Two and a half hours. Two. And a half. Hours. This...is my own personal hell.
"Together, we're gonna save some lives," says Ryan Seacrest. Oh, good, I haven't done that in a while. After the credits, I'm temporarily broken out of the funk of having to deal with this entire extravaganza by two things: one being the familiar beat to Rihanna's "Please Don't Stop The Music" and two being the crazy/in your face dancing of the So You Think You Can Dance kids. Or so I'm told. I've actually never watched the show, but it is my mission to start doing so this year. It seems like a much better way to spend one's summer than the self-loathing that watching Big Brother provides. Of course, all this excitement is soon dampened by the involvement of the eight Idol contestants, a uniformly desperate bunch if I ever saw one. Thankfully, and wisely, they manage to sing one verse and then step off to the side and let the dancers dance. I do appreciate how the one girl has her hands all over David Cook, though. And I'll admit the cuteness of Ryan Seacrest dancing off the stage with them when they're done.
Hey, so you'll forgive me if I don't give a full rendition of every random-ass celebrity who asks you to give money, right? Okay, good. Except for when it's Kylie Minogue, like it is right this second. Then I'll tell you that Kylie Minogue manages to cover her embarrassment at being on the show long enough to ask you to donate.
A winded Ryan then introduces California first lady Maria Shriver, who is accompanied by an entire combat division of disabled and disadvantaged kids. Does she show up everywhere with that entourage? Do they back her up if she gets into an alley fight? Wow, she manages to quote Gandhi and an "ancient Hopi prayer" within a minute. I bet Obama hasn't even pulled that off. ...Oh God, please don't let Hillary and Obama show up. I will be so, so disappointed.
Ben Stiller. Couldn't have busted out the Bono impersonation on this most appropriate of all evenings? No? Just gonna stand there making jokes that landed on the cutting room floor of The Heartbreak Kid? Okay.
We are treated to a short film of Jennifer Connelly serving "her" children pond-scummy water from Central Park, like they do in poor countries that aren't here. The moral of the story? Stop fucking bitching me out for drinking bottled water, Green Police. There are way worse water-related things to get high and mighty about.
Snoop Dogg takes the stage, as do, eventually, his little pee-wee football leaguers. ...Hey, Snoop's going to donate that diamond-encrusted mic to charity after the show, right? They all coerce the audience to wave their arms from side-to-side, which is cute and all. Just don't tell them how David Archuleta can get them to do the same without trying. Then Kobe Bryant appears with a nicotine patch on his cheek (??) and asks us to take the money we were going to spend on "I'm sorry I raped the room-service waitress" gifts for our wives and donate it to charity instead. I think I will, Kobe! I think I will.
After the break...okay, so if you're not at all familiar with the WWE, you're not going to know who this big, 'roided up freak with the Fabio hair is doing being all angry and in your face and having "two words for ya." Triple H, you're still saying that? In 2008? I suppose being the last remaining professional wrestler who hasn't overdosed or killed himself would make one nostalgic for 1997.
Paula and Randy take the stage as "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow" plays. Is Paula supposed to be lip-synching this? ...No, I guess not. It's hard to tell, though. The slapstick comedy of Randy and Paula trying to read the prompter is short-lived, however, and soon we're shoved into a video package which is either about keeping kids safe from gang violence, providing kids with healthy food so they don't turn into giant fatties, or Paula Abdul teaching children how to dance like there's no tomorrow.
Okay, this might be the weirdest thing yet: so after this painfully dumb sketch in which Carrie Underwood and the Desperate Housewives plumber get walked in on by Teri Hatcher, Teri decides to steal Carrie's song, and before you know it, there she is, on stage singing "Before He Cheats" with a band full of random TV people. Aw, Greg Grunberg on drums! I can't recognize anyone else right away. Is that the cute doctor from House? Can't tell. Teri's face doesn't move for one single second during the whole performance, and I keep waiting for something to cut it short and get to the real performance, but no, this is the real performance. Huh. Then Mary Murphy from So You Think You Can Dance shows up and does that screaming thing she's become known for while asking you to donate. Wow, she's really throwing herself into that gimmick, huh? With the screaming? That's kind of pathetic. That's like if Randy showed up every week and said "dawg" and then Paula slurred her words and Simon was grumpy and vain. Mix it up, Mary Murphy!
Of course, since you can't have a giant Hollywood self-congratulation event without Billy Crystal, here he is to provide much-needed stand-up comedy. Does he mispronounce Miley Cyrus's name on purpose? Yeah, I guess that's the gimmick here -- he's old and out of touch, she's the future of music and pop culture. Every time I go back home to Buffalo I learn a little bit more about Hannah Montana from my little sister. Just the last time I learned about the whole magic blonde wig thing. Anyway, her performance lasts all of a minute and a half, I swear to God, and then she kicks it back to Ryan in the Idol studio as the Top 12 take calls from potential donators. Dude, I really hope somebody called and tried to engage Archuleta or Jason Castro in a conversation. As you might expect, Syesha is more interested in drawing attention to herself than taking calls, Michael Johns's attempts at humor fizzle, and Carly is taking the job extremely seriously (and...probably fucking it up just enough that she'll never be the best at it).
Aaaaaand here's Bono in Africa. That's his name now, right? "Bono in Africa"? He takes a trip to a village ravaged by AIDS and asks a young girl if she has anything to say to the American audience. Beyond "Please don't let me die from AIDS," what else would you like her to say? And...oh, dude. Not to be that asshole who can't cope with serious issues and thus has to hide behind a wall of irony and shallowness, but seriously? This might be the first time in years that anyone's seen Bono's actual eyes, and I understand why he keeps the shades on all the time. Homeboy looks OLD, you guys.
