WOO-HOO FOR ‘BOO BOO’!
Fans flock to TLC’S pageant princess as this 7-year-old wraps up her sassy first season
Honey Boo Boo came — and she conquered. The first season of precocious 7-year-old Alana Thompson’s breakout reality series, “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” comes to a close Wednesday night, and there’s no doubt that she’s found a devoted — if not fanatic — following.
Love or loathe her, little Alana knows how to get people talking. The pageant princess landed on Mitt Romney’s radar, has been mocked on “Saturday Night Live” and reportedly has Kris Jenner feeling “threatened.”
No skin off Alana’s self-proclaimed redneck, though.
The show’s a hit and the cast is reportedly in talks with TLC to more than double their salary for a second season.
“I can’t possibly imagine that there wouldn’t be a second season,” says Robert Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University’s Center for Television and Popular Culture. “By episode two, every standup comedian was talking about it.”
Last week’s episode pulled in 2.2 million viewers, making it one of TLC’s highest-rated shows.
Critics slam the show, claiming it exploits poor folks and plays up Southern stereotypes, but Alana gives the impression she’s in on the joke.
“There is that degree of mockery,” Robert Thompson says. “There is that degree of laughing at that kind of behavior. But what makes that show work is that kid is a precocious little kid. If she gets into the right classroom, her chances of ending up at Harvard are a lot better than anybody on ‘Jersey Shore.’
“She seems to be really smart, and she’s really fun to watch,” he adds. “Stuff that comes out of [Alana] is funny, amusing, unexpected, and I would go so far as to say, occasionally original.”
Alana packs plenty of sass into her 7-year-old, finger-wagging, headbobbing body. “Some of her catch phrases are indiciative of a pretty sophisticated understanding that she’s playing a role and she knows she’s going to get a response when she says certain kinds of things,” Thompson says.
“And she knows
how to say it, and she’s got her little hand gestures and all the rest of it. She’s actually quite an accomplished young performer.”
The show, which has its one-hour season finale Wednesday at 10 p.m., depends mostly on lowbrow, sometimes disgusting, humor. The McIntyre, Ga., family farts at the dinner table. They attend the Redneck Games and compete in the mudpit bellyflop. They buy their junk food at auctions and dig for clothes in the Dumpster.
Alana’s mom, June Shannon, freaked out even diehard fans with her “forklift foot.” She keeps it covered with a sock ever since it was run over by a forklift.
When June’s daughters pressure her to remove her sock at a waterpark, she finally gives in, revealing a swarm of gnats around her big toe. Alana screams, “That’s disgusting.” Yet, even the most sophisticated New Yorkers are drawn to the show.
“The reason the show is like crack, is because it gives a complete insight into an entirely different world and one that we as city-dwellers have never lived in,” says Jaclyn Hummel, a Boo Boo super fan who works in entertainment advertising.
“I am city-born and -raised,” adds the SoHo resident, “so this just gives me a new understanding of what the world outside city borders is like. And [Alana’s] mother is just as much of a train wreck as her daughter.”
That’s just what has most people hooked. Alana’s family also includes sisters Lauryn (Pumpkin), Jessica (Chubbs) and Anna (Chickadee), and dad Mike (Sugar Bear).
“I am completely drawn to see what’s going to come out of their mouths, what they’re going to do, and how the other half lives,” says Hummel. “That makes people who live in the city sound like we feel like we’re better, when that’s not necessarily the case.
“It’s just very entertaining to sit back, decompress, not think about work and bills and just watch these people flop around in mud, say ridiculous things and feed their child Mountain Dew.”
Hummel has been a fan since clips of Alana’s appearance on “Toddlers & Tiaras” went viral last winter, leading to the spinoff.
At 26, Hummel is part of the demographic of women ages 18-49 that have made the show the No. 1 program on ad-supported cable in its time slot week after week.
The series’ fourth episode beat cable news and nd broadcast network’s k’s individual coveroverage of the he Republican can National al Convention among adults 18-49.
Alana a didn’t let et it go to her head. d. When innformed of this by a CBS Atlanta reporter, she shouted, uted, “No, I didn’t.”
Of all the questions the hosts of “Live! With Kelly and Michael” could have asked Mitt Romney during a recent appearance, they inquired whether he preferred Snooki from “Jersey Shore” or Honey Boo Boo. Romney chose Snooki.
“I don’t really pay attention to the negativity,” June told the Daily News. “Everyone is e entitled to their opinion.” Nicol Nicole (Snooki) Polizzi is a fan of Alana and her crew crew. “I honestly love the fam family Honey Boo Boo ha has,” she Tweeted.
“I appreciate Snook ki’s support for our s show and wish her th the best with the new b baby,” June tells Th The News.
Not everyone is a fan tho though. RadarOnline repo reported that Kardashian clan m matriarch Kris Jenner hates “H “Honey Boo Boo.” “To say K Kris is not a fan of ‘Here Comes H Honey Boo Boo’ is an understatement,” a source told Radar. “She thinks the Thompsons are classless, unlike her family, and can’t understand why America is so fascinated by them.”
“Kris is starting to feel threatened by [the show’s] success,” adds the source.
Jenner denied the report, telling E! News that she doesn’t know who Honey Boo Boo is and has never seen her show.
The TLC show is not quite as popular as E!’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which pulled in 3.6 million viewers last week.
After the success of the first season, Alana’s family is reportedly negotiating a second season and seeking $10,000 per episode, up from $4,000 for season one.
That’s still not a lot by reality TV standards. Some of the “Jersey Shore” cast members are reportedly earning $150,000 per episode each, plus bonuses.
TLC has yet to confirm a second season of “Honey Boo Boo” and doesn’t comment on compensation. A source denies the cast has asked for more money. Alana doesn’t have any endorsement deals lined up yet, but may be marketable in the future. “Her appeal, fortunately or unfortunately, a lot of Americans relate to that family, as offbeat as they are,” says Karen Post, author of “Brand Turnaround.” “So there’s a market that’s going to resonate to anything that she does. When I think of her, I think of Walmart!”
Robert Thompson compares the show to “The Osbournes” and estimates it’ll last about as long:
“That family also was doing crazy things and saying bizarre things and required subtitles when Ozzy talked. But it also had that kind of warm fuzzy pleasure of a family that really seemed to like each other and get along.” Jaclyn Hummel, a superfan of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," watches the TLC hit in her Manhattan apartment. June helps her daughter put on makeup for a pageant.