Celine Dion's now in Africa with the children. Please donate so you can pay for their psychiatric care after dealing with that trauma up in their faces all day. Can you imagine? No food, no health care, AIDS ravaging your family and friends, and you have to put up with a day's worth of Celine being all intense and up in your business and wanting to do the hopscotch and play with the soccer balls and play air guitar for the cameras and horse around and be angular and sing "Frère Jacques" and then a song she learned from Dead Elvis last year? How exhausting that must be?
Jimmy Kimmel's out onstage, and if he's not there to introduce a Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon duet, then I don't care. Oh, he's there to introduce Simon. ...Don't care. Oh, there's Jordin Sparks sitting behind him. You guys, I am so shamefully into that song she does with Chris Brown, it's not even funny. Between that and the Madonna/JT song, I'm all set for the year. ...Seriously, still going, Jimmy Kimmel? And making fauxhawk jokes about Ryan Seacrest? Ryan Seacrest has ever had a fauxhawk ever? I guess it all means "fag" to Jimmy Kimmel, but the rest of us manage to actually pay attention, so why can't he? Every time I think it's okay to start liking him, he reminds me why I can't. Anyway, Simon's video package is just as jarring as it was last year, what with him caring and being a human being and all.
Simon then manages to crow about how he totally predicted Carrie Underwood would be the most successful American Idol ever before bringing her onstage to perform. Wow, she really looks beautiful. Like it would be a terrible waste not to give her an Oscar while she's wearing that dress. And she's not even showing it off, sitting on a stool like she is. She performs as beautifully as ever in her role as ambassador from the great state of American Idol.
And as you all were probably expecting, here are Gloria Estefan and Sheila E. Man, Gloria has just made the decision to stop aging, hasn't she? It probably helps that she never came across as all that youthful in the first place. Seriously, she's been 45 years old for three decades now, right? Sheila E. knocks over part of her drum stand and looks embarrassed about it. And then it's either the So You Think You Can Dance kids or else a whole other group of attractive twentysomethings that come out to dance and unbutton their shirts. Yay!
Sarah Silverman...okay, so she was here and she still didn't sing the Matt Damon song? Rip. And...okay, the thing here is that a minute and a half of jokes at Gloria Estefan's expense, followed by "If I could just be serious for a moment...malaria" is only going to end up making me laugh at the word "malaria." And then I'm going to hate myself for laughing and feel ashamed and then I'm going to have to donate money to alleviate that guilt and...oh. Well played, "Idol Gives Back." Well played indeed.
Ryan makes to introduce the winner of Russian Idol and...oh. Robin Williams. Did you guys know he did funny voices? I thought he only played mawkish health professionals. Huh. Ryan plays the Carl Reiner to Robin's 2,000 Year Old Joke. Robin takes some time to make fun of the judges, and Simon is appalled to have to sit through this. Even Paula is like, "He's on something, though, right?" Even Randy is like, "Doesn't he really just do the same thing every time?" Even Ryan is like, "Did he really just grab Simon's ass like that?"
Oh Miss Tyra, really. As if I didn't hate this show enough. She pledges to donate the wig on her head as well as dedicate a whole episode of The Tyra Banks Show to how it felt to be her watching the "Idol Gives Back" show on TV.
David Spade (??) introduces a clip of Brad Pitt saving New Orleans with his vaguely-stoned attractiveness. Brad and Bill Clinton, y'all. Saving the world. Building homes. Throwing around the ol' football (suck it, Mannings!).These kids just want to be able to go home. Damn. And then Brad shows up on stage, wearing a different stupid hat than the stupid hat he was wearing in New Orleans. His mic isn't working, though, so out comes the sound lady to pin on a new mic. She turns to the audience and says, "I just needed a reason to touch him." Sound Lady! For the win! Brad then introduces...oh yes...Daughtry. Sorry: DAUGHTRY! This is a music video set in Africa, the same as Carrie's "I'll Stand By You" last year. It's still kind of tacky, to me. Is it pathetic that I still like Chris Daughtry mostly because of how much I still hate Taylor and Elliott? I'm sure I'll get some emails providing an answer to that question.
And then? AND THEN...the DVR kicks this whole stupid show off my TV screen. Two and a half hours and they still couldn't fit it all in on time? Suck it HARD, American Idol. From what I understand, I missed Mariah Carey (aw) and the Idols singing for the Lord. Please consider donating to me for the entertainment I lost in those five minutes. But then actually donate that money to a real charity. Just not because Ryan Seacrest told you to.