Any good buzz you might have built up after seeing Julianne Moore make a plea for your dollars is probably squandered soon thereafter by the Fergie/John Legend performance. I do believe Fergie is wearing leggings made of rubber. It's weird to see someone get Fugged right before your eyes. The song, like Hannah Montana's, is super short, and the Fergie asks us all to applaud John Legend for being classier than everybody in the room even though nobody can remember anything he's ever sung. The Fergie gets all angry in the face, but you soon understand why when she introduces Heart. Well, finally. This has been building for, what, three seasons now? So if the sight of Fergie and Heart doing "Barracuda" on American Idol doesn't give you a cerebral hemorrhage, I tell you that nothing ever will, and enjoy your charmed existence. This is so nuts. Ann Wilson's dressed in, like, a Goth bathrobe, and Fergie's crawling on the stage and then doing cartwheels, and Nancy won't look at anything but her guitar because she's in her happy place, and...sorry guys, that was awesome. The Heart good-luck charm strikes again!
More wrestlers! John Cena's square-faced hotness wants you to donate. ...Oh, okay.
Dude, Syesha is STILL holding up that index card that says "Call, Ma!" Look, I don't blame her for using this entire charity extravaganza to get a call from her mom, but just have the class not to tell us about it. Kristy Lee continues to make me like her in spite of myself as she relays a request that Ryan blow a kiss into the camera and laughs her ass off about how stupid it all is. Every season, there's one person who has totally gone beyond caring about the outcome of the show and thus becomes awesome, and I have to admit that Kristy Lee is our girl this year.
Eli and Peyton Manning show up looking all awkward and uncomfortable. But they're here to provide a pubic service: to piss off each and every football fan in New England. Works for me! They kick it to a video package of New Orleans, where the Mannings sit and talk with Katrina survivors. They're good boys, those Mannings. Of course, I'm part of the problem here, taking in this entire video and emerging with an opinion on the Mannings rather than the kids, and thus we arrive at the kernel of uncomfortable truth at the center of all charity telethons like this. "Wow, Julia Roberts answered those phone calls so well! I love her! I should see her movie this weekend! ...Wait, what did she just say about Darfur?"
After the break, we return to find...oh. Okay, see, I have more appreciation for David and Victoria Beckham than most people, and even I think it's tacky to have them appear on a charity telethon. I can only imagine how everybody else feels. "Just one dollar can make a world of difference when you have no world." That...doesn't sound right.
More manic Idols-on-phone zaniness, followed by more naked-eyed Bono earnestness, followed by a video of the wonderful Annie Lennox in Tanzania. Of all the people who appear on this show, she's one of the few who I can see doing this kind of thing when the show's not on. She accompanies four young boys on a trip to get tested for HIV, celebrates with them when they're negative, and horses around with them afterwards. She weeps as she talks about them -- not TV crying but actual hiccupping sobs. Then she takes the stage in Hollywood and performs "Many Rivers To Cross," and then the whole show shuts down and they send the Top 8 home and declare there will be no American Idol this year because of the shame. Then Kiefer gets up on his wooden crate so he can be visible on camera and asks us to donate.
TWO AND A HALF HOURS OH MY GOD.
So Forest Whitaker and his wife go to Africa to learn about malaria. And there is Sia, and there is "Breathe Me." Man, you really shouldn't send someone as emotionally fragile as Forest Whitaker on one of these excursions, because then I start worrying about him and whether he's going to be okay. He always looks about three-fifths of the way towards a breakdown, doesn't he?
So what's more awkward than the Top 12 receptionists all shouting and competing for Ryan's attention while Ryan talks about dead children? This entire show, is what.
British P.M. Gordon Brown and his poorly-knotted purple tie show up on the video screen and promises $200 million in mosquito netting. And only a few of those are going to end up as the prize in a reward challenge on Survivor.
After the break: Reese Witherspoon! Hey, girl! Does she look dynamite? Oh yes, she does. Is she a little bit self-important and also awkward when she goes on site to the charity project in New Orleans? You betcha. But sue me, I respect her good intentions.
And then, oh AND THEN the American Idols get up on stage and sing "Seasons of Love" from Rent. Now normally Rent is one of my pop cultural Achilles heels where I have no defense against looking like a total queerball nerd, but fortunately this particular song doesn't quite do that to me. Which means I don't get moved by it like I think I'm supposed to, but on the flip side I'm not as irrationally angry when I hear the Idol kids butcher it with their trademark tuneless group performance. David Archuleta does fuck up a lyric, in case you were curious if he were going to keep that streak alive.
Dane Cook: "Alicia Keys is a testament to young people standing up for what they believe in." I've always thought so. As with everything else involving Alicia Keys on this show, I kind of tune it out. Sorry, Africa. I promise to rewind the Annie Lennox part and pay double attention to that.
After a testimonial by two of the High School Musical girls, here's Miley Cyrus again. Oh, good. Couldn't she have performed this one as Hannah Montana just to mix it up? Wouldn't that have made sense? This is another performance that may or may not feature the So You Think You Can Dancers. Another reason for me to watch that show: so I'll stop asking that question about every dancer I see on TV from now on. Then she and Daddy Ray Cyrus travel to Appalachian Kentucky for a video project on the rural poor. I guess Miley Cyrus is what poor country folk have to aspire to these days. It's tough for kids whose dads aren't one-hit jokes.