On Thursday (April 10) night, American Idol will eliminate another contestant, punishment for Tuesday's mighty mediocre Inspirational Songs Night. But Wednesday is all about giving back, which is why the 150 minute telethon is called, um, Idol Gives Back. But if it's Wednesday and Idol is on, I'm recapping. So here it goes...

Before I start this recap, let me rehash some of what I said last year before the beginning of Idol Gives Back.

From January to May, much of what I do for a living is dedicated to making fun of American Idol, to trying to take the nation's most popular TV show down a peg or two for its bloated largesse and its springtime monopoly of the media landscape. I mock tone-deaf singers, sloppy clip packages, bumbling performances, garish costumes and awkward attempts to shoehorn product plugs into the most unnecessary of contexts. American Idol is sometimes a glorious pageant, but it's often just plain funny. I sort of prefer the latter. It makes my job easier.

But I don't have any interest in mocking Idol Gives Back. I don't care if the show's motives are 100% altruistic or 75% altruistic/25% self-serving or 15% altruistic/85% pure evil, but raising $76 million for charitable causes is an absolutely good. And I feel that way even if there have been some questions as to the speedy dispersal of funds from last year's show and even if the ultra right wing listserve that I somehow found myself on -- Do you not understand what "unsubscribe" means? -- tried telling me that some of the organizations getting money aren't properly aligned with their bizarre version of Christian fundamentalism. Yes, it's a mighty preachy thing for a mentally deficient reality television show to take a one-night break from consumerist excess and relentless hand-over-fist moneymaking to try teaching viewers the importance of healing the world, either with good acts or money or whatever you can muster. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing.

Just because it's a good thing doesn't mean that Wednesday night's Idol Gives Back special will actually be good TV. It will be abusively long, periodically condescending and, if we're lucky, maybe Zombie Elvis will be back. And if those things happen, I want to be able to make jokes.

So I went over to the Idol website and either made a donation or bought absolution for whatever mockery is coming. I could tell you how many mosquito nets I bought for African children, but that's not what charity's about (even if Ryan Seacrest is going to give us exact dollar amounts spend by some guilty corporate sponsors).

If you feel like doing a little guilt-driven good deed yourself, here's the handy link...

In any case, the following is a minute-by-minute recap of Wednesday's Idol Give Back, plus the Tigers-Red Sox game I'm watching at the same time.

It's gonna be a long one...

7:30 p.m. ET. To heck with regular primetime. If Idol wants to start at 7:30, Idol gets to start at 7:30. Because Ryan Seacrest hosted the Kodak Theatre portion of the show, which was recorded on Sunday, and he's also handling the live footage from the show's regular stage, that means Double Seacrest tonight. Double Seacrest? 150 minutes? Somehow I think Seacrest's initial estimates of 30 million viewers will be inflated. Last night's show, after all, averaged 24 million.

7:31 p.m. The show's opening performances come from people some viewers will recognize as the most recent cast of FOX's So You Think You Can Dance. They're joined by the Top Eight singing "Don't Stop the Music." Thankfully, the Idol contestants are moved to the side very quickly because, let's be clear, none of them have any stage presence and So You Think You Can Dance gang is fantastic.

7:34 p.m. NASCAR champ Jimmy Johnson is the first person to introduce the Idol Gives Back call-in number, which just happens to be 1-877-IDOL-AID.

7:37 p.m. George Lopez makes an appeal to viewers who hablan Espanol. Then again, the numeric system is the same in English and Spanish, isn't it? Michael Johns' countrywoman Kylie Minogue makes a similar appeal to people who speak English, but sound like Yahoo Serious.

7:39 p.m. Maria Shriver arrives on stage to the strains of "Maria" from West Side Story. That's just wrong. She quotes both Gandhi and an ancient Hopi prayer, which is as versatile as being a Kennedy married to a Republican governor.

7:41 p.m. Last year's most annoying celebrity Ben Stiller is back, joking about how his Whitney Houston cover album, titled Stiller Whips Whitney's Ass For Charity, lost $3.2 million for Idol Gives Back. His new goal? To raise a googillion dollars. But Ben, that sounds crazy! He responds, "Isn't that what American Idol is all about? Convincing crazy people they can be on television?"

7:43 p.m. Jennifer Connelly wants African children to have clean drinking water. Jennifer Connelly stunning. Therefore, African children deserve clean drinking water. I know she has an Oscar now and everything, but I miss Career Opportunities Era Jennifer Connelly.

