Diametrically opposed sentiments reign when watching Netflix’s new “Pop the Balloon Live.” On one hand, it’s dope that husband and wife team Arlette Amuli and Bolia “BM” Matundu nabbed an unpublicized yet likely substantial bag when Netflix picked up the rights for its version of their Black-famous YouTube show “Pop The Balloon or Find Love,” which nets millions of views per episode. Small Black business come ups are always the move.
On the other hand, the first episode of “Live,” which aired Thursday evening (April 10), is so irrepressibly awful, I won’t know how to explain it to the aliens when they come. It was so terrible, the only reason I turned it back on after shutting it off after the first 12 minutes is to write this piece intelligently.
The show is a fusillade of f***kery that manages to do everything, everywhere wrong, all at once. The problems start with celebrity host Yvonne Orji, who is meant to bring her irreverent, virginal humor to the proceedings, but most of her “jokes” land like a fart in church. In contrast, Amuli is happy allowing her contestants to deliver the personality on her “PTB,” limiting her flair to a cute lil’ mic twirl and that shimmy she does when she lands a match.
Then, there’s the cast of singles, who are all well-dressed and range from decently to preternaturally attractive. A significant aspect of O.G. “PTB’s” charm is that several of its contestants look like they either rolled out of bed to come to the show or their friends should be arrested for allowing them to go on camera dressed as they are. And they damn sure don’t all look like they had modeling contracts at some point.
There’s also the jocular tone of the whole proceedings — as if no one is really there to find a boo and it’s all for play-play. The several reality TV stars ruin the whole damn thing: The first single guy is a jackwagon named Johnny Bananas who was on MTV’s “The Real World” and who goes out of his way to be the most inauthentic human being next to the guy whose job it is to maintain President Donald Trump’s hair.
So many other aspects of “Live” just don’t hit. The post-round “confessionals.” The live audience and Orji responding to every single balloon pop. The vibe that everyone is there for exposure — which, in fairness, is a staple of the O.G. “PTB,” where 85 percent of the participants are “entrepreneurs.”
“Live” is yet another example of an authentically Black product getting in the hands of folks with money who bastardize and gentrify it to a pulp. It’s like what would happen if “Verzuz,” the beloved pandemic-era music competition which featured Black artists in every episode, pitted Taylor Swift against Katy Perry.
In fact, the racial dynamics on “Live” are cringy out the gate: One of the non-Black women pops on Bananas and says, “My physical type is Black,” to which he, a white boy, responds, “I’m Black from the waist up.” And there’s the blondest woman on the panel “rapping” and gyrating while insisting she grew up in Michigan listening to…Chingy. (So, “Right Thurr” on repeat her whole childhood?) Also, the spirit of Dr. Umar Johnson flowed through me every time a white woman popped on a Black male single.
We simply don’t have to worry about this shit on Amuli’s “Pop the Balloon.”
Arguably, the O.G. “Pop The Balloon” isn’t actually good for Black folks in how it lays bare the interminable, tired 50-50, “what-do-you-bring-to-the-table”-head ass conversations — that’s a discussion for a different rant. But there’s something charming about the low budget, somewhat ratchet nature of Amuli’s version: The whole thing looks like its shot on a Samsung Galaxy phone and paid for with a few orders of Zaxby’s, and we love it.
Fortunately, Amuli will continue her Wednesday YouTube show, hopefully maintaining the stripped-down, all Black vibe with which we fell in love. Because my guess is, with the seemingly universal early disdain for “Pop The Balloon Live,” it’s gonna go the route of the “Good Times” Netflix “remake” very damn soon.