A behind-the-scenes look at pageant expert Cy Frakes and his crew as they guide aspiring beauty queens.

Good lord, what a train wreck. The Dad in the Ed Hardy shirt with the yellow corvette was such a douche. Mid-life crisis much? He and the beastly mother deserve each other.

That being said, they really should make the daughter get a part-time job to help pay for the pageants. Maybe then she'd take the training a little more seriously.

I caught the last 20 minutes of this. Totally agree about the dad. And the mom wasn't much better. Classy crew, that bunch.

I did like the pageant team, though.

After listening to Caitlin during the interview prep, I am convinced that her Miss Teen USA flub wasn't just a one time thing. She is clearly NOT the sharpest tool in the shed. I am in school therefore I can't read a newspaper? Or log onto the Internet? Or turn on the TV/Radio? To me, she is just another example of a pretty girl who thinks that her looks will get her through the day. The sad part, so far it's worked.

I felt so bad for the other girl. Her mom was a complete wench.

Kayleigh was pretty and I don't think she was fat but did need to maybe tone up. I agree that her Mom had no real room to talk about weight but sitting with her and chowing down on a steak and the works does not really help encourage healthy eating. Maybe if they would have gone out for a walk together or went to the gym it would have been good for their relationship. I don't think she will ever make to Miss USA.

Catlin was just a few fires short of a Happy Meal. Wonder what her major is?

Cyrus is the Devil.
Poor Kayleigh is being brutalized by her parents, she says she doesn't want to do it anymore, she's hysterical and you know all he can think about is how he's about to lose business.

…which would explain why he kept going on and one about how he lurrrved Mama Kayleigh while she consistently ripped her daughter a new one, interfered with the coaching, and did her very best to sabotage the girl. He lurves their $$.

But I was highly entertained. I can't decide if I'd rather see this one or Kane's pageant gown designing show. Both would be good.

Caitlin was just a few fires short of a Happy Meal. Wonder what her major is?

I wonder where she goes to school that they "don't get newspapers there." She lucked out with the interview question because if they had asked her about anything related to current events she would have repeated her previous performance.

I think the bottom line is that Kayleigh just doesn't have the body type to do well in pageants. And after a point there is not much she could do to change that fact.

She referred to herself as short multiple times, and she looked short compared to the other contestants on stage. (including having short legs/arms and almost zero neck)
But besides being short - her body type is just different from all the other girls.
Kayleigh is not the typical tall willowy type that floats across the stage - more the athletic body type.
Even if she was strict with her diet and faithfully ran/worked-out every day ... she might weigh less, but would never be able to shape her body to be like most pageant winners.
Never have the long graceful neck, long legs +arms, and lithe appearance that seem to be the ones crowned by the judges.

Wish she could see this and pursue other activities, instead of continuing to beat herself up about things that can't be changed.

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I enjoyed this.

I actually quite liked Kayleigh (sp?). I thought she was very pretty and definitely not fat. Like she said, she's never going to be a size zero. Her parents were AWFUL. Just horrific. Her father is a walking cliche of a dumb ass redneck. And the mother!!! I wanted to reach through the TV and strangle her. I actually laughed out loud at the end when she said she thought her daughter was the most beautiful girl in the world. Sure you do, Mom. Sure you do.

Caitlin is a moron. We knew that in 2007 and it was confirmed again last night.

This past weekend I was watching "My Super Sweet Sixteen" on OnDemand (shut up) and saw the episode with Margaret Ann. She was being coached by Cyrus and bought her sweet sixteen dress at Dazzles. She was also in the pageant last night wearing the same dress she wore on "Sweet Sixteen."

When the one guy called Caitlin precious, I was slain. "Precious" and "bless her (his) heart" are nice ways to insult someone.

Kayleigh is gorgeous. Is she skinny? No. As a member of the tall and skinny clique, I'd love to let her know the grass isn't greener on the other side. Kayleigh's mama needs to shut her trap. She hardly looks like a Karl Lagerfeld muse her durn self. Quit giving your daughter a complex!

Here's an idea mom, if you want your daughter to lose weight HELP HER!! Go home and fix something healthy together instead of eating out. Ask the waiter to not bring the bread to the table, don't order an appetizer instead of having your face light up when the waiter mentions it. UGH! Sorry, just needed to vent.

