Tag Archives: joke entries

Cookie Fonster’s Eurovision 2012 Thesis (Semifinals): A Barrage of Electronic Dance Soup

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Intro Post

< 2011 Final | 2012 Semifinals | 2012 Final >

In exactly one month, I leave on my first flight for my Eurovision trip. I was already excited for it, but now I’m way more excited because I’ll be meeting a friend there.

Introduction

For Eurovision 2012, Azerbaijan brought the contest to the easternmost place it’s ever been: its capital city of Baku. The semifinals and final began at the usual 9 PM in Central European Summer Time, which was midnight in Azerbaijan.* One thing I’ve learned about Azerbaijan is that the country is obsessed with showing off its sports arenas. Baku frequently hosts Formula One races and football/soccer championships, and they even bidded to host the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. Knowing this, it’s no surprise Azerbaijan wanted to win Eurovision so badly—it was a perfect opportunity for the country to show itself off.

Although Baku had several arenas available to host the contest, Azerbaijan chose to build a new one for Eurovision called the Baku Crystal Hall. This came with controversy because local authorities demolished homes and evicted citizens to make way for the arena. While Azerbaijan used Eurovision to show itself off, some fans, TV hosts, and even contestants used it to draw attention to the country’s human rights controversies, particularly involving LGBT citizens and Armenians. On the flip side, Iran directly to the south condemned Azerbaijan for hosting an LGBT-related event, which Iran considered “anti-Islamic behavior”.

The EBU had hoped this contest could provide a glimmer of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but it unfortunately didn’t work out. Azerbaijan temporarily lifted their ban on Armenian citizens for this contest and Armenia originally was going to participate, but they withdrew on March 7 (the contest was from May 22 to 26). Poland also withdrew due to financial troubles, whereas Montenegro returned after last participating in 2009, making for a total of 42 participants.

After Eurovision 2010 and 2011 opened up voting right when the songs began, this contest reverted to the usual 15-minute voting time window, although the 2010-11 system will return with some extra liberties for the rest of the world in Eurovision 2024. I watched both semifinals with German commentary.

* Azerbaijan is three hours east of Central European Time. They used daylight saving time from 1997 to 2016, so after that the contest started in Azerbaijan at 11 PM.

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Cookie Fonster’s Viewpoints Regarding Eurovision 2011 (Semifinals): The Most Boring Year Since 1992

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Intro Post

< 2010 Final | 2011 Semifinals | 2011 Final >

Yesterday, Czechia released a revamp of their 2024 entry “Pedestal”. The song has grown on me and the new section makes it feel a lot more complete. Still far from my favorite of the year, but I’d now be happy if it qualifies.

Introduction

As one of the most populous countries in Europe, Germany has a rich assortment of cities that could feasibly host a modern-day Eurovision. Reportedly 23 cities expressed interest at first, then eight publicly declared they’d like to bid, then four officially applied: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Hannover. Eventually Düsseldorf won the right to host the first Eurovision Song Contest in reunified Germany.

Eurovision 2011 came amazingly close to featuring the entirety of Europe. At a glance, the only gap in the map of participants seems to be the Czech Republic, but a few others are missing: Montenegro, Luxembourg, a few microstates, and Kosovo who probably can’t join Eurovision unless Serbia recognizes their independence. Austria, Hungary, and San Marino all returned after skipping the last one or two years, and most excitingly of all, Italy finally rejoined Eurovision after last participating in 1997. Perhaps Germany’s victory last year convinced Italy that it was worth taking part.

After not doing postcards last time Germany hosted in 1983, it’s refreshing to see some proper German postcards. These postcards are a lovingly crafted tour of places in Germany, and they each end with the contest’s slogan “Feel Your Heart Beat!” written or spoken in each country’s language.

The rules this year were mostly the same, except the Big Four were now the Big Five: the UK, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. This means that the grand final would consist of 25 countries if a Big Five country won last year, 26 countries otherwise. As with last year, the voting opened shortly before the songs began. We have 18 non-qualifiers to review in this post, and as with last year, Peter Urban’s German commentary to guide us. The first semifinal has a special guest commentator, TV host Steven Gätjen.

