On a dreary, wet day in Manhattan, a bit of light dazzles from the 31st floor of a building in Rockefeller Center.
Here, the judges have gathered to promote the launch of the 20th season of America’s Got Talent. The summer staple returns May 27, bringing a new season of magicians, dancers, contortionists, singers, and stand-ups. The line-up often includes acts that sound like they went out with vaudeville. Yet the show keeps chugging along, returning with more contestants, hopefuls, and just…more.
This season, judges Simon Cowell, Howie Mandel, Mel B., Sofia Vergara, and host Terry Crews can each award two golden buzzers that guarantee a slot on the live shows.
Since its June 21, 2006, premiere on NBC with Regis Philbin hosting, AGT has spawned more than 70 different versions, broadcast in 194 countries and territories. Antarctica is the only continent without a presence.
Cowell’s happy march toward world domination began when he was microwaving dinner in his London flat and heard a dreadful noise.
“I had this channel on as this girl was singing, ‘Get Here,’” he says, breaking into a huge smile. “It didn’t stop, and it was really bad. I just thought this is so bad, so boring, I’d actually rather watch a dog, like a talented dog, because I love dogs.”
“And then I thought, ‘Why don’t we make a great show where we could have dogs performing as well as anything?” Cowell continues. “Literally, I just thought in that moment, why don’t we just take all the rules off and just go, anyone can come on the show; wouldn’t that be fun? Because YouTube was just happening, and I was seeing lots of funny stuff on YouTube, and I thought, ‘Wow, this could be hilarious and great.’ And it was that moment. So, whoever that person was, thank you!”
YouTube and Got Talent were made for each other. No matter how insufferable your co-worker is, watching a clip of dogs doing a conga line in the middle of a work day somehow helps. Of course, it’s ridiculous, that’s the point. The bigger point, though, is it’s just simple fun. Cowell mentions the symbiotic relationship between the show and the platform.
“It’s interesting how one sort of feeds the other, because sometimes we will see an act online,” he says. “They’ll come on our show. They may have 2,000 followers, and then overnight the clip goes back onto YouTube, and that clip can go to 3, 4, 5, 100 million, a billion views. So, it’s just crazy, the sort of ecosystem within the world right now. If you get on our show, you get that extra rung on the ladder. You have that focus for a moment of all the millions of people who are online.”
The stats supplied by Fremantle, the production company behind the franchise, are impressive: Got Talent, which holds the Guinness World Record as the most successful reality television format, has been seen by more than 1 billion viewers globally. Across all platforms, it’s notched more than 36 billion video views.
As the judges and Crews go on a publicity blitz, Cowell is the perfect host, ensuring folks have what they need, even fetching water for a reporter. He’s doing interviews partnered with Sofia Vergara, who manages to look ethereal even when doing nothing more than tapping away on her phone. A savvy businesswoman who co-founded a talent agency for Latinos (among other endeavors), Vergara shot to fame playing Gloria on Modern Family. Still, little in Vergara’s background suggests that judging a talent show would be a natural fit.
“When I got offered the job, I said, ‘What the hell am I going to do on AGT?'” Vergara says. “I’ve seen the show a million times, but it’s like, what do I know about judging? About music? What do I know about magic? What do I know about anything? It’s like, why? How am I going to judge these people? But then I kept watching more of the show and understanding, like, I think my part of the show needs to be saying what I think, which is kind of like what the people are thinking. So, it’s not like you need to be an expert, but to say what it’s making me feel.”
Vergara acknowledges that judging the last five seasons taught her, “I’m going to try to be fair, because, yeah, sometimes you don’t like the person right from the moment they walk in. You’re like, this person is so annoying, I don’t want to give him anything,” she says. “But then he starts doing this thing, and you have to be fair. You have to be fair.”
Returning judge Mel B., Scary Spice from the Spice Girls, is a veteran of many miserable auditions.
“God, we would be weighed when I was a dancer,” she recalls, adding, if you inched above the weight limit, “Then you’d be fined. They can’t do that anymore, but that was acceptable.”
She’s all but glowing today, thrilled to return to the judges’ table she left in 2018. Since, she divorced, went public about being abused, and wrote a memoir, Brutally Honest. Although she judged last year’s America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League, featuring fan favorites from past seasons, this is her return to the mothership.
“I was away for seven years, and a lot happened in that time,” she says. “I moved in with my mum. I had to build everything up from scratch again. I was very much on a healing journey. So, when they asked me to come back, it was like, this is perfect timing, because I know what I’m coming home to. I am not living a double life anymore. I’m not trying to hide a dirty secret. I’ve put it out in the open. I’m helping survivors. I’m speaking out and speaking against domestic violence, so it couldn’t have happened at a better time. And then I was like, ‘How much are you going to pay me?’”
As sunny as Mel B. is, and as gently as she lets down hopefuls, she won’t placate her colleagues about an act on Tuesday’s show. Just look for the sexy, septuagenarian saber dancer (there’s only one). Her backup dancers are game and seem to be having a great time. But are they $1 million good?
That remains the prize these years, and Howie Mandel has been there for 15 of them. Initially, he was unsure about this gig.
“I was oblivious,” Mandel says. “I didn’t really understand the assignment. I was a big fan of the show; I love the talent show. I watched for the first four years. I love anybody that comes out and tries anything great or, you know, even not great. I’m fascinated by people showing up and standing in front of strangers to show them what they’ve thought of. But then, when they said, ‘Do you want to judge?’ I didn’t know. I didn’t really understand. And it was a really tough adjustment to stand there in the room. It’s really easy from your couch to go, ‘I don’t get it. Or what was that, or how did they think of that? Or Wow.’”
Wow, as anyone who tunes in knows, can be for a child who opens her mouth and sounds like Aretha. Or, wow can be for a mime with psycho eyes. Some wows were for naked chefs who performed something resembling an act while covering their penises with frying pans.
There’s a segment this season where a man touches his friends’ nipples with a frozen stick, and they accompany the action by playing harmonica. Naturally.
How and why does someone discover they can do this?
The judges laugh as they contemplate this existential question. In the days leading up to the season opening, there was a lot of laughing and an ease among the judges, even though Vergara and Mel B. recently met for the first time. There’s also excitement about this landmark year, which offers another perspective of the show.
“It is time to show the viewers a lot more of the process,” Cowell says. ”I really, really, strongly believe that. So, we decided to put way more cameras everywhere, and to really let the viewers see every perspective, whether you are a cameraman or you’re working on the crew, whether you’re a contestant, whether you’re a judge, whether you do what Terry does as he hosts the show, to really immerse yourself in the process.
“So, when I saw the first episode back this year, I went, ‘Wow, this is the closest I’ve ever been to what it genuinely is like,’” Cowell continues. “And also, for me to see what it’s like to be the contestant that follows the Golden Buzzer, which is, oh God, when everyone’s gone crazy. I wanted the audience to be able to do more than look through the keyhole. It was time to really just open the door and go, ‘We’ll show you everything.’”
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