One word: "cattis-trophees"

Caitlin went far in the pageant business but it was her inability to articulate a basic sentence that brought about her downfall. instead of going back to spending time and money on pageants, why not take a speech class and subscribe to a newspaper, Time/Newsweek etc and actually learn about current events?

Unfortunately, they don't get newspapers at her college!

Not quite. Precious is a term of endearment in the south and only occasionally has multiple meanings as say "aloha" does in Hawaii. Generally it is HIGH praise. True, "Bless Her Heart" does means we love her to death, but God almighty she's clueless. Sometimes the expression is Bless Her Little Heart. Meaning REALLY stupid.

Caitlin does attend college, at Appalachian State, in Boone NC. It's hardly a bastion of academia and is very remote. It's entirely possible she doesn't get a newspaper there.

Bless her heart.



Not me. I can't wait to see more. I just hope Kayleigh's momma is only the tip of what they have in store, 'cause she was one hot mess. I just loved how her jowls got all swingy the madder she got and how Kayleigh enjoyed tormenting her. Add the dad who's a roofer, but drives a Corvette and it's the perfect southern cocktail.

I like this show. Caitlin is a lost cause, but I give her props for giving it another try.

I liked Kayleigh and Cyrus and the staff too.

I suppose it's true in the tight-knit pageant world, but the rest of us? Didn't know you from Adam, Mr. King Cyrus.

The way he kept nattering on how Caitlin's 2007 mess was an embarrassment to him and his business was annoying. Apparently it's all about him. I hated how he basically guilted/bullied her into doing another pageant when she didn't want to.

Kayleigh is a lovely girl in Regular World but let's face it, she is overweight for pageants. She's never going to get anywhere with such a low score in the swimsuit portion. Her parents are wretched people, but I can understand their impatience with spending thousands of dollars on something their daughter purportedly wants more than anything but isn't willing to put in the work to attain.

Man, I felt for Kayleigh. She called herself 'The Fat Girl' and even Cy said she was eating herself out of her home. True, she wasn't thin, and perhaps even overweight by pageant standards, but those kind of distortions set her up for the passive-aggressive behavior she showed with eating out and working out.

Calling a small child precious is a form of endearment, but where I come from referring to an adult as precious would be an insult.

I think Caitlin may well be "book smart" but clueless when it comes to common sense and the ways of the world. She doesn't know about those things because they simply do not interest her.



Going off topic here, but I must defend my alma mater! ASU is nationally known for its academic programs and is listed in U.S. News and World Report's 2010 America's Best College Guide. In the past few, years gaining admission to Appalachian has become increasingly difficult, with last year's freshman class having a mean GPA of 3.87. Miss Caitlin may not have seen any newspapers there, but Boone is not all that remote.....driving time to Charlotte and Winston-Salem are two hours or less.

hmmmpff....that itsreal502 must be a Carolina fan or something.....bless her heart

I would hazard a guess that Caitlin might see in a newspaper if she ever accidentally wandered into the library! Or even a convenience store! That girl is as dumb as a box of rocks!

Nearly all college students have access to high speed internet, so she doesn't even have to find a physical newspaper. I was surprised that she didn't know that colds and the flu are caused by viruses so antibiotics are useless as treatment. What did she learn in high school? I did feel kind of sorry for her though when she went to the pageant and other girls where shocked that she was competing. They were kind of bitchy and it was kind of clear that Caitlin had become a joke.

I had mixed feelings about Kayleigh. Her mother was awful, but it sounded like Kayleigh had been competing for awhile without any success. Her mom should of told her upfront that she was too short and didn't have the right figure for pageants. Ripping off the bandage that Kayleigh will never be Miss USA seems a lot less cruel than constantly telling her she is fat. Also, the family didn't seem to have the money for such an expensive hobby.

Hey those Ed Hardy shirts and Corvette payments don't come cheap.

I don't know much about pageants but wouldn't the Carolina Queen be considered a step down after having competed for Miss Teen USA? Or do pageant people just enter anything? I felt bad for Caitlin after the first flub but man, this show didn't do anything to redeem her. She came across as straight up stupid.

