So, each week Ryan Seacrest opens the show by saying “This is American Idol” and I wonder how much he practices that one line. 

I can see him standing in front of the mirror saying it over and over and over again.  You know, so he can see how his mouth moves or how his hair moves when the words come out.

Then asking fans to vote for which version they like better and getting the judges opinion of course.

I don’t know why, but I bet Ryan is very anal about how those few words come out.  Most viewers probably forget after a few seconds, but not Ryan. One wrong pronunciation will ruin his week and leave him self-conscious.

What do you think?  Is Ryan worried about those few words; “This is American Idol”?  Or is he to busy with his hair and clothes?

Surfing around the video sites, I came across some great American Idol parodies. Here are my top 5!

5. Justin Timberlake trying out for American Idol on MadTV.

4. Saturday Night Live. Each actor gets their own contestant intro, but then they do a skit with Weekend Update that’s quite funny.

American Idol Parody - The best free videos are right here

3. Since We’ve Been On. MadTV skit that makes fun of quite a few Idols. The most original I think.

2. Kelly Clarkson on Reba trying to be a weather woman and getting judged by the cast playing Simon, Paula and Randy of course.

1. The Simpsons animated sketch where they judge Simon. Homer is Simon, Marge is Randy, Lisa is Paula and Bart as Ryan. Awesome!

This post is part of ProBloggers Top 5 writing contest.

Disco night proved to be quite the undertaking. I don’t think it’s about who did the best, but who did the least bad. That’s right, I said least bad.

None of the Idols gave steller performances. I think a lot of the problem stems from the judges. One week they say, “Make it your own” and the next week they say “You changed the song. You don’t have to do that.” So which is it???

Out of the final four, Melinda did the best in my book. However she’s coming off as old. Yes the songs were old, but it carried across to Melinda. That’s her weak point right now.

Lakisha has peaked. Sad but true. She’s just not giving the WOW performances she once did. I liked both performances, but they left me wanting more out of her.

Jordin performed quite well too. Nothing steller, but she’s pretty safe. With her though, she’s singing songs about being in love and all that jazz. She’s only 17!! What does she know about love?

And then there was Blake. Holding out any hope for the men, but coming up short. I totally agree with Randy in the fact that the beat boxing is cool, but not in every song. His first song was sung great, but the added extras killed it. The second song was nice, beat boxing worked pretty well, but I think it would have been better without it.

To me, I think it’s either Blake or Lakisha going home. I doubt either will make it into the finals, but who knows.

Also, did anyone else notice that ‘Seacrest Out’ was back? Yep, the Ryan Seacrest tagline came back. How cool is that?

Idol gives back was an amazing show. I think it’s great that such a sensation can take some time and give back.

The biggest shocker of the night was when Jordin Sparks was left standing. She was the last one to be told she was safe. That’s right, this week only, no one goes home. If I were her I’d smack Ryan Secrest for pulling such a stunt. Surely her heart sank when she thought she was the one going home. But luckily she’s not. Next week two people will go home and this weeks votes will help decide who those two are.

The other shocker had to be the king himself, Elvis, singing a duet with Celine Dion. With a little bit of video magic, they both shared the stage and the Idol hopefulls sang backup. It was pretty darn amazing.

The celebrity list that showed up to help out Idol Gives Back is much to long to list. For some it was with an exclusive song while others just did a little ‘call now’ announcement. Either way Hollywood was out in full force.

And today, iTunes is suppose to have exclusive content from the event; which it does. You can get the high quality Elvis and Celine duet, download Carrie Underwood sining I’ll Stand By You or get the Ford music video. All proceeds will go to Idol Gives Back and then onto help children of the world.

I have to say, the iTunes selection is very lacking. I was hoping for so much more this morning. Lets hope it’s still on the way. Especially the last song of the evening that all the Idols sang. I’d love that one.

Overall, Idol Gives Back was a great show and they did raise a lot of money for good causes. If you haven’t given, head over to AmericanIdol.com and give. Even if it’s just $10, it will do so much good.

Ok, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear that Sanjaya Malakar was one of the top four guys. I liked Rudy Cardenas performance and didn’t see him going home so soon. Paul Kim, Amy Krebs and Nicole Tranquillo leave also. At this point, there are to many people to really care who gets the boot and who doesn’t. I’m not finding the talent that good or the show that addicting yet this year. Maybe there are still to many people.

