First of all, nobody seems to know what the actual name of this special is. Throughout the regular shows last week, Ryan was calling it "The Best And The Worst." It was even labeled as such on the cue cards. The commercials and TV Guide, however, refer to it as "The Best Of The Worst." Considering that we don't see any "best" tonight, I'm guessing the second title is probably correct.
Ryan "Skinny" Seacrest greets us solo atop the Seal of Tsathoggua. He insists that the title is "And Worst," even though the promo just before the show said "Of The Worst." He's dressed in cheap-looking clothes that probably cost at least $500. He tells us that this show is about some of the "great" singers who didn't make it all the way to the semifinals, so clearly they weren't all that great. But more than that, it's an opportunity for us to wallow maliciously in the awfulness of all the bad performers that the show's producers milked for all they were worth and then cast aside like used condoms. I guess they had to put some good performers in or else this show would be classified as a form of torture by the Geneva Convention and they wouldn't be allowed to air it.
We'll start with the "good" in Los Angeles. Simon "Jackass" Cowell enjoyed Carrie Hunt's rendition of "God Bless America" nearly as much as he enjoyed the fact that she was thin, pretty, and eighteen. But then in Glendale, she moved from the "best" to the "worst" category with a wretchedly out of tune rendition of "Don't Cry Out Loud." Simon tells her back in Glendale that she's "lost something." Yeah, she probably was never that good a singer and practiced three songs for months to get good at them, and then her plan came tumbling down when she was given something new to sing.
Just as they did in the audition episodes, the show uses Carrie's patriotic song to transition to some awful auditions. We get a montage of various guys butchering "The Star-Spangled Banner" with their nasal voices. We've already seen most of them, except for David Gavin, who sounds like a middle-aged female gospel singer, except without any talent. Play ball!
In some thrown-together interview, Randy "Say My Name" Jackson whines about how awful it would be to listen to these folks singing the national anthem at a ball game. Then he asks somebody off-camera if he remembers some girl in Miami. Gee, not only are we getting bad, awkward auditions, we're getting bad, awkward transitions, too. He says the girl sounded like she was gargling while riding a sheep. Ah, he's talking about Monica Songok, whom they've already shown. She's the one with the super-mega-extra-vibrato. Yeah, she was really bad. Then Randy "Yo, dawg, yo!"s us over to Detroit to some guy who sang like a he was a car trying to get started. That would be Michael Quinchett, whom we haven't seen yet. Yeah, not only does he have a vibrato, but he can't seem to even hold that steady and vibratos his way up and down an entire octave. Randy tells us that if we combined those two, we'd get Dino from Los Angeles. Dino was the guy who butchered "The Greatest Love Of All." We get to "enjoy" his whole performance again, even the part where he stopped, and the judges were speechless, so he began singing again. He begins laughing when he's done, like he totally knows this all sucked and he was only doing it to be on television or whatever.
Commercials. Oliver Beene: Hey, let's take Malcolm In The Middle and set it during the '50s! It's doomed.
When we return, Paula "I Go Wild" Abdul tells us about some guy named Antorey Clark that she liked in the initial auditions. He sang Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" at the original auditions. His singing's good, but he dances awkwardly and makes strange grunting sounds in the audition. Then, since Paula is nearly incapable of criticizing a male contestant unless his singing actually causes her physical pain, they have to have Randy tells us how Antorey fell apart in Glendale. He styled his hair strangely -- Randy describes the knots he put in his hair as "Mickey Mouse ears" -- and apparently lost the ability to enunciate words. His performance in Glendale was an incomprehensible mess. Simon calls it "a nightmare." Randy says that Antorey was okay with the Motown, but he had nothing if you took that music away.
Then Simon is saddled with the awkward transition by telling us, "Then again, Motown isn't for everyone." This sends off on some wacky Saturday Night Live-esque commercial parody of an album compilation. In this case, the "album" is a collection of bad Motown song auditions, featuring a bunch of contestants we've already seen. I just love that girl with the femullet and the black cocktail gown butchering "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" with a Muppet voice. Two creepy-looking boys, who each personifies the adjective "homunculus-like" in his own special way, take turns butchering "My Girl." The "commercial" ends with an offer of a bonus track that looks like it features Freddie Prinze Jr. in giant coke-bottle glasses butchering "I Just Called To Say I Love You."