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Cookie Fonster Gushes About Eurovision 2009 (Semifinals): A Bittersweet Journey to Moscow

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Intro Post

< 2008 Final | 2009 Semifinals | 2009 Final >

As of this writing, we now have all 37 artists confirmed for Eurovision 2024! The only songs we’re yet to hear are those from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Israel. I’m mostly super excited about the contest this year, but I’m salty about the song that Germany chose and, more importantly, worried about the drama that Israel’s presence will cause.

Introduction

If you know anything about Russia, it won’t surprise you that when they won Eurovision in 2008, they immediately decided to host in Moscow. It’s their capital city, it’s by far their richest city, and it’s designed to leave foreigners with a positive impression of Russia. Knowing recent events, it’s bittersweet to think that 15 years ago, Russia was on good enough terms with the rest of Europe to host the gayest musical competition in the entire world. They even designed the most complex and glamorous stage we’ve seen in any contest yet.

The contest this year was tantalizingly close to featuring all of Europe. Slovakia rejoined after last participating in 1998, San Marino withdrew, and only Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, and Monaco were still gone. It didn’t seem like a tall order for the EBU to get these four countries to return, but unfortunately, the dream of Eurovision with a complete map still hasn’t been achieved. In addition, Georgia caused some drama by sending a song protesting against Vladimir Putin, which the EBU rejected. This meant that Georgia withdrew and the contest had a total of 42 countries. Still, it’s amazing how close Eurovision came to featuring the whole map from 2008 to 2011.

As with 2008, the contest had two semifinals with ten countries from each qualifying to the final: nine from televoting and one from backup juries. Then in the final, each country’s 1 to 12 points were determined using a mix of jury and televoting (but Norway was 100% jury due to a malfunction). This marked the return of juries to the Eurovision final.

I’m really excited to review this year, because it’s loaded with fan favorites and glamorous in presentation. I’ve always found Russia to be a fascinating country, so it should be interesting—and as I mentioned, bittersweet—to see how they hosted Eurovision. I watched the first semifinal with German commentary, this time commentated not by Peter Urban (who was sick) but Tim Frühling. And the second semifinal with Swedish commentary, by Shirley Clamp and Edward af Sillén. For some reason, it’s always easiest to find Eurovision commentary in Germanic languages.

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Cookie Fonster Rants About Eurovision 2008 (Final): A Headache of Joke Entries

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Intro Post

< 2008 Semifinals | 2008 Final | 2009 Semifinals >

Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2008 consisted of 25 countries: the Big Four, the host country of Serbia, and the 20 qualifiers from each semifinal. Since I extensively discussed the voting system in the introduction to the semifinal, I’ll discuss the hosts and stage design here.

You might think a year this filled with joke entries would have hosts that made exaggerated jokes at every opportunity, like those of 2000 and 2001, but the hosts this year have been professional and charismatic. One of them is the musical genius named Željko Joksimović. He composed a total of five Eurovision entries, the third of which is the Serbian entry this year. The other is a Serbian TV host named Jovana Janković. The two hosts entered a romantic relationship a few months after the contest and got married in 2012.

The stage design was based on the Danube and Sava rivers, which merge in Belgrade. That was the inspiration for this year’s theme, which is “Confluence of Sound”—nice to have a theme that relates to the host country. I think RTÉ is partly to thank for the pattern of annual stage designs, because whenever they hosted Eurovision in a building more than once, they made sure it looked different every time.

Greece and Ukraine continued their strong streaks this year, scoring third and second place this year. Russia won the contest for the first and only time with Dima Bilan, who scored second place in 2006. I firmly believe Russia won only because of bloc voting and when I review their song, I’ll explain why that is.

Marija Šerifović must have thought it’d be boring to perform “Molitva” unmodified at the start, so instead she started with a Eurodance version! I’m not a Eurodance fan, but this is a fun reimagination and so much more interesting than the usual reprises. Then she sings a rock ballad in English, which is clearly more of her typical style.

