Wednesday, March 04, 2009

AMERICAN IDOL -- the country's most fertile show

To win on AMERICAN IDOL you have to have a good voice, personality, and poor birth control. It seems like every contestant had at least one child.

Flamboyant Nathanial Marshall’s only chance would have been if he stuffed a pillow inside the front of his shirt. If you’re going to do Bette Midler don’t pick a Meat Loaf song. Tonight on the results show he’ll finally have something to really cry about.

Lil Rounds has three kids. So she’s the frontrunner. She’s also an excellent singer but not the second coming like the judges all said. Either they heard something I didn’t or they mistakenly think she has five kids.

Ju’not Joyner (I bet he has a tough time finding souvenir coffee mugs with his name on it) has one kid. I worry though. He also appeared to have handcuffs hanging from his black leather jacket. I hope they’re not used for “time outs”. He too is a nice singer. Or maybe it’s just such a relief to not hear someone belt.

Arianna Afsar could be one of the other contestants' child. She’s 16 going on 13 trying to pose as 30. She attempted Abba’s classic “Winner Takes All”. She didn’t get one note of the melody right and I’m horrified that I know that.

Just because Felicia Barton looks like Marlo Thomas does not make her “that girl”. Felicia originally did not make the top 36 but the producers found out she’s a stay-at-home-mom so they called her back. She won’t need a baby sitter after tonight.

Scott MacIntyre doesn’t have a kid but he’s talented, cute, and blind. That’s easily good enough for the top 5. But if he really wants to win he should call Octomom and she if she’d spare one or two.

Taylor Valfanua could be Octomom and still wouldn’t win. Boring belter. Next!

Kendall Beard is the cute peroxide blond who sings country. So even if she doesn’t have a kid everyone assumes that she does.

The judges compared Von Smith to Clay Aiken and Simon had to remind him it was compliment. Poor Clay. It’s bad enough his record company dumped him this week. Maybe Von Smith and Nathanial Marshall can adopt.

Kristen McNamara was the cute blond. I forgot what she sang while she was singing it. Goldie Hawn took pictures of her to her plastic surgeon and said, “make me look like this”. In two years Ryan Seacrest will do the same thing.












Jorge Nunez has a nice voice but lacks just a bit in the macho department. He cried more than Nathanial.

And finally, there was Alex Wagner-Trugman who set dorks back a hundred years in the cool category. Never dance, Alex. Never! If by some miracle Alex makes it, he’ll be the first rock star ever who can’t get laid.

Who will go on to the next round? I think Lil, Ju’not, and in a big surprise, Carol Brady.

23 comments :

Anonymous said...

Please stop covering this junk. We just lost the best new TV show of the year, "Life on Mars." Soon, there will not be any network drama shows. And all because of this excrement. Real writers should not support any show that doesn't have a script.

Anonymous said...

I realize the challenge of maintaining a daily blog, but your focus on American Idol seems to devaluate whatever you post that's interesting and insightful. Are you pretending it's more than filler? Please clarify.

Anonymous said...

I'm over American Idol too. After 8 seasons, it's way boring.

John Paulus said...

Clay Aiken was better than Von.
http://clayaiken411.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

My guess is a few years from now as a ratings boost we'll actually have the Octomom and the kids themselves on "Idol", performing some number like on that talent show episode of the Brady Bunch (or, in honor of Simon, like the Von Trapp family performing in front of the Nazis in "The Sound of Music").

Anonymous said...

I think some of your commenters need to get laid. Real writers deserve to have fun. I heart your AI recaps! Maybe that's because I have three kids.

Every time they show the clip of Lil Rounds with her three tiny tots, I wonder if her husband secretly hopes she'll get sent home so he can have a break. I love my kids, but when they were very young and I had to go to all-day traffic school one Saturday, it felt like a vacation in paradise.

Word verification, aepickou: Paula, slurring "I pick you."

Howard Hoffman said...

Hey, folks...you dance with the one that brung you here. Since the beginning, Ken's updates always bring a spike in his readership. SOMEONE's reading it, and ratings are everything.

Every life, no matter how erudite it's thought to be, needs a little kitsch. Ken's the Kitschmaster.

Anonymous said...

Why do people find it so hard to ignore the things they're not interested in? Ken's AI posts are clearly marked, and it's not like you're going to be tested on the material.

I can't imagine how the things that you like here are devalued by the things you don't.

Anonymous said...

Ken - Thanks for the great review. I'm sure that if I had ever, EVER watched the show in the past or planned to watch in the present or future, I would agree 100%.

Ray

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
We just lost the best new TV show of the year, "Life on Mars." Soon, there will not be any network drama shows. And all because of this excrement."

No, you're wrong. AI isn't opposite LIFE ON MARS, so it doesn't impact it's viewership. It was cancelled because not enough people watched it, not because people were watching AI instead. If more people watched network drama shows, they wouldn't be in trouble.

TV has ALWAYS operated on the principle "Umless EVERYONE watches it, NO ONE gets it."

Everybody see the CHEERS homage in The Simpson's couch gag this past weekend?

MirrorJames said...

