The LAUGH strikes again, and this time the former U.S. ballroom champion is in fits. Out of control. She knows she has a certain effect on people, having inherited her remarkable guffaw from her mother, whom Murphy promises has "a laugh twice as loud as mine: first it's a scream and then a laugh."
If that is the case, perhaps Mom is responsible for Murphy's proclivities at the judge's table. There is that laugh and the motivation behind her "Queen of Scream" moniker is obvious.
"But it's so many other things," Lythgoe said, noting why viewers both love and hate Murphy. "I still want to know what the Hot Tamale Train is. 'Cutie Patootie.' She just comes out with all these phrases, which I, a Brit, can't understand. But I look around the room and Americans are also wondering what she's talking about. She makes her own language up. You can tell if it's good or bad by the way she's doing it."
The No. 2 show of the summer (behind "Hell's Kitchen") seems to be working just as well around the world. Murphy has served as a guest judge in Australia, Norway and Canada, where new formats of the show are highly popular and contestants live and die by Murphy's reactions.
"The first time that I screamed, it just came flying out," she said, over a lunch of edamame and mini-cheeseburgers at the Four Seasons Hotel. "I screamed bloody murder. I know I have a loud mouth and a loud laugh. But it really caught me off guard because all over the country -- and now the rest of the world -- people always ask, 'Are you going to scream for me, Mary?' Well, maybe. I don't know! If I see something exciting I may scream. People ask me, 'Can you laugh for me Mary, can you laugh for me?' Well, yeah, if you say something funny. I am not a puppet, but I find it funny that it's caught on all over the world."
One thing that might surprise you is that the Queen of Scream is capable of being soft-spoken. OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but Murphy can speak in decibels that don't send dogs packing or Lythgoe to a hearing specialist. Mostly, it happens when her tender side bubbles to the surface, like when she talks about the progress she is making in San Diego with her "Chance to Dance" program for underprivileged children, or after freestyle dancer Twitch and his contemporary jazz partner Kherington Payne light up the stage with a romantic Viennese waltz. This unexpected performance didn't send Murphy squealing. Nor did it compel her to mention trains or Tra La La phases of the heart.
