Watch: Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People Includes Honey Boo Boo
December 13, 2012 by Hollywoodite
Last week, Barbara Walters confirmed several people who had made her list of 2012′s Most Fascinating People. It was an eclectic list, to say the least. And it included entries from Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie, Olympian Gabby Douglas, and seven-year-old Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson from TLC’s eponymous Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (one of the year’s breakout shows that averaged highs of nearly 3 million viewers-per-episode only to be outdone by TLC’s Breaking Amish that got over 3 million and shows like A&E’s Duck Dynasty that got 6.9 million viewers earlier this month).
Walters defended adding the child to the list that includes politicians and Olympians (reality stars like the Kardashians have made the list before), saying: “It’s a love story. It’s a very sweet, loving story. A lot of people will say, ‘For heaven’s sake, this is ridiculous, this is a child at 5 or 6 years old entering beauty contests.’ But the relationship between Alana and her mother… that’s the story, the two of them. It’s very touching. Honey Boo Boo is not an obnoxious little girl. She’s sweet and loving with her mother and loving with her sisters [Jessica, Lauryn, and Anna]. And now Anna has a new baby, and the baby has [three] thumbs… but so what? It’ll make you smile.”
And now there’s a clip of Thompson’s segment on ABC News. Along with the transcription below.
Transcript for Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People: Honey Boo Boo
“For the past few years, we have featured the biggest names in reality TV. Two years ago, we got down with Jersey Shore. Last year, we kept up with the Kardashians. And this year… Heaven help us. Here comes Honey Boo Boo.”
You could tell at the 2012 Georgia’s Most Beautiful Girl Pageant who was going to be a star. Not the one who got the crown, but her, Alana Thompson, discovered on the show Toddlers & Tiaras. You may know her by another name.
She made it up herself. Honey Boo Boo Child. She is the star of the most talked-about reality show in the country…(June passes gas) “MAMA!” Here comes honey boo boo. The show is a close-up look at the daily life of her family…
“I gotta blow my nose.” (blows nose loudly) Where the cameras never, and I mean never, stop rolling. (sneezes) “CAN WE… (sneezes) CAN WE… (sneezes) CAN WE C… (sneezes) (laughs)” HONEY BOO BOO LIVES in McIntyre, Georgia…
(whistle blows) NEXT TO THE TRAIN TRACKS. “Yes, we are rednecks.”
That’s her mother, June. “We got too much estrogen in the house. Need some, uh, testosterone.” (Glitzy squeals)
HER FATHER MIKE… “Sugar bear!” Known as Sugar Bear… “I’m not dressed uptight, uh, unless it’s a funeral.”
And her three sisters. The four all have different fathers. (Alana) “PUMPKIN’S THE CRYING-EST, Anna’s the pregnant-est, and Jessica’s most fat, like my ol’ belly.”
“Chicken!” Honey boo boo is precocious… “I gotta make me look sexy.”
Energetic… “Ohh!” And above all, uninhibited.
The 7-year-old and her family… “AAH!” (laughs) HAVE BECOME A NATIONAL PHENOMENON.
People are fascinated by their eating habits… (June) “THIS WHAT WE CALL ROADKILL.” Their weight-loss regimen…
“If you fart 12 to 15 times a day, you can lose a lot of weight.” Their pageant preparations… “Make sure you get underneath the fat roll, mama.”“I’m gonna win the big title, baby!” And her made-up vocabulary. “You better redneckognize!”
“I like to get down and dirty, redneck-style.”
People tune in to laugh at them, though the family is clearly in on the joke. But if they’re not having their kids chase middle-class markers of success, like S.A. T. Scores and internships, they also seem cheerfully free of the anxiety that is now part of modern parenting.
“Do you even have any idea what you’re doing? Hell, no.” And it’s not so hard to see something familiar in their lives. – via ABC News.