American Idol: Chicago, The City of Non-co-joined Twins

Hey Gasmi, Tuesday has come and gone, and you know what that means? Well, yes, that if I don’t do that load of laundry tonight that I was supposed to do over the weekend, I’ll end up wearing my high school graduation gown to work tomorrow (Go Falcons!), but more than that it means a new episode of American Idol was on, and you know what that means, plenty of good voices, double plenty of notso good voices, and sob stories that may or may not involve co-joined twins. So enough yapping about it, let’s make the jump and get to the good stuff.
Our episode starts with some pretty shots of tonight’s city, Chicago. Hey did you know Obama is from there? I was stunned because on Fox News they always say he’s from Commieland, but it gives the producers the perfect excuse to get all our hopeful idols to keep screaming “yes we can”, to start the show. Okay there are 12,000 of them, and they give out like 10 golden tickets tonight, so 99.9% of them should be chanting “We’re doomed, doomed I tell you, doomed” but I guess that didn’t test as well in focus groups.

They cue up the credits and after seeing that Randy either can’t or won’t button his shirt in the morning, we find out who is supposed to make us forget this week that Paula went to that big QVC show in the sky. Err, sorry, I mean who are fabulous guest judge is going to be tonight, and oh we hit the jackpot Gasmi, because we got Shania Twain.

Well that makes sense because the show is in Chicago and she’s from Canada. I mean she sings country music and we know how much Idol loves country, right? No, wait, her entire act was conceived by her Svengali like producer who had her churn out album after album of pop music? Ding, ding, ding, chicken dinner, we have a winner!

Anyway, that’s the meanest thing I am going to be able to say about Shania, because she’s super nice, perky, and is all set to provide plenty of helpful feedback to the hopefuls. She’s like Paula, only coherent and not doped to the beejusus belt, which means she’s just the same. Oh and we find out she’s apparently using the show Cougar Town as the bedrock for her life, but we’ll talk about that later.

Hey, speaking of Paula, okay we weren’t, but I need a segway so we are going to pretend we were. Anyway, our good buddy Skara shows up with a big grin on her face because they dumped Paula and kept her, so that must means everyone loves her right? [Sound of crickets in the background] Yeah, um nope Skara, it means all that duct tape they were using to strap Paula into her chair during the show was going to shred the budget after Simon and Tink got their new raises. But don’t feel bad girl, let’s hear it for cost effective mediocrity, yay!

And then finally after some more aimless milling around Simon herds everybody into a conference room. He makes a big deal about pulling the drapes back, because I guess crushing dreams in natural light is more rewarding, and we get our first audtioner. Yes, I know that’s not a real word, but Chicago is the city of Harry Cary so suck it grammar Nazis.

The girl’s name is Katelyn Epperly, and almost as soon as we see her on screen we hear the tinklely music, and you know what that means, sob story! Oh I love me some sob stories, and as soon as I hear the piano I start chanting to my TV, “co-joined twin, co-joined twin!” Sorry, but I’ve got that in a pool at work, and this little waffleboy needs to get paid.

It turns out to be a big letdown because recently Katelyn’s dad left her mom. For a co-joined twin? Well we don’t find out, but Katelyn’s mom is sad, and this is what Katelyn is doing to try to cheer her up. FYI for Katelyn, ice cream works in these situations too.

So, after making sure the judges know she’s dealing with some problems Katelyn lets us check out her voice, and she’s really good. At least that’s what I think, but I can’t carry a tune in a sack, so my opinion is even more suspect here then usual.

Shania Twain thinks Katelyn is supper and says she has a voice that could sing a hit song. Man Shania is so nice. She’s giving me absolutely squat-o to work with over here.

All the other judges like her too, and just like that, we’ve got our first golden ticket of the night. Katelyn goes outside and lets her mom in on the good news. Yay, all of mommy’s problems are over now. Well until Katelyn’s mom sees her ex with that “little whore” down at Sam’s Club, and then Katelyn will have to get on another show her mom likes. So it looks like we’ll be seeing Katelyn on The Mentalist in May, yay families!

We cut to commercials and when we come back we get a nice change of pace from talent, and get to meet our next hopeful, Amy Lang. Amy is big boned and has tons of sass and pizzazz. Or she’s super annoying, I think it allow depends on whether you are drunk or hungover, or even just have been locked in a room with her for more then 30 seconds.

