Rock the Cradle

My Thursday night guilty pleasure is MTV's "Rock the Cradle." Their irresistable premise: Take singing superstars like Bobby Brown, MC Hammer, and Eddie Money and pit their offspring against one another in a performing competition.

We're an audience that spent the last seven years watching "American Idol" and absorbing what makes a talent show works. Here's a new twist to a singing contest. Doesn't each generation want to outdo the generation that came before?

The ones with the least talent are sent packing pronto. Two were let go tonight -- Lil B. Sure, son of Al B. Sure, and Landon Brown, son of Bobby Brown. Both were good-looking guys, but they just didn't inherit that singing gene, unfortunately.

The judges call a spade a spade. "You don't have the star quality," "You still seem very awkward to me" and "That was painful!" are actual quotes. And the judges say this to their faces even with the hopeful's superstar parent in the audience.


In "Rock the Cradle," audience voting that makes sense! The contestant with the highest judges' scores has immunity. The audience votes for everyone else and the one with the lowest scores is eliminated. Tonight I'm voting for my two favorites:

Early frontrunner (and I predict runaway winner) is Jesse Blaze Snider (pictured above), son of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. I saw Dee Snider on MTV Cribs years ago and he was intelligent, likable, and obviously loved his family immensely. He's a savvy performer who raised his son to be just like him. Jesse Blaze is a 100% entertainer with star potential.

My other favorite is dark horse Olivia Newton-John's daughter, Chloe Lattanzi (above). She's unique, an artist, and will have a career despite what anyone says.

The remaining contenders include Crosby Loggins, the spitting image of his dad, Kenny Loggins. Crosby has his fans, but for me he (as Jesse Blaze puts it) "rocks the cradle to sleep."