And stopping by for a guest spot was Fantasia Barrino. I tuned out during that performance. I think she’s talented, but I’m not a fan. She did announce that she was going to be in a Broadway play though. It’s The Color Purple by Quincy Jones. We would have gotten a bit more info about it but Ryan Seacrest kind of cut Quincy off. Pretty bad too.

The highlight of the evening for me was hearing the ‘goodbye’ song. Last year it was Daniel Powter’s Bad Day and this year it’s none other than Chris Daughtry’s Home!!!! How cool is that? The song fits well and I hope they continue to use it all season long. Plus it’ll be great to see Chris’ guest appearance. You know it’ll happen sooner or later. Both songs by the way are less than a dollar each on iTunes.

What did you think of the show?

As mentioned earlier, we picked up Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol at the store the other day and have been having a blast playing it. Can you handle the pressure? Are you the next American Idol?

In the game, there are two game modes, Karaoke and Idol. Karaoke is much like other versions of Karaoke Revolution where you sing at the beach, Vegas, rooftop or whatever and have a good time. This game really shines when you enter into the American Idol competition.

First off, you create your contestant. Pick your look from your skin tone to your sunglass and then get ready. You’re first stop is the auditions with Simon, Randy and Laura. Laura is who’s taking Paula’s place and looks a bit like Paula. The background is just like you see in Idol auditions and at the end, you are judged. If you sang well, you’ll get good mentions. Pitchy? Well they’ll tell you that too. And, if by chance your singing is horrible, they won’t let you go to Hollywood or Simon will surely tell you to never sing again.

After that you make your rounds from that first round with the basic stage to the final grand finale stage, the sets are represented really well. As you go along in the competition though, you can be cut at any time. Ryan Seacrest also appears in the game, but only as a voice. He comes on when it’s decision time much like on TV. Only in the game, he’s not quite so mean with long pauses and commercial interruptions.

An interesting note, other Idol contestants have names like Kelly, Bo, Rubin, Clay and Carrie. Their picture doesn’t match, but you are competing with the best.

As you rack up points and do well, you’ll unlock Idol video clips. Contestants from every year singing the songs represented in the game. And they are not all good. William Hung appears in a video clip along with a bunch of other horrible Idol auditions. But don’t fear, great clips from Carrie Underwood, Bo Bice, Fantasia Barrino, Kelly Clarkson and many others are there. Even some Idol faces that you may not quite remember like Justin Guarini.

The only thing really missing from this game is Paula Abdul. She’s been replaced by some Laura character and only shows up in the video clips. However, her Straight Up does appear on the song list for the game.

The only downside to the game is the freaky tongue action. I know that sounds weird, but when the judges are giving feedback, the tongue is really odd. Not sure who forgot to fix that code.

Overall the American Idol game represents the TV show very well and I’d highly recommend it to any fans. Randy says Dawg a lot and Simon will insult you for singing bad but that’s just how it is. I’m not the best singer, and I’ll never be an American Idol, but this is fun.

Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol is available for Playstation 2. Since Playstation 3 can play PS2 games, it should also work with PS3.

Song List:
All My Life
Alone
(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me
Be Without You
Breakaway (by Kelly Clarkson)
Build Me Up Buttercup
Can’t Help Falling In Love
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Dilemma
Do I Make You Proud? (by Taylor Hicks)
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me
Don’t You Want Me
Easy
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Flying Without Wings
Heartbreaker
Heaven
Hungry Like The Wolf
If You Don’t Know Me By Now
It’s Not Unusual
Just The Way You Are
Let’s Stay Together
Love Will Keep Us Together
More Than Words
Photograph
Piano Man
Proud Mary
Rock With You
Saving All My Love For You
She Bangs (made famous by William Hung)
Stand By Me
Stickwitu
Straight Up (by Paula Abdul)
Sugar, We’re Going Down
The Real Thing (by Bo Bice)
Total Eclipse Of The Heart
Unwritten
What A Girl Wants
You And Me
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

Sorry, no Ryan Seacrest here, but welcome to American Idolz.

We are just getting started here and we hope to be up and running good by the time American Idol Season Six gets going in only a few short days!

This site is aimed to be different as there are a lot of people that love, and hate, American Idol. I want to be able to bring a different perspective to things or at least push the envelope a bit. Of course I want your opinions too. You are free to contact us and write for the site if you’d like. Good or bad, we’ll accept most any posts. More details on that in a bit though.

For now, welcome to American Idolz and I hope you enjoy the ride.