The 76th Annual Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee is on right now! They’re showing some earlier rounds right now, but the main event will begin at 10AM pacific. For those of you who aren’t spelling bee geeks like me, there was a great article in Salon a few years ago that does an adequate job explaining the Spelling Bee’s appeal :

The capsule summaries of TV Guide tend not to include morsels such as, “After spending three months attempting to memorize the dictionary, Mary misspells lassitude and is sent back to Kansas with only a commemorative watch.” But perhaps they should. As the ESPN ratings attest, that is apparently what we want to see.

Because while the official purpose of the bee may be to determine the nation’s absolute best prepubescent speller, that winning moment only comprises 15 seconds of actual TV viewing. If ESPN wanted to, it could air the last half-hour of the bee and still provide a suspenseful buildup to the winning word, the resulting tears of happiness and the presentation of the engraved loving cup. But instead, that final 15 seconds is preceded by two hours, 29 minutes and 45 seconds of watching kids fail.
. . .
The great thing about all this failure is that it is occurring on a human scale. These kids aren’t screwing up at something spectacular, something we could never even hope to bungle, like scoring the Stanley Cup’s decisive goal or outmotoring Mario Andretti. They’re failing at something most of us botch regularly. When we watch Duane Karcher from Saginaw, Mich., flub the “o” in pergelisol and pinch his features into the facial equivalent of a fist, we are united with Duane and every adult and child watching with us who had no chance of getting it right, either. And, like Duane, we probably don’t know what the word means.

If you’re still not convinced the spelling bee is the most entertaining thing on television, then I highly recommend the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Spellbound”. Or better yet, tape the spelling bee now and invite some friends over to watch it Saturday night (that’s what I do).