We don’t go straight to the singing because first Amy has to have a little meet and greet with Tink, so she can tell him he was the guest star in her first erotic dream. This leads to an awkward pause by Seacrest that just opens the door for any cheap joke you want to insert. Me personally, I’ll just go with the look on his face when he gets this news.

After making Ryan feel dirty, Amy heads in to become a stah! Okay that doesn’t happen because of Amy’s severe talent deficiency. Her voice is, it’s, it’s not good Al. The judges do let her hang around long enough for Amy to make her boobs jump up and hit her in the chin, and after scarring the entire cast of the show for life Amy heads off to her true calling, to find a gay guy to be besties with for life.

We go get more commercials so we can find out McDonalds is putting a Big Mac in a tortilla, which I think should be reason enough for a mandatory drug trust for their entire R&D staff, and then we’re back and get to meet our next contestant, Charity Vance.

Charity is 16 and from Little Rock Arkansas. Her folks style hair and have the salon in their house where Charity works as the receptionist and sings while she sweeps up hair. It looks like a fun place, and her mom seems nice, but you just know if Tabitha ever showed up there, she would find hairballs bigger then frigging tumbleweeds.

Charity belts out a little number for the judges, and even though I thought her voice was a little too much on the thin side; the judges love her. Well we’ve already established that I don’t know Richard, so we’re going to give Charity a pass.

After our second golden ticket, we get back to what the audition shows are all about, suckitude. The producers move us effortlessly into a quick well edited segment of people peeling the paint off the walls with their voices.

With our montage out of the way, we move on to the next contestant, Angela Martin. If Angela’s name sounds familiar, that’s because she’s already been on the show twice, and made it to Hollywood. Sadly, she’s had personal problems ranging from her dad passing away, to outstanding warrants (hey don’t make that face, it was just for traffic tickets), and hasn’t been able to make it to the Top 20. So Angela strolls in to take her third crack at getting the chance to be a star. Oh and in honor of her making her third appearance, for the rest of the post she will be known as Rerun.

The producers try to milk some drama out of whether the judges will like her, but dang dudes. They liked her the other two times she was on, and she sounds just as good or even a little better, so it’s four yeses for our little Rerun.

Skara decides this is a perfect time to get a little screen time and tells Rerun that Skara is so pleased that Rerun has listened to all the feedback the judges have given her. Hey Skara, tone it down, okay? Rerun has been on the show longer then you have. Just sit there and not be drugged, it’s what you’re good at.

Anyway, Rerun gets her golden ticket and I’m perfectly happy with this one, even though Rerun has a severe case of the Christinas. The Chirstinas is what I call it when singers close their eyes and pinch the air on every note they hit. Normally The Christinas irk the living poop out of me, but I really like Rerun’s voice, so yay!

The yays keep coming because we get another montage, this one of people getting golden tickets. Lot’s of yelling, laughing, big hugs, and tears of joy. It’s Pretty much how I’ve always pictured what would happen if Flipit and I ever went to The Golden Coral together.

And that ends day 1, so Gasmi, do you think our Chicago hopefuls can build on this to make day 2 even better? Please don’t say yes, our relationship is going so well right now.

Unlike Day 1 things get off to a rough start with our first hopeful, Curley Newbern. I had high hopes for Curley, because how can you not love someone who’s taking his fashion marching orders from Paul Purdohme? The guy super nice and laid back, but unfortunately Curley opens his mouth and everything takes a nose dive worthy of The Hindenburg. The tone Curley sings in, is really, really high. It’s way past falsetto, is wrongetto a real word? Yeah well too bad, I’m calling Harry Cary on this one too.

It kind of sucks, because Curley gets laughed out of the room. Simon even makes some crack, asking Curley if animals gather when he sings. Hey bitch, quit working my corner. Besides the correct joke there is when Curley started singing today all of the garage doors with electric openers in Shermer Illinois opened at the same time.

The producers are changing things up today, because from Curley we go straight to Alannah Halbert. Alannah is really nice, but well, she don’t sound so good. The problem is her mouth. Have you ever seen those skits on Conan O’Brien where they take a picture of a celebrity and superimpose somebody’s mouth over it to do the talking? Well Alannah’s mouth works like that in real life. The judges try to show her the right note she should be singing, but her mouth can only open about a quarter of an inch, so she’s out. Then Alannah has to go outside and when her folks asked her what happen she says she doesn’t know, because who wants to admit to their parents on national TV that they are poorly animated?