In an interview, Randy whines about having to listen to these bad auditions all day. Yes, it must have been really hard for all the production people who actually had to listen to them all and picked only a handful of the bad ones to come before the judges. Shut up, Randy. This all serves as a transition to bad performers who butcher the lyrics. They include captioning on the bottom of the screen, but the captions are of what the contestants are actually singing, not the real lyrics. Some guy sings, "Can you hear it in ma voids? Roses something I listed. Does the whole world nohawaowawow…" Et cetera. Somebody else screws up some other lyrics while singing as though he's Omar White on speed. Randy comes back to tell us the bad contestants butcher the melodies, too. Well, that's pretty much the case with all the bad auditions. That's not really a "special segment." They show the girl who sang "Unchained Melody" and took two hours as an example. They show the same seasons-changing clip show they did last time. This show probably cost $50 to produce and they're going to rake in millions from the advertising. I'll bet it's taking me more time to write this recap than it took for them to edit this clip show together.
Randy begs future contestants not to butcher the songs and to do the songwriters justice. This serves as a transition to a "public service announcement" by the "American Songwriters Society," or A.S.S. Ha, ha…not. Hey, it's Edwin McCain, taking time out from his busy schedule of…hey, it's Edwin McCain! Edwin sings "I'll Be" with his eyes closed, playing the guitar, and might I point out that he sounds awful? He's butchering his own song. Not that I like that song in the first place. The lyrics have such strange phrasing and emphasis: "I'll BE captivated. I'll HANG from your lips…" Anyway, Edwin is here to blather on about how he bears his soul in his songs and how these awful kids are ruining the reputation of this poor one-hit wonder. We see clips of awful kids singing the awful song awfully. In a frightening moment, they have six awful kids singing the song awfully at the same time in their own little boxes on screen. Edwin pretends to cry. Then he begs future contestants to "be gentle" with his song. Then he goes and sits by the phone, hoping that this performance will get him a call to be in the second season of The Surreal Life.
Commercials. Real ones this time. When we return, Paula tells us all that there were another set of twins that made it to Glendale besides the creepy, too-close blondes. These are the creepy, too-close Gomez twins. They sing while one girl clutches the thumb of the other girl. That's just weird. They sound good, but Paula tells us that it fell apart in Glendale when they made the girls sing separately. They show them both sucking separately. This serves as a transition for all the twins they've seen. There are the creepy, too-close blondes dancing way too close to each other. There was a set of awful yodeling twins in Atlanta. Then, of course, there were Brandon and Bryan Forrest, those two twins who don't seem to know what the word "naïve" means. We get to watch their whole argument with the judges yet again. They're probably the first people to call Simon "naïve" since he was a teenager.
In the awkwardest transition in the history of awkward transitions, Ryan somehow tries to convince us that these two have something in common with the Mariah Carey impersonator. The wording is so bizarre I don't even want to get into it. I think it involves time travel or something. Anyway, they reshow the Mariah Carey impersonator butchering "Against All Odds."
And then there's Edgar again, to give us all nightmares! Edgar and his screeching and crying and freaky gesticulating. He was rejected and then lied that he was going to Hollywood. But then he ups the ante from Stefanie Sugarman, the crazy cheese lady from last season. Unshown until now, Edgar flew himself out to the Pasadena auditions and changed his hairstyle, all in another doomed attempt to make it to the round. He's interviewed by Kristin Holt and tells about fifteen lies about not being able to audition last time and where he lives and yadda yadda yadda. The show helpfully includes a lie-detector buzzer to indicate to us each time he lies. This whole segment is the saving grace of the entire special. Onstage, he sings another Enrique Iglesias song in Spanish. Some folks on the forums say the song is titled "Mentiroso," which is Spanish for "liar." That would have been the perfect joke with which to end this segment, but clearly nobody bothered to research anything about the song. Edgar isn't any better a performer in Spanish than he is in English. He sings like he's crying, but he's not. He flails his arms around. He shouts the words instead of singing. He's crazy and needs professional help. Simon tells Edgar that his music is painful. Edgar responds, "Isn't that what music's about?" Uh? Simon responds, "No! It's supposed to be about enjoyment, not misery." Unless, of course, misery is your source of enjoyment, which is the entire purpose of this special. He's rejected yet again.
