American Idol 04/18/06 - Rod Stewart Will Not Eat You

Tonight's Idol comes with a smoking jacket and a pair of zebra-striped hot pants. As feared /promised last week, we are re-inventing the sounds of the swing era with the master of swingers (that's what I heard!), Rod Stewert. Rod doing the classics is to me like Orson Wells turning to hock wine or frozen peas. Amassing a shocking four volumes of re-interpreted classics, Rod is about to pop out another one like he somehow managed to pop out another kid, if you can believe it. Not too bad for a borderline Phyllis Diller impersonator. We are now down to 7 Idol finalists. When Ryan Secrets talks about the close-knit Idol family, he probably regrets saying that the unit shrinks again. It was a Tivo moment between me, Ryan and the teleprompter guy.
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Paula Abdulalalala's puffed sleeve rainbow shirt is just delicious, not to mention innappropriate for the workplace.
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"What A Wonderful World" it is to start the evening off with Chris Daughtry. It is nice to see Chris escape from "himself" but why oh why Chris is there still a wallet chain adorning your otherwise suitably-attired body? Do you think that your shit is actually going to fly out of your pocket while you slowly walk the stage? Swing classics night? Going first tonight? Wearing an ascot? Nothing to worry about here. Chris really showed another side of himself.
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Paris Bennett has done some “Foolish Things" in the past but tonight we see everything falling in to place for the munchkin. Her outfit, although played up like every other themed night, is finally right on the money, smart and dressy. Her voice is well suited to the staccato style of this gin joint classic. This would be the equivalent of the episode where Rudy Huxtable, out-cuted by little Olivia, gives up the “precious” schtick and wows the mom and pops with a grown up life lesson proving once and for all she has a purpose. The life lesson in this case of course would be “oh yeah, I forgot she could sing!” Her little shoulder shrugs during the song keep our little giggle box from going seriously chanteuse. Tonight is hers to lose.
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Taylor Hicks, "You Send Me" into a panic trying to decide whether I should revise my top 3 list of Idol finalists. The boy is coming off a hard week, with lots of talk about the Soul Patrol losing its forward momentum. Heck, even I put Taylor in the bottom three last week, he just isn’t fun anymore. Is he back? It’s hard to tell by this song. This song was almost walked and talked through and although he let ‘er rip towards the end, I had so much Hicks juice pent up inside that I wanted him to jump up and down so hard that he would break through the fiberglass topcoat in the floor leaving only bloody stubs where his legs once were, forcing him to either use crutches or a wheelchair for the rest of the competition. Even then, my expectations would be some fancy crutch or wheel action right off the end of the stage. The reality is, after so many arguments and analization of Hicks over the past few weeks, what little hip jive that we get is almost like it’s too self conscious and we are served a small cold tub of I can't believe it's not Hicks to spread over our sad little buns.
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Oh Elliott, "It Had To Be You" singing the most croonerlicious song to ever be squandered on about a billion Television commercials since its inception. Here is a guy who is poised to jump to my #2 if Soul Patrol doesn’t find its damn troop leader…and fast! With Elliott’s song tonight I'm part "Hey, where's David Radford?" and part "Damn, glad David's not here to kick your ass…cause this is sweet!" Talk about completely changing my mind about the 1,000 deaths that I would like to give this genre. I coooould do without the 90% zoom in on the teeth though, thank you very much! There are cracks in the Botox tonight as Simon gives the first negative comment of the evening, he thinks it lacked personality. With numbers dwindling and everyone doing such a great job tonight, will this be “out” that so many on-the-fence viewers are looking for? Will the cuteness factor of Elliott’s mom prevail? Can this be the only negative comment tonight? There’s always Ace!
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Are you "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" as much as I am by Kellie’s diamond encrusted Jimmy Choo hooker clogs? I think Kellie identifies with this song on so many levels. See, first of all Bewitched was on every day when she got out of “skoo” (southern for school) and like, Kellie is all bothered by the fact that everyone keeps talking about how she is “fake” as well as “not real” and gosh, bewildered is such a great backwoods sounding word that it’s just kewl. Okay, talk about lack of personality, if I didn’t also see her blinking like a frog, I would think that someone had taken a cardboard cut-out of Kellie and put someone behind it with their lips sticking through a cut out just so you could see something moving. Other than that, this is the most adult looking that I have seen her without a lot of teased up country hair or gobs of makeup. Hmmmm, some really sharp notes and mechanical choreography...not sure if anyone was bewitched at all baby. Paula doesn’t dwell on the sharp notes of the song but instead tackles her personality. Trying to compliment her, Paula takes a risk by telling Kellie that she can't wait until her acting career starts which I instantly think it reminds me of the whole “fake” rumor. Kellie's face reacts as if she is about to let loose with a defensive "What's an ingenue?"
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Ace advertises (a lot and with gusto) that Rod Stewart gave him the stamp of approval. Oh, hey….Ace? Yeah, see he kind of said that about everyone now that Bucky isn’t here, but hey man, whatever starts your engine. "That's All" sounds like a great song to go out on if this should be Ace’s last week. I envision a Porky Pig theme with it, but anywaaaay… Is there any way for Ace to look any greasier (that is now a word)? How about a ponytail!!! Yep! That'll do! Ace is also wearing a very unflattering suit from JC Penney tonight trying to get into theme. But no one is fooling me. I can still tell that it’s Ace and not my waiter from last night. Even with the monkey suit, Ace gives himself away with his hip pumping and chest touch. I fully expect we would find that Ace is actually a Care Bear underneath it all the way he keeps touching himself like he is activating his Care insignia or something. Hmmm, probably goes by the name of Preens-a-lot Bear or Slouchy Bear. I'm not sure his vocal was too terribly bad but what I really want to know is where did he fit his beanie this week? Simon calls his performance a bit nasally but Ace still says thanks. Ace also assures us that he didn't cut his beautiful mane. Thanks Ace. He is waaaaay over the top about reminding us that Simon gave him a backhanded compliment. He reminds me of the annoying kid in your neighborhood who was always trying to hone in on you and your friends while you were pretending to be Voltron Force by saying “Let me be the Red Lion! I want to be the Red Lion!” And like, you really just wanted him to go away, because he tried way too hard? Anyone? No?.....Really?
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"Someone Watch Over Me"....please! Katherine McPhee is next and the girl is gonna take over! So I thought about Kat all week trying to find out just exactly why I tend to pass her off as this insignificant roadblock with booty in path of Chris Daughtry becoming the next American Idol. I don’t hate her or anything, it’s not like that, and It’s not like she is going to win but she still tends to garner this huge outcropping of support, and I just couldn’t figure it out. Then it hit me. While watching a particularly special episode of Full House, I realized just how normal it was for me to feel this way about her. See, part of me thinks that under normal circumstances I would latch on to her because her voice is quite commanding and she really is nice to look at, but the other part of me is completely bothered that she is even there to begin with because this isn’t her show this year and she will just continue to siphon off valuable minutes from mine and everyone else’s lives until it’s all over! See, it’s that simple! Oh wait, I didn’t tie it all together did I? Okay, Katherine McPhee is 'Becky' Donaldson Katsopolis…Lori Loughlin’s character from Full House. Seriously, the show was about Uncle Jesse, DJ Tanner, geeky Kimmy, Joey’s horrible Bullwinkle impersonations, that creepy baby Michelle, even freakin’ Bob Saget!...not, mind you, plain boring Becky whose personality sat on you like a jumbo loaf of white bread. But way to go Kat! You’ve got your McPheever thing going for you but it will take more than a catchy phrase and Uncle Jesse to keep you in it ‘til the bitter end!