![]() Nasim Pedrad ( Saturday Night Live) was a member of the Spring Sing Company in 2003. Katie Boeck won the Mortar Board Award for Best Solo Entry and the Northern California Alumni Grand Sweepstakes Award for the Best Overall Entry in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In 2007, Jarell Perry and the Ambassadors won the Las DoƱas Award for Best Band Entry. In 2006, Mikey G and Dan from Danville won the award for best duet and Best Overall Entry - the duo went on to form the band, Lady Danville. Past performers from Spring Sing include: Grammy nominated members of Maroon 5, who were defeated in 2000 by Barely Manilow, Tyrone Wells, and the Grammy Award winner Sara Bareilles. According to their website, they are "a group of the most hilarious and creative people on this campus who live for the spotlight and the opportunity to make an audience crack up." ![]() In addition to the talent aspect of Spring Sing today, the overall production has been turned into entertainment with the inception of the Company - a group of UCLA students who perform skits, songs and parodies in between each act as a way of introducing the next act. Each category (save Exhibition) is judged and a winner is selected for each (from which an overall winner is chosen to receive the "Northern California Alumni Grand Sweepstakes Award"). Today, the competition has expanded from its original version of fraternity singing groups, to over 15 artists grouped in 6 different categories (Solo, Duet, A Cappella, Band, Production, Exhibition). In 1986, the UCLA Student Alumni Association took over the event and moved the event to the Los Angeles Tennis Center in 1989, eventually returning the competition back to its previous glory. The first group to win in 1978 was the combined efforts of Sigma Kappa sorority and Alpha Tau Omega fraternity performing a 50's inspired spoof of fraternity and sorority life. The competition peaked in the late 60s and took an eight-year hiatus during the 70s until student and alumni interest revived the event (on campus this time) in 1978. Also added to the mix were celebrity judges and masters of ceremonies - including Ronald Reagan in 1952. During these years, up to 5,000 Bruins, family, friends, and locals witnessed the competition each year. It was then, that Spring Sing gained its popularity and notoriety within the Los Angeles and Orange County area, as it moved to the Hollywood Bowl. During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the competition grew quickly and outgrew Royce Hall. The first of these groups to win the competition was a barbershop trio from the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. In the beginning years, the competition was composed mainly of sorority singing groups, serenading their fraternity counterparts. The competition began with only 11 groups and was performed on campus at UCLA's Royce Hall. ![]() Touted as "UCLA's oldest and greatest musical tradition," the competition brings together UCLA students to perform as solo artists, duets, bands, and a cappella groups in front of an audience of over 8,000 UCLA students, alumni, faculty, staff and celebrity judges. On February 15, 2011, YouTuber MrYaridovich uploaded a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic parody of the original Moonbase Alpha video titled "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Provides a Realistic Simulation of Life in Ponyville", which received over 1.8 million views within 18 months.Spring Sing is an annual music competition held in May at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. On August 16th, Redditor TorpedoJones submitted a post titled "Moonbase Alpha: The Pinnacle of Online Gaming" to the /r/gaming subreddit, which linked to a Moonbase TTS video by YouTuber BenCJoker titled "Moonbase Alpha: The Astronaut Chronicles" (shown below). Within two years, the video received over 1.6 million views. ![]() On July 17th, 2010, when YouTuber motdef uploaded a video titled "Moonbase Alpha Provides a Realistic Simulation of Life on a Natural Satellite", featuring three players using the TTS engine to shout random phrases using the monikers mot, mastergir, and Horatio. DECTalk is also capable of singing by a specific set of instructions based on phonemes and frequencies. DECTalk was made popular by Stephen Hawking and, of course, Moonbase Alpha. DECTalk was a speech synthesizer and text-to-speech technology developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1980s. The TTS engine used in the game is a modified version of DECTalk. Within two years, the video received over 103,000 views and 230 comments. On July 7th, 2010, a YouTube user named ABadFeeling uploaded a video of several players using the game's TTS engine to say humorous phrases (shown at 1:50 below). Moonbase Alpha was released for free download via the Steam digital distribution service July 6th, 2010. ![]()
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