Since Eurovision 2008 is such a pain in the ass with copyright, I’ll continue watching with Norwegian commentary on the NRK website. I can’t speak Norwegian but I can pick up on words here and there, since I’ve read so many translations of songs in the Scandinavian languages. Plus, the commentator I’ve been watching (Hanne Hoftun) has a cute voice.

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Cookie Fonster Rants About Eurovision 2008 (Semifinals): The Year of Rainbow Barf Staging

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Intro Post

< 2007 Final | 2008 Semifinals | 2008 Final >

We’ve heard 29 songs out of 37 (36 if Israel withdraws) for Eurovision 2024! I plan on releasing “Unorganized predictions and hopes for Eurovision 2024 (Volume 3)” within the next few days.

Introduction

If you thought Eurovision 2007 had an overly huge lineup of countries, then 2008 was even crazier. All countries from 2007 returned except for Austria, and two made their debut: the oft-forgotten microstate of San Marino, and the controversial Caucasus country of Azerbaijan. This meant that singers representing 43 countries would go to Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) and battle for the grand prize. The map of Europe was now complete, except for two microstates (Liechtenstein and Vatican City) and the disputed country of Kosovo, which declared independence three months before the contest. The only new country that has joined since then is Australia.

The 2007 semifinal had 28 countries compete for ten slots, which was a death sentence for any country without enough bloc voting partners. To prevent this from happening again, the EBU overhauled the format for 2008. From this year onwards, only the Big Four and the host country qualified straight to the finals, whereas the other countries were split across two semifinals. These 38 countries were divided into six pots based on bloc voting patterns, so that half of each pot would go to semifinal 1, and the other half to semifinal 2. The participants in semifinal 1 were not allowed to vote in semifinal 2, and vice versa. The Big Four and host country could only vote in one semifinal each: as decided by a random draw, Spain and Germany voted in the first one, and the UK, France, and Serbia voted in the second. All participating countries got to vote in the final.

Ten countries were picked to qualify from each semifinal: the top nine were determined from televoting, and the tenth using backup juries. But in the grand final, the results were once again pure televoting (except San Marino, which used backup juries). Though the voting would get tweaked in later years, especially regarding the presence of juries, the two-semifinal format has remained the same. After the problem of too many participating countries began in 1993, the EBU finally found a good solution. Some fans aren’t happy about the Big Five rule, but otherwise the two-semifinal system works like a charm.

For some reason, uploads of the 2008 semifinals are tough to find online, especially those with commentary. NRK came to the rescue and has the entire broadcast on their website with Norwegian commentary, so long as I have a VPN set to Norway. Expect a lot of “the Norwegian commentator said something about ABBA and Bobbysocks”. Actually, I’ve been referring to commentators by their names as of late, and her name is Hanne Hoftun.

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Cookie Fonster Researches Eurovision 2007 (Final): Triumph for the East, Trainwreck for the West

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Intro Post

< 2007 Semifinal | 2007 Final | 2008 Semifinals >

Happy leap day 2024! Today begins a three-day storm of new songs for Eurovision 2024. On March 3, the day after the song storm ends, I’ll probably write “Unorganized predictions and hopes for Eurovision 2024 (Volume 3).” Here is volume 1 and here is volume 2.

Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2007 was dominated by eastern Europe, both in participants and in points. Aside from the Big Four and the host country of Finland, the only other western European finalists were Ireland and Sweden. The highest scorer of these seven was Finland, at 17th place out of 24. To me, these results show that western Europe needed to wake up and take the contest more seriously, but a lot of viewers took the results to mean Eurovision had deteriorated to bloc voting hell.

The top three in this contest were all Slavic countries. Serbia won the contest with a native-language song, continuing the streak of new countries winning but breaking the streak of winners in English. The winner is renowned among fans, but not as iconic as the runner-up from Ukraine which might be my favorite Eurovision song of all time. (EDIT: After finishing this blog post series, I’ve decided “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” is in fact my favorite Eurovision song of all time.) Russia continued their strong streak with third place, no doubt helped by their overpowered bloc voting.