I’d just like to add that even though I’m in Australia, I too, enjoy Ken’s AI recaps. But do you know what? Even if I didn’t, there's still no reason to start whingeing about them. KEN DOES NOT WORK FOR YOU. He doesn’t work for any of us (although if you did work for me Ken, I’d give you total creative freedom. Probably an indicator that I’ll never have anyone working for me). It always says right there in the title what the post is about, he’s hardly pulling a bait and switch on anyone.

Also, although Life on Mars was better than I expected it to be, when America’s best new TV show of the year is a not-quite-as-good-as-the-original remake, then I think the glorified popularity contest is more likely to be just another symptom of a larger systematic problem.

Anonymous said...

The wild card semi-finalists have been chosen, and --

Tatiana will not be denied! Take THAT, haters! :)

Man, I didn't see that one coming. The Tatiana cult can now commence gloating.

Anonymous said...

Not for long, JB. It's just an opportunity to vote her off AGAIN! She'll be gone again after tomorrow.

8 people for 3 spots? No. She won't be voted through.

Ed I. said...

Again with the AI nonsense. Heaven forbid married people have a kid or three and decide to then pursue a goal. I'm sure they would have been much better off staying at home.

As for "Life on Mars", it was cancelled because it was bad - simple as that. The few fans it had were people who actually found the Sopranos a good show, or the 3-4 people who want Harvey Keitel on TV every week. A person can only handle so many back-handed references to make sure that the viewer knew it was the 70's and not 2009.

Anonymous said...

"SpoonieLuv said...
Again with the AI nonsense. Heaven forbid married people have a kid or three and decide to then pursue a goal."

That wasn't Ken's point. It was about how the show uses heartstring-tugging backstories to influence voting. They should be selected on singing ability and charisma alone, not on sympathy engendered by having a bunch of kids (We should not ever see their kids), or a pity-inducing disability like blindness, effeminacy, or extreme drama-queeniness. Would blind boy have been voted through if he were not blind? I don't think so. Someone with a bunch of adorable blind kids would be a lock.

Anonymous said...

> Ju’not Joyner (I bet he has a tough
> time finding souvenir coffee mugs
> with his name on it) has one kid.

I suspect he wasn't visible through the Magic Mirror on Romper Room, either.

WV: ansohail -- Good Morning, Potsie!

Anonymous said...

"David K. M. Klaus said...
I suspect he wasn't visible through the Magic Mirror on Romper Room, either."

You made me laugh. You are so right.

Well, Tatiana has been eliminated AGAIN! Ah. I almost wish she'd made it through, just so I could see her rejected a third time. It never gets old.

But Paula almost ruined it by trying to spare her feelings, and offer comfort. How much better it would have been if Simon had been allowed to say to her, "You can sing a bit, but we HATE your guts, and it was unanimous." And then the whole audience stands and applauds her banishment.

But someone put a seat belt on Paula's chair please, to stop her playing drunken mosh-pit floozie during every number with any kind of beat. Paula, SIT DOWN! And what was with her leopard-print whore dress tonight? She looked like Norma Desmond playing a streetwalker.

WV: leter, how Paula spells "letter" or "liter."

Anonymous said...

I forgot the best thing; they added that 13th position, and STILL didn't give it to Tatiana.

If only they's called her back up, and Simon said, "Tatiana, I have good news. We've decided to add one and have a top 13." And, as she starts to shriek, THEN say, "and even better yet, it still won't be you."

Anonymous said...

D. McEwan said...

> David K. M. Klaus said...

>> I suspect he wasn't visible
>> through the Magic Mirror on
>> Romper Room, either."

> You made me laugh. You are so
> right.

Thank you. In fairness, the observation should be credited to my wife, Nila, who as a child was always sad that Miss Lois or Miss Jane here in St. Louis never saw her in the mirror, either, no matter how often she watched, or how intently.

We didn't meet until we were both in our thirties, but it breaks my heart that this little girl I never knew as a little girl cried because she was never seen in the Magic Mirror.

Anonymous said...

"David K. M. Klaus said...
We didn't meet until we were both in our thirties, but it breaks my heart that this little girl I never knew as a little girl cried because she was never seen in the Magic Mirror."

Decades-too-late suggestion, but all it probably would have taken was for your in-laws to have sent a post card to the TV station: "Our little girl cries herself to sleep each night because Miss Thang NEVER 'sees' her through her magic hoop. Could she PLEASE, just once, say 'I see Sally, and Carol, and Lakisha, and Anoop'? Thank you."

Anonymous said...

For JBryant who can't understand how "Things you like can be devauled by things you don't." Let's say your mesmerizing first date is brilliant and then you find out he's into child porn (in the case of AI, entertainment porn) Everything else becomes qualified.

And to Debbie G who thinks everyone that doesn't like Ken for writing about AI needs to get laid. I think the expression is "Low fruit" and it isn't a sexual reference

Anonymous said...

Bilge: Wouldn't a better analogy be -- what if your mesmerizing first date is brilliant and then you find out he's into American Idol? If that were a dealbreaker for you, wouldn't your friends think you were nuts?

If Ken were a loony Tatiana acolyte or a "Claymate" you might have a point. But he seems to enjoy the show mostly as something to snark about. Not exactly the entertainment equivalent of joining NAMBLA.

Roger Owen Green said...

'American Idol' launching trading card line http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=780775 - how many sets will you buy?