I personally couldn't get over how very staged all the drama seemed, especially with Caitlin. Right, it was just a coincidence that she happened to randomly drop by as they were filming the first episode of the show! That heart to heart when Cyrus convinced her to give it another shot was BS! If they really had that conversation in earnest, it was way before they shot the episode, and they just re-created it for the cameras. It felt fake fake fake!

And Caitlin is an idiot, period. There is no excuse to be so out of touch with what is going on in the world, or even in her own damn country. You want to be Miss USA someday? How about showing some interest in what is currently happening in the USA, for starters. I really wonder what the hell she is studying in college, because she doesn't seem to be the least bit interested in making any intellectual effort whatsoever.

Did anybody else thins that Kayleigh did not cut her hair as much as she had her cheap-looking extensions taken out? That being said, she was gorgeous, and though her body type is quite different form the typical beauty ideals of the pageants she is NOT FAT, dammit. In fact, 50 years ago, I bet her curves would have made her pageant competitors green with envy.

I think I'll keep watching for the snark factor... The world of pageants is so weird and foreign to me, that I can't help being fascinated, no matter how fake I find the people that populate it.

I have been to Boone, NC (home of Ap State which Caitlyn attends) and want to verify that one can in fact find a newspaper. It had a rep as a bit of a haven for credit card hippies/ trustafarians when I was in school about 2 hours away in the 90s.

I do give the girl credit for being athletic as opposed to simply dieting down to a pageant weight but her interview prep was brutal. To be honest I watched this show because of her. She is definetely a youtube/google celebrity.

I watched with a friend and she made the same bad weave comment as a previous poster in regard to Kayleigh. Am I the only person in America that has a hard time taking a straight man in an Ed Hardy shirt seriously (I'm looking at you Papa Corvette, John Gosselin and the supposed 26 year-old from RHONJ.) Also I am from SC and have seen short girls win pageants- its hard to explain the social acceptablility of pageants to the outside world so please do not judge my witnessing of pageantry. The female campanion stopped TiVo as Kayleigh did her turns and honestly she is a big girl. I am sure she would always be larger/curvier but she really is carrying an extra 15 lbs that have nowhere to hide in a swimsuit.

The big question is- why bother with this pissant pageant when Caitlynn seems to be more the Miss USA type and Kayleigh wants to be Miss America. If Kayleigh is talented enough she could overcome swimsuit with interview and the talent competition but this pageant had neither.

If I were Donald Trump I would gove Caitlynn a bye into the top 10 of Miss USA. Becasue you know darned well at least 15-20% of America would be glued to their TVs to see what falls out of her mouth next.

Great point. These small town pageants all seem fixed, so why not Miss USA or Miss America? They seem like they'll do anything for ratings. Doubt that Caitlin would bite, however. She's dumb, but not that dumb.

Does Miss USA even have an interview portion? I thought they were the more, for lack of a better term, T&A-themed choice. (As opposed to Miss America, which requires some semblance of a brain and talent - the sholw scholarship thing.)

I couldn't get over how staged the whole, "Caitlyn! Whatever are you doing here, at this pageant, that you presumably entered and paid for before the application deadline and therefore would have a number and name tag for? We are SO SHOCKED OH MY GOD!" bit was. Ridiculous.

She's a beautiful girl but good Lord, she is dumb as a box of hair.

Speaking of boxes of hair, I too figured that Kayleigh (Kaleigh? I can't remember how she spelled it) had gotten her ratty extensions removed as opposed to cutting a foot of hair off. Her new hair was a vast, vast improvement and extremely flattering.

Her weight situation reminds me of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader show - they told a girl once that she was clearly thin in the commonly understood sense of the word, but she wasn't going to qualify as thin within the universe of the Cowboy cheerleaders. Same problem with Kaleigh - she's perfectly thin, but she's not pageant thin. And her mother did have a point there - if you're going to play the game, you have to follow the rules, even if they are stupid.

Kayleigh's got a great figure and isn't fat but I wouldn't call her thin either. She seemed to have more than a thimble sized portion of brain so I hope she doesn't get roped into more contests. Her parents would give me an ulcer.