Commercials. Oh great, those twits on Joe Millionaire are now going to try to convince us that the relationship is real. Give it up. That never worked for The Bachelor, and it's not going to work here.
When we return, Paula is whining to us about how rude Simon can be. She does cogently point out that Simon does that trick to make him seem less insulting by starting out saying, "I'm not trying to be rude," or "Don't take this the wrong way," which, as everybody knows, is a precursor to saying something rude. They have a clip show of Simon telling about fifteen people that they suck. God, it reminds me of going out to the bars. Which is why I don't anymore. Of course, it's not like I have any choice anymore out here in the middle of the desert. Paula blathers on that sometimes Simon goes too far and Paula has to step in to make an utter fool of herself, which relieves the contestant's embarrassment. She doesn't say that, but that's what actually happens.
We see clips of one Lisa Leuschner, who sings well, though she's a bit loud. And a little bit larger than average. So Simon tells her she needs to lose weight. Paula insists that she doesn't. Simon says he's just saying the same thing he'd say to performers on his label. I'm not sure what sort of defense that is. And given the lack of presence of his talent in the States, you've got to wonder if he's obsessed over the wrong things. Paula insists that Simon is perpetuating eating disorders. Again. Actually, I guess this is before she said it on this week's auditions, but whatever. Simon insists that he's not. Girls are supposed to weigh eighty pounds, and forty of those pounds are supposed to be breasts. Everybody knows that! They get into that whole J.Lo's ass thing. I've already said my piece on that. Simon again insists that he's not saying anything any record executive wouldn't say. Well, yes, and that's how they get that reputation they've got. Simon says he gets criticized for being cruel, but responds that he has to "preserve the integrity of the competition" and bwa! Ha! Ha! HA! HA! Oh, that was a good one. You never know when Simon's going to pull out a zinger like that. He adds that he has to invest money in the winner as well, which is an actual valid point, but whose fault is it that they open the contest up to public vote? Are we supposed to worry that they could lose money on a gamble they chose to make? Well, waaaaah!
Anyway, another awkward transition to bad singers. Some aspiring forensic researcher butchers a song. The guy seems to think a female judge (this was obviously in Atlanta when Paula was absent) would respond better to his singing. Simon points out that she would have to be deaf. Simon accuses him of murdering a song, inspiring the graphics department to put a fake set of bars over him and sentence him to twenty years. Go for the easy jokes.
Another awkward transition leads us to kids making excuses for their bad auditions. They all have colds and laryngitis and actually had to crawl to the auditions from their hospital beds. Some girl who looks like Sarah Michelle Gellar with a bad nose job lists a cavalcade of excuses that includes illnesses and a car breakdown. Some girl whines that her style is bad because she was robbed and lost everything. Also, she just had hemorrhoid surgery. Well, if anybody had a right to constipation face, it's her.
In another awkward transition, they turn to a bad contestant whose boobs are so prominent that Simon "slips" when he rejects her and says, "They've got to go," rather than "You've got to go." I think that was totally intentional.
Commercials. A Pepsi commercial. Ha!
When we return, Paula tells us about one Aliceyn (that's Allison -- or Alison -- for people who insist on being normal) Cooney, who sang "Angel" well during the auditions. Then she sang well in Glendale, too, but somehow ended up cut. In an interview, Simon admits that Aliceyn "slipped through the net" somehow. He doesn't say that her performance faltered or anything. He admits that they don't know why they ended up cutting her. I'm sure he's thinking now that we could have had her instead of Samantha Cohen or Jennifer Fuentes. Or any of all those other interchangeable women with bland voices we've had in the semifinals.
Awkward transition to more bad auditions. Some guy comes out with a fake arrow through his head and sings "Baby Got Back." Of course, as Steptacular mentioned in his audition report, the producers prodded contestants into doing shit like this, so, you know, whatever. Randy's response: "No!" Simon whines to us about people with zero talent who think they are fantastic. He says that it's a medical condition. He tries to come up with a name for it, but everybody who watches reality shows already knows what he's talking about. It's called fame-whorism, and Simon, you're part of the disease, not the cure.
