'America's Got Talent' recap: Auditions finally wrap up

'America's Got Talent' recap: Auditions finally wrap up

On its final night of auditions before heading to Las Vegas to cull contestants in the next round, "America's Got Talent" gave us a hodgepodge of leftovers from the various stops it made this season â€" from Tampa Bay to Austin, Texas; New York to Los Angeles, St. Louis to San Francisco.

The result was a strange mix mostly made up of the weird and the wacky, with a few legitimate talents tossed in to hold our interest, capped off by a startling appearance by the offspring of two Olympic track-and-field luminaries.

Let's just start with that last one: Mary Joyner, a 21-year-old singer from Los Angeles, just happens to be the daughter of Florence Griffith-Joyner (a.k.a. Flo-Jo), the U.S. Olympic runner who set two world records in 1988 that still hold today and then tragically died in 1998 at age 38, when Mary was only 7. Mary's father is no slouch either: He's Al Joyner, who won gold in the triple jump at the 1984 Olympic s.

When the singer revealed her glittery athletic legacy, Howie Mandel asked her, "So will you be doing track and field for us this evening?" No, she said, she'd charted her own path as a singer. And she sang compellingly enough for Howard Stern to comment: "I've sat at home and watched this show every season. Some people give me goose bumps and some don't. You had me in 30 seconds. I thought you did a tremendous job."

Mandel insisted that Mary bring out her father, Al, who was weeping in the wings (as some of us were at home), to hear the good news that his daughter was headed to Vegas. Al jumped up and down when he heard the news. In this case, he seemed to be going more for height than for distance. His daughter, however, may go far.

Other talents included:

Lil Starr: A 6-year-old dancer who performed tap at auditions but said she knew many other types of dance, and made the world's best faces as she energetically hoofed it. "You're really, r eally good. You know that?" Mandel asked her, prompting an adorable affirmative response. Sharon Osbourne said she was "on fire" and "unstoppable," though Stern was less impressed, giving her a "gentle no." He was outvoted by Mandel and Osbourne, however. And by the way, if Lil Starr wins the million-dollar prize, she's spending it on "more headbands."

787 Crew: This colorfully mohawked, all-male dance crew from Puerto Rico set out to show America that it has a shot at the win. "I love the outfits. I love the showmanship. I love the attitude," Mandel said, adding that it was both "dangerous" and "exciting." "I saw stunts or tricks or moves that I had never seen before," he said. Stern and Osbourne loved it too. But the best moment was when Mandel assured them that, though they had scrounged to pay their airfare for auditions, the show would pick up the tab for Vegas. Very sensitively handled, Howie.

Jacob Williams: My favorite act of the night, this 23- year-old comedian showed all the signs of disaster before going on, but his cracklin' dry jokes and deadpan humor gave me a few good chuckles. In fact, I'm still laughing at his Twitter/megaphone joke. "You're amazing, and people are going to remember you.... You have a career ahead of you, young man. It's very exciting," Mandel enthused. Stern called him "spectacular." Yeses all around.

I'll spare you the video of the indolent swine named "Smooch Piggy," pictured above. (It was an animal act only Osbourne could love.) But the buxom woman named Trish who got onstage with some trumped-up rap routine only because she wanted to meet Stern â€" and ended up slow dancing with him? Feast your eyes …

What did you think of Monday night's acts?

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