Wow- Kayleigh looked like a stripper tonight. I guess her level of humility is inverse to her weight. And I'm fearful the skies will open as I type this- but I rather like her mother tonight. That's Mama's baby. My one question is why does she need new hair and a new dress for every single event. If she'd carried her gun during swimsuit I would have cheered.

And the two girls in the peanut pageant- good heavens. I loved the explanation of 'she's the girl who will shake every hand, kiss every baby and show up at every event.' I will at least give Cyrus credit for diferentiating between festival and regular pageant judges, Misses, big towns and small. John Shelton Reed has nothing on him.

Aloha!

Never saw this show before tonite - and as "Toddler's and Tiaras" has become a guilty pleasure - thought this would fit in nicely with my guilty viewing - lol!

But honestly the whole thing is so staged and scripted - I mean, all of these are to a certain degree - but this show really had the appearance of being completely fake - and while I enjoyed the over the top Cyrus - who can act apparently - the other folks who are pulled into this don't have the same ability to "fake it" to seem spontaneous and real IMO. The brunette especially was almost painful to watch in her segments at the market and talking to herself in the mirror - yikes!

Had to take this one off my TiVo list I'm afraid!

Wasn't Margaret Ann in one of the pageants last week? Would she not have been coached by Cy and the gang at that one?

Yeah, I noticed that too. And just in general, it seems like such a conflict of interest to know your coach is also coaching your competition.

I've watched this both weeks now, and honestly I find it more upsetting than entertaining. At least two of the moms have been flat-out abusive, destroying their daughters' self-esteem before our very eyes. It's fucking depressing.

I think that Cy coaches many of the girls in these pageants. On his website, several of the other faces we saw are listed as his "winners." And that would make sense, actually, that he would send his girls to the same pageants.

Speaking of Kayleigh and those pictures for her portfolio......I'm just wondering what kind of "modeling" she does? Those seemed a little racy for a lookbook.

I actually really like this show. It brings the crazy. I will certainly be DVRing.

I was hoping this show would be better than that hot mess Oklahoma dressmaking show, and it was. I enjoyed the pageant team.

My friend is a professor at Appalachia State. Believe me, it's no backwoods, redneck college.

I'm a Mississippi girl, and in that part of the southern world, calling someone "precious" is not an insult, regardless of age. It's true it's used mostly for younger people, but it still surfaces when grown women are talking about other grown women or men.

Appalachian State isn't a backwoods, redneck college. But let's just say that they will accept just about anyone. If you were a very academically inclined student---you would not be challenged at this university. The pageant girl who is enrolled there is pretty typical of the kids I know who attend school there. Kind of a scary thought. LOL.

This show is too contrived. Like Shorty didn't know she was being deployed BEFORE the show started?? Dumb. Are Cyrus and Shane romantic partners or boyfriends/husbands? They are pretty snarky with each other. I liked when one of them said that the only running he'd done was towards a bar.

Ok. I have tattoos on the top of both of my feet like the one Stella got (ahh, the bad judgment of an 18-year old)...yes, it was stupid for me to get them because now I'm an attorney...but even I knew not to get them right before doing anything where I'd need to be on my feet for any length of time. That is one painful tattoo!

LOL at the woman yelling "Pretty Girl! Pretty Girl!" Shane and Cyrus are funny in their commentary.

I so LOVED tonight's episodes! Shayne and Cyrus had me howling with their sniping at each other. I thought the episode with the Army family was really sweet, and I felt so sad when the mom told her children that she was being deployed again. I can't imagine how scary that must be for them. The daughter was beautiful and not too made up.

The second episode was hilarious with all the commentary on the pageant contestants. "Pretty girl! Pretty girl!" I *loved* their comments on glitz pageants. SUCH a good episode!

lol, when your daughter reaches a certain age, maybe beyond 8, you need to pinky swear that you'll never yell, "Pretty Girl!" out loud at a pageant again.

The girl, Ashley, that Cy picked from the audience was perfect for the challenge. I love it that her mother cried.

How did Stella ever walk in those heels with that brand new tattoo; Ouch! What a bad time to get that tattoo, maybe her dad needs to keep following her around for awhile..lol

I hate to admit I teared up while watching the episode with the army family. And I actually really like Cyrus and the other pageant coaches. Shane was cracking me up in this episode. "Just put a pack of cigarettes and a martini at the finish line and i'll be fine." Haha!

