American Idol

Last night was the first episode of American Idol, Season 8. The show opened with a montage look back at the prior seven seasons. It was a great trip down memory lane and showed mostly all the winners. I don't remember seeing Fantasia in the montage.

I didn't take notes, and I have slept since then, but I did like a gal named Emily Hughes who had lots of tattoos and wore a red dress. She belted out Barracuda and did a good job, I thought. She is already in a band - and had not told her band members about the AI audition. Not cool - but I think she will do well in Hollywood.

The new judge Kara DioGuardi - I like her. She fits in well. I had not heard of her - but seems like a lot of the AI hopefuls had done their homework and knew who she was. Simon kept pronouncing her name wrong. Typical. The correct pronunciation is CARE-UH and Simon insisted in calling her CAR-UH. I think she was getting annoyed.

I noticed that for the first full hour - the 4 judges voted unanimously - all were FOR a contestant and they were all 4 against. No hemming and hawing and sitting on the fence.

It got a little messier in the 2nd hour when bikini girl Katrina showed up. Randy and Simon didn't even need to hear her sing - they just said YES - you are through to Hollywood. Neither Kara nor Paula thought the girl could sing - and then Kara told Katrina "You don't have the chops to sing...." to Katrina and Katrina responded by insulting Kara. What was really funny was Paula's reaction to the insult, she jumped up and got all worked up over it.

Paula and Simon are still snarky to each other.

One of the funniest moments was a video of half a dozen girls aged 11 or so watching last season's final episode in which it was determined whether David Cook or David Archuleta would win American Idol. The suspense was terrible and the girls were frantic and unable to stand still while they prayed for David A. to win. I thought for sure one girl would wet herself. And then the moment of truth - David Cook wins! Girl about to wet herself collapses on the floor, another girls mouth dropped open (can you say cave?) and all the other girls screamed "NO!!" and began to cry. Priceless.

They also showed poor old Sanjaya and that little girl who just cried herself silly. She will never live that down.

In the end, they put through 27 singers from Arizona.

Looking forward to tonights episode. I think they are in Kansas City tonight.