Most of us have been dragged to a karaoke bar at some point in our lives.

After a few too many glasses of the evil amber ale, some of us have even found ourselves on stage, screeching along to a truly noxious song like Celine Dion’s Titanic torture “My heart will go on and on and on …”

Or maybe warbling the words and mimicking the dance moves to Abba’s Knowing Me, Knowing You (the year was 2001, the place was Vietnam and no one there knew me, people!).

But most of us have the good sense to confine our efforts to anonymous dingy pubs in foreign countries, and stop short of humiliating ourselves by displaying our lack of karaoke talent on television.

I say most of us because a few amateur karaoke singers foolishly decide to take to the stage in front of a national audience on Channel 9’s Singing Bee (Sunday nights, 6.30pm).

Now up until I caught my first glimpse of this show a couple of weeks ago, I thought National Bingo Night was the worst show on television. I was wrong.

Singing Bee makes National Bingo Night look like an intelligent, high-quality production.

Channel Nine’s website says it all: “The rules of the game are simple: you don't have to sing it well, you just have to sing it right.”

The aim of the game is for contestants to sing the lyrics to popular – and I use that term loosely – songs without getting the words wrong.

A live studio band and professional singers start the song, and the contestants have to stumble their way through the rest of the lyrics. Make too many mistakes and you’re out, but if you’re the last screecher standing you could win $50,000.

The theory behind song choice seems to be the cheesier the better, with most of the music featured being pre-2000. And best of all, we have to watch an annoying American host, who I can only assume was given the job because no Australian was prepared to take it on.

Last night I watched a woman who identified herself as a radio station employee massacre The Foundations’ 1968 hit Build Me Up, Buttercup, while a mum/shop assistant did a version of I Go to Rio that would have Peter Allen spinning.

In the end the winner was a fuller-figured bloke who, to be fair, didn’t have a bad singing voice, though his hip thrusting dance moves made me a little nauseous.

When his accurate rendition of Oasis’s Wonderwall won him $20,000, he squealed: “I think I’m gonna wee!”

Fortunately, he didn’t … and he went on to scoop the $50,000 pool with more ill-advised hip thrusting to Tom Jones’ Kiss.

Good for him, but I lost 30 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back again. Still, it made the three finalists on Australian Idol look bloody brilliant.

Click here to watch an episode of the American version of Singing Bee and here to see a video of what could be the worst ever stadium karaoke performance. But be warned: these videos could shatter your computer screen.

— SUZANNE KEEN

Have you seen Singing Bee? What do you think of the show? Would you consider displaying your karaoke talents on national TV for the chance to win $50,000?