For the love of God, please tell me that the Creative Sportswear was a set-up. The heavy-set girl clogging? The girl vogueing in leopard print? There are no words.

Compared to rest of the contestants, from a purely physical standpoint Stella was in a class by herself. Tattoo aside, the "No kidding" remark the commenator made about Stella's love of working out was pure hater-ade.

I know! In what pageant is the commentator allowed to basically snark the contestants!? Stella should have won.

Cyrus and Shane are the new Edina and Patsy. I adored their bitchy repartee in last night's epi. The glitz pageant participants were solid comic gold.

I used to know GuyRex in TX -- they were pageant-training masters. They ran a very organized ship, and Cyrus seems to have the same smart business head and sense of organization as those guys.

To the poster that wondered about the deployment timeline, military folks often get very little notice before being deployed. There are stories of them coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan and being sent back a few weeks or months later.

I'm officially in love with Shayne. (I know it's really "Shane," but in Pageant World you need a "y" in your name, and he's earned one!) I mean him snarking on Cyrus with "The most athletic thing I've seen you do is your hair" and the comment about how he's only run from the car to the bar. And Barbara Freakin' Walters. I want to party with that guy!

Stella is a cautionary tale for parents. If you don't allow them some control in their own lives, they will run wild once they're out of your sight. The girls whose lives got micromanaged in high school are the out of control party girls in college. A tattoo is a permanent "Fuck off, Dad."


The Army mom and stepdad are some fine looking parents. I'm used to the Toddlers and Tiaras trainwreck parents.

I agree--either a reality show subject is interesting enough to stand on its own, or it isn't. I don't know why the producers feel they need to inject transparently fake "drama." A mother being deployed to Iraq and the father having to fill both parental roles is dramatic enough. Focusing on how uncomfortable the dad was with "booby pads" and putting him through "pageant dad boot camp" trivialized what the family is going through. Suggesting that if dad forgot the baby wipes then Jahira would have to drop out of pageants and never become Miss America was just silly; obviously she (and every other contestant) have very little chance of becoming Miss America anyway.

I enjoy reality shows like Ace of Cakes that simply focus on professionals doing their jobs. I'd also like to know a lot more about the economics and politics of the pageant world. Cyrus's recruiting event at the mall was about getting clients. OK, so what's the fee structure? How much does it cost to be a serious competitor? How many clients does he need to have a viable business? What is having winners worth to him? How about his relationship with the pageant staff and judges?

At least the pageant results can't be faked, although from last night's episode, it looks like they're fake enough already.

I agree that it's a dumb, staged show. I actually hugely preferred the dressmaker show. I wish they'd picked him instead (although Shane is hysterical).

How much research would it have taken in front of that open computer screen to figure out that Miss South Dream Queen Supreme was a glitz show? Um - none, considering Cyrus had one of the guys looking it up. Too fake for me. Along with all the painfully staged "drama" of how "If this all doesn't come off perfectly (insert any given trivial situation), I could lose my clients!!"

And I sincerely hope I'm not the only one out there mightily disturbed by a 12-year-old wearing booby pads. Sick.

And isn't it just such a coincidence that there happened to be a handy camera crew prowling the neighborhood where Stella "spontaneously" got her tattoo.

"Pretty girl" parrot-woman was almost enough to redeem both shows, though. Somebody give her a cracker.

OMG, now there would be a couple of great pageant judges!

I have not been able to get "the hair alone weighed 200 Lbs" out of my head all day. That was qulaity snark. And between 'pretty girl' and the girls who broke out the air traffic control and clogging skills I just about fell out. Funny that the most humorous items were not scripted. And yes Shayne- I too was scared.

And WTF in regard to the announcer also being the peanut gallery. I wonder if whoever sponsored the pageant did not have a consulting business of their own because those had to be homer judges.

Lord Love a Duck--Pro Am'ing at age 17? Words do not apply. I will never get that horror out of my mind. Clogging Girl?--placed SECOND????? At 200 pounds?? And what about that SIXTH GRADER who looked 22 at least. The 2nd episode was better than the first 3 combined, times 8.

Can someone tell me if Cy and Shayne are in a relationship??