7:45 p.m. Snoop Dogg and Charlie Wilson perform and the Red Sox get on the board.

7:50 p.m. Most days, Triple H would want to rip off your head and drink your blood. Tonight, he just wants you to give to charity.

7:51 p.m. Sorry. But could they have had Paula Abdul make her commentary about the high percentage of American children who are obese (while so many other children still go hungry) when she wasn't standing next to a man who spent a chunk of his wealth on radical stomach-stapling surgery? Randy's my dawg, but that's the sort of irony I'd try to avoid.

7:54 p.m. Teri Hatcher/ James Denton jokes are *so* 2005 and throwing in Carrie Underwood only barely helps. Hatcher's version of "Before He Cheats" is a bit pitchy, but I love Band From TV, with Greg Grunberg on drums, Denton on guitar and Jesse Spencer on fiddle.

7:57 p.m. I don't ever want to hear Mary Murphy's voice again. Please contribute so she'll be quiet. It's funny, because she's annoying. It's also annoying, because she's annoying.

8:00 p.m. The Jonas Brothers?!? OMG!!!

8:01 p.m. How many people in the audience are aware that Billy Crystal had a minor league at bat this spring? And who cares? He welcomes either Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana, whichever one most closely resembles Danny Noriega. Cyrus and Crystal make jokes about how she's young and he's old. She also manages to plug her two CDs and her movie, wedging that information smoothly into the charity special. See? He's never heard of her! And she's never heard of him!

8:06 p.m. Yeah. I prefer Hannah Montana. I hope she performs later. Because then? Then? Then, we'd have the best of both worlds!

8:07 p.m. Whoa. Creepy. It's Ryan Seacrest II at the CBS Studio. I'd call in, but only if I could talk to Kristy Lee Cook. Live Seacrest says we're already over $15 million, but Bono cautions me that that isn't enough. After meeting Sophia, an African girl with AIDS, many viewers may agree.

8:15 p.m. In her latest movie, Julianne Moore plays a chilly, emotionally frigid woman who wants you to give to charity.

8:16 p.m. I went to college with John Legend. He wasn't called John Legend back then. I didn't actually know him or anything, but it's either that or talk about Fergie's rubber pants.

8:18 p.m. Dude. Heart. Yeah, they're a bit old. But damn. As amazing as it is to see Heart, the Idol producers seem determined to keep my eyes glued to Fergie's pants, which are technological marvels capable of standing up to cartwheels.

8:26 p.m. Ryan wants to make it clear that the Idol contenders aren't the only people answering the phone. He means that to be reassuring, but what if I really only want to hear Amanda Overmyer's whiskey-soaked voice?

8:27 p.m. The combination of a Tigers rally on one TV and Patriots-slayer Eli Manning on the other makes this a very bad moment for this New England sports fan.

8:35 p.m. It's been said before many times many wears, but it bears repeating: David Beckham should never speak. We're up to $18 million dollars, which is good. Bono, though, still isn't satisfied. Annie Lennox is downright miserable.

8:42 p.m. Seemingly crying in Africa just seconds earlier, Lennox hits the stage to give the night's best performance thus far, or at least its most emotional.

8:49 p.m. Last year, Idol made Celine Dion perform with Zombie Elvis. This year, she's in South Africa. I wonder if she misses Zombie Elvis.

That seems like a lot, but there was still another 70 minutes to go...

For the rest of the recap, head over to our It Happened Last Night blog.

Comments

omg, i luvluv LUV HM or miley cyrus (whichever one it is) i have her cds and no all her songs by heart

Corona Kitkat | Apr 10, 2008 12:56:09 AM | #

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I THINK ROBIN WILLAMS COMENTS ABOUT SIMONS NIPPLES WAS IN BAD TASTE AS THERE ARE YOUNG KIDS WATCHING THIS SHOW AND THEN GRABBING HIS ASS

BRU CE | Apr 10, 2008 6:53:12 AM | #

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i love carly and my name is also carly luv u

carly | Apr 14, 2008 1:36:41 PM | #

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i love carly and my name is also carly luv u

carly | Apr 14, 2008 1:36:45 PM | #

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i love carly and my name is also carly luv u

carly | Apr 14, 2008 1:36:52 PM | #

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fuck miley and hannah

sam | Apr 14, 2008 1:38:14 PM | #

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