2009

 

• Hosted in: Kyiv, Ukraine

• Won by: The Netherlands – Click clack by Ralf Mackenbach

EBU execs might have been helpless seeing that Junior Eurovision simply refuses to leave the Eastern Bloc. Until one of them said “If you can’t beat them, join them!”, hence the bizarre decision to host the contest in Ukraine. Though with more Western countries sneaking in – albeit one by one with Sweden first in line – this would be the first time in FIVE years that a country outside the former Soviet Union won the contest.

I’m an association football fan. When I started writing reviews about Junior Eurovision I’d never thought I would talk about the sport when doing so. Armenia’s Luara Hayrapetyan performed “Barcelona”. No, not the Freddie Mercury song, I meant a pop song about football with performers donning FC Barcelona kits. Coincidentally, the team’s front of shirt sponsor at the time was UNICEF, who is now the JESC’s former partner (maybe). Though because of that and copyright issues, their shirts show the adult Eurovision logo instead. But also, why Barcelona, among other things? Sure they won the Champions League earlier that year, in fact one goal from the final, presumably Messi’s, inspired her. But some Chelsea fan from that era told me they didn’t deserve it… However, it seemed like so too the audience loved UEFAlona anyway. They finished joint 2nd. Wait, joint second?!

Yup, that unhinged football song just got tied with an upbeat Russian pop. Ekaterina Ryabova with the song “Malenkiy prints” aka “The Little Prince”. Though evident by the performance itself, with saw Ekaterina popping out of two sets of benches facing each other, it has nothing to do with the novel at all. Both Armenia’s and Russia’s entry scored 116 points. And because of a lack of a tiebreaker (which would’ve seen Armenia come out on top with 3 “douze points” compared to Russia’s 2), both countries tied for 2nd place. Actually both of them would’ve shared the win had it not for the Macedonian spokesperson giving 10 points to the Netherlands.

The scoreboard itself became an absolute mess when you consider there’s ANOTHER tie for 6th place. Sweden, after being missing in 2008, returned with a heartfelt Swedish ballad with sincere emotions and a tender delivery from Mimmi, the youngest of the talented Sandén sisters. They found themselves level with previous’ year’s winner Georgia, who decided NOT to send another Bee-themed song, but rather a light and melodic folk-pop. Once again, a traditional Eurovision tiebreaker would see Georgia coming out instead with 1 deux points compared to Sweden’s zero. Rough time to be Swedish, isn’t it? Unless you watch the adult contest instead, which, oh wait, their results are rough too!

There was also the presence of the contest's first disabled participant, Andranik Aleksanyan, hailing from our hosts Ukraine, who doesn't have any legs, and had to be escorted on a stylized fruit cart carried by two adults. While this is NOT the Got Talent series (you know...), Ukraine finished 5th. But if you think about it, that's actually the best result from a disabled participant! I'll give him credit.

Let’s not talk about who tied and talk about who didn’t tie. Belgium has a sweet, bubbly love song with playful yodeling—charming vocals and an irresistibly cheerful arrangement, our hosts has a quirky, upbeat ethnic-pop tune—memorable for its unique sound and spirited performance, and who can forget the fun and quirky twin duet with playful charm that is Francesca & Mikaela from Malta?

In the end though, thank god we didn’t see another 1969-esque tie, and thank god we never have to see another former Soviet country winning the whole thing again, for the first time since Maria Isabel in 2004, Ralf Mackenbach, with his song and equally thought-out refrain compared to last year’s “Click-clack, clickety-clack”, brought the trophy back to the West, finally! Some peace. Let’s just hope the contest itself get out of the former USSR ASAP- oh no…

Bizarrely enough, while researching this, I found out that Mackenbach did not became a pop star and instead a plasma physicist. This just goes to show that winning Junior Eurovision doesn’t guarantee long-lasting fame, which could lead you to the most random jobs. Well, in Ralf’s case, at least.

Presentation and format

2009 was held at the Palace of Sports in Kyiv, Ukraine. It also hosted the adult contest 4 years earlier, though it’s no excuse for the stage being hilariously small. The show was hosted by Ani Lorak and Timur Miroshnychenko, with Dmytro Borodin as the green room host, the latter became the first kid under the age of 16 to host the contest since… ugh, Ioana Ivan in 2006.

The show was opened by the children's ballet A6 and the Jazz-Step Dance Class of Volodymyr Shpudeyko; they were followed by the children's sports dancing ensemble Pulse. The interval acts included young acrobats Karyn Rudnycka and Yuriy Kuzynsky accompanied all participating contestants on stage, whilst Ani Lorak performed her Eurovision 2008 entry "Shady Lady".

The theme for this year’s contest is the “Tree of life”, based on the artwork "Sunflower of life" by Maria Primachenko. This was evident by the contest’s logo and trophy, consisting of a gold-plated flat sculpture of a stylized tree (though the branches looked like sunflowers)

While presenters race to read the countries’ first five points as fast as possible in previous years, this year the first five points aren’t even read out at all. Finally, time is saved! The voting format used from 2008 continues to have one exception, this year it’s Sweden who opted for 100% televoting. It is uncertain whether profits from the televoting go to charity but given that the show did not mention UNICEF at all, and evident by Armenian performers wearing modified Barcelona kits. Though because of these I doubt that they’re actually involved. UNICEF would, however, return in 2010.

No free language rule but we do have a rule change in terms of language sung – the contest now allows up to 25% of a song to be sung in a language other than their own, but that doesn’t mean we finally can understand the winning entry, well until Malta stepped in, anyway…

The postcards start with a Claymation of cultural aspects (or stereotypes) of the upcoming country, ending with, as this has been the case since 2004, the participants introducing themselves and their song.