Today the freak show hits Texas and we are reminded of the multitude of train wrecks that we have experienced here over the years. Water fights, Armageddon at the judgement table, shit acts (mostly wearing cowboy hats) and a brief titter at the fact that Simon’s hair actually used to be WORSE than it is now. Ryan’s perched atop a very high building that may or may not have been Ewing Oil to tell us that THIS indeed IS American Idol. The sudden rise in altitude seems to have affected the wee man’s brain and he actually looks pleased to be surrounded by cheer leaders. I’m sure that will wear off soon.
Simon and Randy are en route in a limo (helicopters are SO LA) pondering who the guest judges might be. “Richard Simmonds?” pipes up Si – is he the weirdo fitness bloke with the dodgy perm and a penchant for infeasibly short shorts?? A moment whilst I Google please dear reader…shudder…yes that’s him. The Leo Sayer lookalike that leaps around with fat people whilst wearing unsuitable lycra vests. What fun if he were a judge! Randy thinks it might be Clint Eastwood which results in both Randy and Si doing Clint impressions (badly, but it’s cute). In reality though, they have done much better than either Rich or Clint, as today’s guest smasher of dreams is Neil Patrick Harris! Ooh, its Doogie Howser all growed up – fabulous! Neil thinks his day will be well spent if he can shatter the careers of a few people in the audition line. HA! Forget this “guest” judging lark, methinks Neil should be the one whose bottom should replace that of The Cowell’s in the main judgement chair next season. I will set up a face book group later.
We are reminded that the very first Idol, Kelly Clarkson hailed from Dallas back in the day where Ryan was allowed to have blonde frosty hair and super gay shirts. Also from those heady, turn of the century days, was Julie Kevelighan who shrieked her way through something dreadful back in season 1. Roll on 8 years and nothing much has changed with Julie – except she has discovered that Everything’s A Dollar sells make up and Target does a line of stretchy sequinned frocks for under $10. She brings a sign along that says “This Is My Year” but we all know Julie is only being rolled on to be mocked. Of course it won’t be her year in terms of reaching international musical stardom – although she might make You Tube if she is REALLY shit.
She wanders in the audition room clutching her sign, which immediately makes Simon’s eyes narrow in suspicion and cause him to munch down hard on his biro. NPH lets out a bemused “Sparkle..?” as if he can’t quite behold the sight before him. Oh Neil, if you think this one with her crap sign and cheap dress is deep down crazy, you are in for rude awakening as the day goes on love. You wait till they start to wheel out the sex pests. Simon enquires as to whether she made the sign herself (if X Factor USA bombs, then Craft Idol is obviously his fall back show). She did and is ready to launch herself into Black Velvet which is indeed the every kind of terrible we knew it would be.
Neil decides he is on safer ground doing a critique of Julie’s sign than her singing. Simon jumps aboard the same ship, telling her she missed out the word “not”. Rather than crumble in a heap of tears and leave forlornly with her ratty sign, Julie decides to sing another song. Simon tells her to bugger off. So she sings again. This time security escort her out – still singing and still flapping her signage. NPH observes she is “annoying” which the understatement of the millennia. Outside, she tries to talk Ryan into letting her back in for another go, blaming her breathing was letting her down. The only way it let her down was that it didn’t stop completely.
Back from the ads with Ryan telling us that Texas has delivered for the ladies and we see a tiny flurry of Golden Tickets flourished by some Dallas dollies.Tis the Rule of Idol that for every handful of mediocre girls, there must a be a counter balance of a boy with either a sob story of epic proportions or a boy that is mentally retarded and on a sex offenders register somewhere. So which one of these tidy little pigeon holes does Lloyd “Big Sexxxy” Thomas fit into then? Judging by the tie, which is done up in the style of Tucker Jenkins, the Grange Hill years and the jaunty cap we could be pushing the mentally retarded card with this one. No – but wait, Lloyd has a sob story card to play to – he has a MENIAL job! Oh my word, this will never do – this boy NEEDS the talons from the soaring eagle that is American Idol to pluck him from a never ending life of stacking boxes. Oh and add into the mix, a couple of cutie pie kids AND (yes, the trauma just never ends with this one!) he grew up “in the projects surrounded by drugs” – I’m guessing that’s the Dallas equivalent of Tower Hamlets. But with less congesting charging and more oil wells.
Anyway Lloyd sings Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” and wins the judges over with his soulful vibe. Kara is going all dreamy and swaying along. Neil looks quite dumbstruck that he has been there 3 hours and finally they have found someone that can sing. Simon announces its his favourite audition of the day! Randy gives him one billion percent. Its four easy yeses and Lloyd leaves and tells us he can taste victory. And victory tastes like a Golden Ticket as Lloyd appears to have snacked on this en route from the audition room to the sound bite booth.
