American Idol Season 9 Premiere

Oh American Idol, sometimes I don’t know what to think of you but this probably the last time I plan on watching it. With Simon Cowell out next year it will be hard trying to watch Randy, Kara, Ellen and whoever else they get. Without Simon at the helm what is really the point of the show? I again watched this last year after not watching seasons four through seven because some friends wanted to watch it. What I noticed was that not much had changed. Kara was an odd addition as were a few format changes but it was still American Idol doing what it does best making fun of bad auditions and then trying to make wholesome fun television for the whole family to love. It got mildly exciting near the end but even I didn’t watch the first hour of the American Idol finale…it was all filler except for the results.

So here we are in 2010 and the only big draw for me is Ellen which I am excited about but we have a couple of weeks worth of audition episodes before she shows up for Hollywood week. The only other draw is that it is Simon’s last year and I will once again be making fun of horrible contestants or hoping the few they let through continue to torment them for weeks to come. Out of the two audition episodes I have a few thoughts but really…it was the audition episodes if you saw one in 2002 or 2003 than you saw these. At the start of the first episode they made a big deal about Ellen joining the show and gave Paula a nice little montage (which was nice because they didn’t have to and I wasn’t expecting it) but quickly swept her under the rug and talked about Victoria Beckham. Victoria looked like she should eat a few more saltines because she was extremely skinny and almost disgusting looking. At the beginning of the episode she was sitting next to Kara but I felt like she wanted to move the whole time. Kara has gotten extremely annoying and now probably thinks of herself as really important with Paula gone. One of the contestants even thought she was Paula, which was hilarious. I don’t know if you could say they are the best parts but I do enjoy the people who go into the auditions and make up a weird character like “extremely agitated” and rehearsed sounding Andrew Fenlon. He seemed extremely fake but it was funny getting a rise out of Kara. I also enjoyed the ditz sisters who went in and one was really obnoxious and awful and sang terrible and then her friend sang well and the first horrible girl looked like she was going to kill her. It was also a funny moment.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the rather boring episodes was Pants on the Ground. I know that if you watch tv or get online you know what Pants on the Ground is. It was performed in the final minutes by General Larry Platt. It was actually kind of catchy and hilarious all at the same time.

There were various other contestants that made some impression like the girl dressed up in a guitar, or some annoying kid dressed in blue who thought way to much of himself, Skii Bo Ski, or how the show made fun of mentally handicapped Jesse Hamilton who had several near death experiences. However it was nothing new. I am ready for Hollywood week cause I am curious to see how Ellen approaches the show but I probably wouldn’t be watching this if I didn’t like my friends. However I will end up watching this whole season and I will give an update or two on it as time moves along.