We don’t have an exuberant opening act this time. Lordi simply reprises their winning song, first with an opening film then live on stage, then the hosts give a snappy introduction and the contest begins. We’ll be guided by Terry Wogan’s British commentary, in his second last year of the job.

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Cookie Fonster Researches 2007 (Semifinal): A Near-Complete Map, but at What Cost?

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Intro Post

< 2006 Final | 2007 Semifinal | 2007 Final >

Introduction

Seven cities in Finland submitted bids to host Eurovision 2007, and the winner was unsurprisingly its capital city of Helsinki. Most of the bidding cities were on or near the southern coast, but two cities far north offered to host—one was even north of the Arctic Circle! The northernmost Eurovision host city remains Bergen and will probably stay that way unless Iceland wins. In case I forget to mention it later, Lisbon (2018) is the westernmost Eurovision host city, narrowly beating Millstreet (1993).

This contest featured the second largest number of countries to ever participate at Eurovision, a whopping 42. Hungary and Austria returned after skipping 2006, Monaco left the contest till the present day, and four new countries joined: Czechia, Georgia, and the newly separate countries of Serbia and Montenegro. This contest featured almost the entire map of Europe! The only significant gaps were Italy, Slovakia, and Luxembourg. A participant map with so few holes is unthinkable these days.

The huge amount of countries raised a problem: the semifinal consisted of 28 countries and was going to an absolute bloodbath. That’s the largest number of countries that have ever competed in a single night of Eurovision. All ten qualifiers were from eastern Europe—we’ll see for ourselves if that was a coincidence. I’ll review the 18 non-qualifiers in this post. Argh, I’ll have to wait so long before I get to “Dancing Lasha Tumbai”. Oh, and I watched this semifinal with German commentary.

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Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Final): The Victory of Halloween Costumes

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Intro Post

< 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final | 2007 Semifinal >

Introduction

As with the last two years, the grand final of Eurovision 2006 (in Athens, Greece) featured 24 songs, ten of which had qualified from the semifinal. Overall the semifinal qualifiers scored much better than the finalists: ten of the top twelve (all but 4th and 9th place) had to get through the semifinal first. This was an early hint that the one-semifinal system needed an adjustment.

This year featured two changes to the voting. First, the countries voted in randomized order, which had only been previously done in 1974 and would be done every year up to 2010. Second, to speed up the voting sequence, the spokespersons announced only their eight, ten, and twelve points. Unfortunately, some spokespersons still were keen on hogging up their time in the spotlight, so this shortened the contest’s runtime only by 23 minutes. In all fairness, a lot of time was taken up by the extravagant opening acts. Greece did not hold back with those!

Finland scored their first ever victory this year with the iconic “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. In second place came Russian’s Dima Bilan, who would win two years later. And in third place was a Balkan ballad from Bosnia and Herzegovina, their highest result to this day. This is the second of four years in a row where all Big Four countries scored in the bottom half: the highest was Germany at 14th place. Although at least one Big Four/Five country has reached the top ten since 2009, these countries still have a less than great reputation in Eurovision (except Italy).

I couldn’t find the German commentary for this year, so I went back to Terry Wogan’s British commentary. I expect him to go extra-snarky once the voting begins. One more random fact: this was the first year in which the host country used the euro as their currency.

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Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Semifinal): Begin the Trio of Jokefest Years

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Intro Post

< 2005 Final | 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final >

Germany selected their Eurovision entry for 2024 yesterday and I don’t like it at all. I wrote my thoughts on that entry here and I would say more about the new native-language entries here, but it’s better to save that for a separate post.

For now, just know that all those semifinal posts are very quick to write. Makes sense because they’re always about 10 to 15 songs, like all the early Eurovision contests. Then I always get a big burst of motivation to write about the grand final and the cycle continues.