Time for a filler montage of some in fighting on the judging panel. NPH and Simon disagree on a few acts and throw each other squinty eyed stares of evil behind Kara’s back to the backing tune of A Fistful Of Dollars. This is all so LAME, for goodness sakes let’s do this thing properly – tops off boys and slug it out on the audition mat. Get Ryan to join in as well, throw in some oil (well its Dallas) and just film for an hour or ten. Hey presto – filler footage to last all season long.
Here is Kimberley Carver to see if she can unite the judgementation into harmony again. Despite having the audacity to sing an ORIGINAL and NOT Miley’s The Climb, therefore immediately alienating Simon, Kim appeals muchloads to the other judges. They fight her corner whilst Simon sulks she is a boring wench that would only appeal on Jazz TV. Poor Kimberley has played it all wrong with Simey. Not singing The Climb is Strike One. Not coming in a slutty outfit with her tits spilling out of a fragment of leather so he can pretend to fancy her like mad is Strike Two. And Strike Three is having no discernable sob story involving dead people or plague. The other judges refuse to be drawn into his one man campaign of loathing and Simon reckons there is a mutiny afoot. Its 3 big yeses and one sulky no – Kimberley is through to Hollywood!
The local news stations are pooping their pants that Idol is in town as the last exciting moment in Dallas history was when some President got offed on the freeway. There is copious amounts of footage of crowds, paying particular interest to the really ugly members of it. One of these souls plucked for 90 seconds of fame is Dexter Ward, a slightly manic gay boy, gently touched with the stick of crazy. He seems far more adept at winking than singing – the former of which he does about a gazillion times to the camera. Maybe it’s not a wink, but a nervous tic. Anyway, he can’t sing, the judges mock him for a few minutes as that is their forte. Simon inexplicably promises him his smile will take him far in life. Probably as a Rent Boy.
A segment of sobbing is followed by NPH and Ryan having a little chinwag backstage. Look at them together in their tiny cute clothes! Who cares what they are saying, let’s just marvel at this wondrous sight! Neil and Ryan, Ryan and Neil – Oh lord, they should be the next celebrity couple shouldn’t they? Forget sodding Brangelina and their dull United Colours of Benetton child collection – the world needs Nyan – their influence could encourage men folk nationwide into wearing better sweaters. I want to pinch their cheeks and go shopping for shoes with the pair of them. Oh I think they talked about singing and stuff – don’t quote me though, I was too caught up in this magical little scene to notice.
Pah, back to the pesky singing competition now. Here is Erica Rhodes who impresses Ryan with a set of fingerless gloves and the revelation that she used to be in Barney when she was a kid. Erica feels the need to step away from her dalliances with a large purple dinosaur, and to achieve this, dons a dominatrix outfit, complete with a whip. Randy and Kara make her sing some of the Barney tunes, and Simon appears delightfully confused by this whole American kids TV thing. I’m pretty sure he thinks they make 8 year olds dress like tarts and whip the crap out of men in dinosaur outfits. They may well do on the cable channels. Erica sings En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” which does go some way to explain the outfit and she isn’t that bad. Added in her human interest story, slutty whoring gear that Simon can pretend to drool over and Bobs Your Hollywood Residin’ Uncle. 4 positive yeses and even Barney pops up on screen to tell us how much he loves her. Dirty, dirty old fossil that he is.
Time for our final auditionee of the day, and I’m detecting the overpowering stench of a sob story. Lets meet Dave Pittman of Arkansas who has Tourette’s Syndrome. Luckily for Dave, it isn’t the type of Tourettes that sees him spit forth a filthy stream of obscenities and reduce his entire audition to a flurry of beeps and carefully placed American Idol logos across his gob. No, Dave appears to have a Network Friendly form of Tourette’s, which just sees him twitch a bit and blink. In another stroke of luck, Dave is super cute AND his affliction doesn’t affect him AT ALL whilst he is singing! He offers up a Sam Cooke number which the judges adore. Kara has that swaying thing going on again. Simon checks him out with one of his lechy little looks that he saves for hot boys. NPH picks up on the Tourette’s (whether that’s from his show notes or some insightful observation of his twitchiness, I’m not sure). And that’s it pretty much signed sealed delivered then – a smattering of Sob Story, a big spoonful of overcoming the odds shit, a dollop of Country hotness and a voice that doesn’t sound like nails down a blackboard. Welcome to Hollywood baby!
So that’s it for the first day in Dallas. Some 15 Golden Tickets were given out and we briefly glimpse the 12 that were not deemed interesting enough to show as they emerge from the audition room like projectile vomit onto Ryan.