More bad auditions. Many of them have been shown before. That guy shouts out Aretha lyrics while blinking like he's got something in his eye. Some girl shrieks something. A large woman monotones through "Wide Open Spaces." Some blonde girl gives "O Holy Night" the Christina Aguilera treatment. I have a sneaking suspicion that Christina actually did cover this song, but I don't really want to know, so please don't tell me if she did. Some doofus in a leopard-print shirt and leather pants Bill Murrays his way through "I'm So Excited."
Paula tells us that although she's happy to see kids express their "unique sensibility of fashion," even she thinks some of them went overboard. So she's a little bit aware that her own fashion sense falls into the realm of awful. This inspires a clip show of bad style. Some guy is dressed like a genie. Some girl has a green wig. Some guy has drawn a treble clef on his cheek with a marker. They show Kimberley in her stupid Dorothy outfit. Guys wear ripped shirts. Girls wear chartreuse. A guy wears fur pants. There's Cedric the pimp, that hot banana. Some spindly guy dressed in faux-Brit punk style does a striptease. There's that guy dressed like a wizard. We still don't know what he sang like. Oh well. More ripped clothing. There's that homeless guy with no shoes. There's a guy with a tie-dyed cowboy hat. And then there's the lost Solid Gold dancer. Seriously, there's a girl in a gold lamé pantsuit. Even Paula is rendered speechless.
We return to the Seal and -- my eyes! My beautiful eyes! Ryan is wearing Nathan's outfit from the auditions. You know, with the pants ripped up the side? He totally did it to show off his spindly legs. He makes some joke about how the pants allow for "easy access." I'm sorry, did somebody around here say something about this being a show for all ages and that's why Frenchie had to go? Anybody? And I'm sure Ryan is all about the easy access. He blathers on for a bit, then declares that "[he's] spent!" and runs off the Seal like a chimpanzee having a panic attack. And of course, that only makes sense if you've already seen Nathan's audition, so having Ryan do that before showing the clip is fairly stupid. But I'm not surprised. Anyway, they show the entirety of Nate's auditions again. He throws out attitude. Simon compares him to subway performers. Nate acts like an ass. He runs off, declaring, "I'm spent!" I beg to diffah. I think we can expect the show to milk a few more pennies from you in another clip show just before the season finale.
Commercials. We return to meet Lindsey Gort, who is wearing a top from the Ryan Starr shredwear collection. She tells the judges in the initial auditions that she's into fortune-telling. She did a reading for a friend, who nicknamed her the Blair Witch, and it stuck. See, that makes sense because of all that tarot reading and stuff in The Blair Witch Project. Except not. Jesus. What a played reference. After the judges blather on about whether Lindsey can cast spells long enough for Rupert's Christian Right supporters to start composing angry letters accusing the network of supporting Satanism, she finally auditions with "Son Of A Preacher Man." Snerk. Ha! Anyway, she's okay, but she rushes through the song really fast. Simon uses a bunch of obnoxious magic puns to tell us all that while they liked her in the initial rounds, she wasn't very good in Glendale. They cut to her talking her way through some song. Sadly, it's not "Witchy Woman."
And the show approaches the end, but fear not, the best of the worst has yet to be shown. Sadly, it's not Matt Yoder. It's Keith from Atlanta, writhing his way through "Like A Virgin." Before they show him, Simon insists to us that all the bad auditions were real. I don't believe him. I mean, they may not have admitted it directly to Simon, but I'm sure a number of them did it just in the hopes of getting on TV. Anyway, let's get to Keith! He tells Randy and Simon that he's going to be the American Idol, before snorting back some snot. Then he sings like a congested chipmunk and writhes around. So beautiful. So sexy. I can't believe they didn't pick him.
We close out our show clips of all the other bad dancers, set to "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" -- the original version, not Jennifer's or Keith's versions, though that would have been hysterical. People dance all over the place. Somebody brought his own confetti to throw. I didn't know Rip Taylor had kids. Adopted, I'm assuming. They show about fifty bad dancers, including that aerobicize girl, before finally coming back to Keith, completing his rendition of the song.
Well, even if we can't have our Matt Yoder, we'll always have our Keith. Writhe on, Keith. Writhe on.