Yeah, things have been pretty bad, but at least Curley and Alannah were good people. This little ray of sunshine gets squashed by the next ringer, I mean contestant, Brian Krause. Brain is a whackadoodle’s whackadoodle, and in his little intro bit mentions he was in the army and got in trouble for singing in uniform, this is why for the rest of the post he will hereafter be known as Private Pyle.

Private Pyle comes out and tells everyone he’s going to do a song by his favorite artist, Tiny Tim. Private Pyle sings Tiptoe Through The Tulips, and it’s terrible, but to be fair to PP it was terrible when Tiny Tim sang it, and come to think of it, being terrible is the whole point of the song. Simon cuts him off within about five seconds and wants to know if this is a joke. Now of course it’s a joke. This is the producers getting back at giving everyone on Idol X-Factor DVD’s as Christmas bonuses last year.

That being said, Private Pyle swears up and down it isn’t a joke, and then tiptoes out of the room and tells us he’s going to need a long bubble bath to get over this. Okay, either Private Pyle is working this joke until its eyeballs bleed, or Mike Tyson is no longer the last person in America I would trust with the go codes for America’s nukes.

We keep on keeping on, and it finally gets better right? Well they get us hoping, when we meet Harold Davis. Harold tells us he’s the real deal and they are playing the theme from Rocky in the background so I find myself getting sucked in. I should know better when Harold sings in his intro, and he doesn’t really sing, he just yells. Don’t get me wrong, he’s really loud and he can do it for a super long time. If this was America’s Next Top Auctioneer, the season would be over right now, but I should know what happens next.

Harold comes out and sings and well he gets shot down right away which hits me as a surprise because I’m still pumped from the Rocky song. It gets really uncomfortable when Harold starts to cry, especially because the judge’s still aren’t making with a golden ticket. Harold exits stage left, and I have to deal with being let down by Rocky. It’s just a bad segment all around.

After that awkward moment things keep sucking. The only good news is that it’s in montage form. Now can somebody help me out here. What are the producers really saying when they play Shania Twain music in the background of people sucking? Did she give the producers a crappy gift for Christmas too?

You know what? Whatevers, because we finally get some light at the end of the tunnel with John Park. John is a nice Asian guy, with a good voice. I thought he was a little boring, but after the last bunch of big wieners he is all that and a bag of chips. Oh and he has Zac Effron hair too.

Shania likes him, and makes a comment about his voice having a beautiful bottom end, which Randy immediately thinks is dirty. This immediately gets Shania flustered and everything she says after that sounds dirty to everyone. Seeing as they don’t want a sexual harassment lawsuit, and John deserves it, he gets the day’s first golden ticket.

We go to commercial and when we get back, do you hear what I hear? Oh yeah, tinkley music. Come on, co-joined twin, one time baby, one time!

So next we meet Paige Dechausse, and she has a tale of woe, and no it’s not about those highlights somebody at Super Cuts inflicted on her. It turns out she has asthma, and when she was like 15 she almost died. Okay, I’m calling shennigans on the tinkley music here, because if she’s here for the audtion, it means she didn’t die, and that’s not a sob story. Respect the tinkley music producers, and save it for what it was meant for, co-joined twins.

Paige comes out and she’s got a good voice, but she is kind of meh. The episode is almost over, so when she finishes Randy tells her she had some pitch problems (I’m convinced he says this all the time because it’s contractually obligated). The judges take a vote, and Simon says no, but Shania and Skara love Wheezy something fierce. It all comes down to Randy and the girls are all like pleeeeeeeeeeeease, and the next thing you know Wheezy and her inhaler are off to Hollywood.

We get one last montage of three people who were good enough to get golden tickets but not interesting enough to get segments. The music starts playing and somebody let’s Tink start narrating and before you know it, we are donzo, at least for Tuesday.

Well there you have it, a pretty painless hour of TV. Okay it was padded out like Tyra in a fat suit, but I’ve seen worse. Well what did you guys think of the episode? Good, bad, meh? Anyone picked a favorite yet?

Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks to Flipit for letting me recap my first reality show. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to see what our next recapper can do with this stuff.