We have to say a sad goodbye to Neil Patrick Harris (nooo – don’t go Neil, stay! Stay FOREVER and become Mrs Seacrest and both wear fabulous elvin sized clothes and do cute things and, and…oh just DONT GO). Instead we have to welcome some insipid, spotty teen that is the third part of some hideous Disney manufactured Boy Band. Joe Jonas, is, according to my research, the “better looking one” from this band of brothers. Ye Gods, the other two must be ugly fuckers then. As anyone over 12 will have no clue who this motley collection of dark haired trolls are, we have a quick recap on the Jonas Bros, and some pointless mock up of Randy joining as the 4th brother. Randy’s entire usage this season appears to flit from chaperoning Simon and Ryan on their jolly boys outings and being made fun of in the intro sequences. It might be time for Randy to develop a bit of a sob story on his own, or he could find himself replaced with Oprah.
First up is Todrick Hall, whose claim to fame is appearing in something with Fantasia. I guess that’s good if it’s a play or something, not so good if it was rehab. Todrick sings his own composition which is actually a totally awesome little rhyming ditty about how much he wants to get to Hollywood. Simon wants SO MUCH to hate it, but has to relent and clap a teeny tiny bit at the end. Todrick has the sort of voice that always goes down well on Idol until about week 3 of the lives when he’ll probably be chucked out on Country Week. Anyway, despite some reservations from Simon, its four yeses and Todrick back flips out into the Texan sun.
A short medley of yeses follow but the next Contestant of Interest, is 20 year old Maegan Wright whose parents divorced, remarried then left their two kids to fend for themselves in the cruel world. Bastards. Maegan has had to look after her younger brother, Dawson now and it’s a credit to her she isn’t a vodka swilling wreck who lives in a grotty trailer because of this. Instead she is a bright cheery thing and the kid Dawson is thirty kinds of cute. The only big no-no with Maegan is her ill advised outfit, comprising of a bright blue T shirt with “Break The Rules” daubed across it and very very small Daisy Duke-esque shorts. Still, she can sing surprisingly well so we shouldn’t really be dwelling on the fashion should we? Oh, yes we should. Here is Kara to tell us she thought she was a joke in her red neck attire. Simon disagrees and thought coming in dressed as cheap hussy was a master stroke, because he likes the “surprise element” (especially since one unibrowed, frumpy Scottish Surprise Element has made him several million quid). So its universal yeses and Maegan’s entire family bundle Ryan and crush him into the curtains.
We are back from the break with a montage of Ryan! I live for moments like this on Idol. We see Ryan abandoned on tall buildings, being leap frogged, pretending to fancy cheer leaders and even finding a new job, wheeling round a trolley with food (which is probably a shed load more fulfilling than presenting an episode of E! News). All this whilst clad in his tight little red polo shirt! Can my day get ANY better?
I think it’s about to get worse, as we have to say goodbye to all that Ryany goodness and go back to another hideous contestant. This time its Vanessa, who leaps about in shocking pink and has the sort of annoying demeanour that makes those kids in High Schools march in one day with Uzi’s. Vanessa screeches out an Etta James song and Simon tells her his worst nightmare EVER is a girl in pink singing “At Last” to him. No big surprises there then. It’s a collective No from the judgement. Outside, two of Vanessa’s girlfriends pick up Ryan and carry him off. I think Ry Ry might have just discovered his worst nightmare too.
More filler footage is required to pad out the final few minutes of the show, and as we are all bored to death of these tiresome singers, let’s have a Simon montage instead. I can live with that. We are treated to 8 years worth of Simon being mean to people. However, Ryan, as his “much younger friend” (and poster boy according to the footage) explains what a hideously difficult job it is to sit through so much shit for months on end. “Its hard being Simon Cowell” sighs Ryan wistfully as they slam down pictures of the poor soul languishing on private jets, beside huge swimming pools and in lavish mansions. Still he does it all for us, so that’s all right then. And it’s SO worth the hardship because every now and then he’ll find Someone Special. Like Ryan.
They have saved the bestest sob story till last today. Meet Christian Spear who is a leukaemia survivor and there is plenty of archive footage of her past sufferings (NOTE to potential Idol contestants of the future – make sure you blog every single second of your current tribulations because this could be your ticket to a juicy harrowing segment). Christian is actually a pretty nice kid – she sings an Etta James song sweetly, in complete contrast to the pink Etta James car crash we witnessed earlier. The judges love her and she goes through with a “billion percent” and a nice little wink from Si.
And that’s it from Dallas! A total of 31 people made to Hollywood – next week we ditch the Ewing’s for the Carrington’s as we head to Denver!
Related posts:
- Los Angeles Auditions Tonight we are in the City Of Angels on the...
- Chicago Auditions Review This week Ryan brightly introduces us to “The Jewel of...
- Denver Auditions Ryan says we are about to join the Mile High...
- Best Of The Rest Auditions Just in case you are not yet bored of excruciating...
- Orlando Auditions Review The American Idol train pulls into Orlando today. Launching Space...
Recent Comments