By Candice Montenegro, Contributor
INQUIRER.net

WHO could forget the infamous Alyssa Alano rendition of “Kiss Me?” (Or should I say, “Keys Me”) The lines “strike up the band and make the fireflies dance / silver moon’s sparkling” became something like “strike entebend end make d parflays dance / sleeve and mouse is barkley.” You’ll think, where the heck did those words come from, and you realize that she murmured something that sounded like the original lyrics.

And we all laugh until our stomachs hurt, but truth is, we’re all guilty of doing that at least once. How many times have you made up song lyrics when you didn’t know the actual ones?

Now there’s a new game show that tests how well you know the words of a song. “The Singing Bee,” originally an NBC game show, is now in the Philippines and is aired on ABS-CBN.

Think karaoke meets spelling bee; six contestants will battle it out as they test their knowledge of correct song lyrics. There are four elimination rounds. The first one is “To Be Continued,” where contestants have to fill in two to three words of a particular line in a song. The next one is “Jumble Bee,” where jumbled song lyrics are flashed on a screen. The final two rounds are called “Showdown” and “Final Countdown,” which are both pretty similar to the first round except contestants need to fill in longer lines in a song.

Whoever’s left standing in the final round will move on to play for the P1-million jackpot prize.

Cesar Montano hosts the show, and you’d think it’s only because of his versatility and his inclination to music (and if it’s worth mentioning, his album released in 2000 called “Subok Lang”). In the first episode, he made it clear that he’s perfect for the show because his name is Buboy. Buboy-og. Bubuyog. Bee. Yeah, you get the drift.

Aside from the contestants, “The Singing Bee” also showcases a live band called the Bandlebees (headed by perennial musical director Mel Villena) and a group or gyrating dancers called the Honeybees.

Unlike the hundreds of singing competitions that we’ve seen before, “The Singing Bee” does not require crooners or divas. In fact, even people who can’t carry a tune to save their life are welcome to join.

Song selections are random, and the songs range from OPM classics and recent pop hits, to foreign chart toppers and, of course, the usual singing contest songs.

It’s a pretty entertaining show, especially for us Pinoys who are suckers for singing. At least this one puts a twist to the usual singing competitions we see on TV (and we won’t have to sit through the nth rendition of “This is the Moment”). It’s fun to watch contestants who are lucky enough to get a song that they know well. Others who aren’t so lucky get a really old song that they’ve probably never heard of, and the entertainment comes from watching them make an intelligent guess or pull off an Alyssa Alano.