Introduction

It’s fitting that the title of this post uses a word of Greek origin (chronicles), because Eurovision 2006 took place in Athens, Greece. Some politicians argued that since Athens got to host the 2004 Olympics, a different Greek city deserved to host Eurovision, but the new infrastructure and stadiums built for the Olympics meant Athens was perfect for the job.

Three countries who participated in 2005 withdrew this year: Austria because their broadcaster was pissed, Hungary due to financial issues, and S+M (Serbia and Montenegro) after having a song ready due to a storm of political drama, though strangely enough S+M was still allowed to vote this year. This means that until 2023 introduced rest of the world voting, this was the only year where a non-participating country could vote in the contest. Serbia and Montenegro became two separate countries just a month after this contest. Armenia made their debut this year, which began the Caucasus trio and continued the 2003-2008 streak of years with newcomer countries. I’ll also continue my streak of watching German commentary this year.

To present the contest, the broadcaster ERT picked a Greek singer named Sakis Rouvas (who competed in Eurovision 2004 and 2009), and a Greek-American TV host named Maria Menounos. If you’re an American fan (like me) and feel weird about being this obsessed with Eurovision, just remember that your country is home to one winner (Katrina Leskanich) and two hosts (the other is Daniela Ruah). If you’re wondering whether Maria Menounous can speak Greek, she can! Can one of my Greek commenters tell me how well she speaks the language?

I wondered why the opening film for this semifinal was so short, then I got my answer. As an opening act, Greece showed the world how happy they were to win the contest with an extravagant medley of iconic Eurovision songs (which included Dschinghis Khan) performed by people dressed as Greek gods. This over-the-top campy presentation style is still what pops into most people’s minds when you say “Eurovision”, but I’d argue the contest has evolved in personality since then—more polished and professional, but thoroughly camp when a song demands it.

This time the semifinal had 23 songs, so we have one reject and 13 non-qualifiers to get through.

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Cookie Fonster Recaps Eurovision 2000: The (Second) Year of Radio Guitar Pop

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Intro Post

< 1999 Review | 2000 Review | 2001 Review >

Introduction

The first Eurovision contest of the new millennium was the fourth of six (soon to be seven) in Sweden, the second of three in Stockholm, and the first of two in the Globe Arena (now called the Avicii Arena). It featured the biggest in-person audience thus far, a whopping 13,000. From this point onwards, ten to twenty thousand became a typical Eurovision audience size, though Denmark would try outdoing it a year later.

The lineup of participants now featured four countries that would automatically qualify every year to keep the contest afloat: the UK, Germany, Spain, and France. This rule was implemented before the 1999 contest but applied to 2000 onwards. I suspect this was done because the EBU didn’t want to risk France’s relegation, which would have happened in 2000. The Big Four/Five rule was controversial then and it’s just as controversial now. Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Portugal, Poland, and Lithuania were relegated, while Finland, North Macedonia, Romania, and Switzerland returned after missing last year. Russia came back after two years of absence and Latvia made their debut, which bumped up the number of participants to 24.

Latvia made a strong debut with third place, Russia scored their first of four second places, and much to the audience’s surprise, Denmark won for the first time in 37 years with “Fly on the Wings of Love”, sung by the oldest singers to win the contest.

Thanks to a sponsorship by Microsoft, this was the first Eurovision contest broadcast on the Internet, which meant Americans could finally watch Eurovision live without going overseas. (EDIT: Two months later, a friend of mine showed me an RTÉ video that proves Eurovision 1997 was also broadcast online.) Unfortunately, not all viewers got to enjoy the contest in full. The Netherlands cut their broadcast short because of the Enschede fireworks disaster which killed 23 people, then re-broadcast the contest a month later.

I’ve heard that every year when the Eurovision hosts are revealed, some fans scream “can Petra Mede come back instead?” Since I’ve seen snippets of her amazing hosting, I’m having the same thoughts as I sit through the presenters’ cheesy, blatantly scripted gags.* At least I have Terry Wogan with me to snark about them! Well, not literally, because he died in 2016.

* Credit where it’s due, the Swahili part got a laugh out of me.

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