Music: {allcanada} Canada Sings for charity

Monday, July 25, 2011

{allcanada} Canada Sings for charity

If your co-workers have hidden talents, it's fair to ask, "Why are these wonderful talents always hidden while their annoying characteristics are on full display?"

Alas, Canada Sings -- which debuts Wednesday, Aug. 3 on Global -- does not endeavour to answer that eternal question.

Instead, Canada Sings takes real-life employees from businesses across the country and quickly trains them to compete against each other as singers and dancers.

"We've done six (episodes) in the first cycle, and this is our own original format, which is really exciting," said Canada Sings creator and producer John Brunton of Insight Productions. "I really think it could work just as easily in Japan or Australia or Switzerland or anywhere.

"It was our hope when we cast this that we'd find a few people in each group who were pretty good. From the get-go, it wasn't a desire to make fun of bad singers.

"It was meant to be a feel-good, heart-and-soul kind of experience and if people were singing for something they really cared about, that would give it a different sense of meaning."

Two teams are featured each week, with the winning squad in each episode awarded a donation to the charity of their choice. Usually the charities have a specific connection to the teams. For example, the Zooper Stars from the Toronto Zoo are competing for the zoo's Animal Health Care Centre.

It probably would have been better to have an "overall champion" at the end. You know, gather the six weekly winners on satellite hookup, replay their performances and have some sort of final vote. But maybe that could happen in a future season.

For now, the Canada Sings judging panel consists of Jann Arden, Vanilla Ice and Pierre Bouvier from Simple Plan.

"People always ask, 'Who's your mean judge going to be?' And it's funny because American Idol just had a huge resurgence and a big bump in the ratings and it was less cynical than it ever has been," Brunton said. "Sometimes the mean judge or the controversial judge or the bad judge, it's a put-on, you know? It's for showbiz.

"We have a diverse group. Jann Arden is one of the funniest women. She has turned down every type of show like this there is, but she agreed to do ours partly because of the whole purpose of it. Vanilla Ice is a phenomenal guy, he's fun. And Pierre brings a whole other thing to the table.

"I just said to our judges, 'I want you to be entertaining, but I want you to be yourselves.' "

That said, unlike other shows, Canada Sings doesn't really focus on the judges, but rather shines the spotlight on the stories and personalities of the participants.

"People think it's just another signing competition, and it's not really," Brunton said.

"It has a little Undercover Boss, a little of this, a little of that. These people care deeply about where they work, about their co-workers and about the contribution they're trying to make.

"It sounds corny, but it's not."