The basics of the show are formatted as a real karaoke machine. Various college contestants compete by singing a popular song (often a pop song) with the music video played at the same time, as well as lyrics playing at the bottom of the screen. At times, there are two contestants that compete together. Afterwards they are rated by the judges on a 1-10 with plastic number signs, the rating number is also the number of points they have earned. Similar to other competitions, the finalists end up in first, second, and third position which depends on the number of points they have earned.
The show began as a special that was extrapolated from the current MTV show Say What?. The original specials were tongue-in-cheek; the hosts even admitted that they thought karaoke was a lame premise for a show. However, the concept turned out to be extremely popular, more so than the show it had originated from.
Broadcast[]
MTV: May 25, 1998 – July 1, 2003
MTV "SWK 2.0": May 12, 2007
Hosts[]
Dave Holmes 1998-2000
Teck Holmes 2000
Joey McIntyre 2001
Danielle Fishel 2003
Mikey Day 2007
Inventor[]
A spinoff of the MTV show Say What?