceived as the one to watch. But then he had some kind of vague existential crisis, swigged cheap vodka from a plastic handle, and let his team down in the wedding challenge. Wayne Newton\u2019s wrath in this case was swift and terrible to behold. \u201cMr. Newton,\u201d began the Wild One. \u201cI respect you more than any man I have ever met\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s enough!\u201d thundered Newton. \u201cYou are <em>not<\/em> the Entertainer!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the end, The Showstopper won. I see he has a MySpace and is singing on cruise ships now.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not the point. I didn\u2019t care who won. The show drew me in partly through nostalgia\u2014in this case, for the old Vegas, the one now subsumed by Celine and her troupes of sinister dancers. And as with any fourth-rate reality program, the cravenness of it was of course a draw. Most of all, perhaps, I needed the painless dose of responsibility. If\u00a0<em>American Idol<\/em>\u00a0made people feel involved in a great enterprise, I liked the sense that I was the only person in the world bothering to tune in to <em>The Entertainer<\/em>. It felt like an obligation, a trust, even. And maybe I wasn\u2019t so wrong to feel burdened; Wayne Newton has since filed for bankruptcy, and Casa de Shenandoah\u00a0is currently on the market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I need to, I can date my periods of depression by the corresponding enthusiasms for terrible TV shows. Enthusiasms is maybe the wrong word: let\u2019s say commitment to. Now, at the best of times, I can be sucked into watching almost any show\u2014give me a marathon and I\u2019m yours for the next twenty episodes, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[15896,513,5468,7447,15897,15898,54,15899,15895],"class_list":["post-78959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-bad-tv","tag-depression","tag-las-vegas","tag-reality-tv","tag-show-business","tag-showbiz","tag-television","tag-the-entertainer","tag-wayne-newton"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why I Loved Wayne Newton\u2019s \u201cThe Entertainer\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on how she dates her periods of depression by corresponding enthusiasms for terrible TV shows.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Danke Schoen by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 3, 2014 \u2013 If I need to, I can date my periods of depression by the corresponding enthusiasms for terrible TV shows. Enthusiasms is maybe the wrong word: let\u2019s say\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-03T20:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-02T16:26:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Danke Schoen\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-03T20:00:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-02T16:26:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\"},\"wordCount\":860,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"bad TV\",\"depression\",\"Las Vegas\",\"reality TV\",\"show business\",\"showbiz\",\"television\",\"The Entertainer\",\"Wayne Newton\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\",\"name\":\"Why I Loved Wayne Newton\u2019s \u201cThe Entertainer\u201d\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-03T20:00:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-02T16:26:38+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein on how she dates her periods of depression by corresponding enthusiasms for terrible TV shows.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/danke-schoen\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Danke Schoen\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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