American Idol/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Dueling Shows: While already in a duel with Dancing With the Stars, Idol seems primed for the second internal duel within the FOX network, going up against The X Factor.
  • Dye Hard: Amy Adams and Lacey Brown.
  • No Export for You / Bad Export for You: The UK's Channel 5 dropped the show part way through Season 13.
  • One-Hit Wonder: With a few exceptions (most notably Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood), the careers of most American Idol contestants wind up being like this.
    • Kimberly Locke's "8th World Wonder", barely.
    • Josh Gracin's "Nothin' To Lose".
    • Technically, "Inside Your Heaven" was Bo Brice's only top 40 hit; it peaked at number 2! However, "The Real Thing" was the only song of his to get a reasonable amount of airplay.
    • Despite Taylor Hicks' notorious reputation as a failure, his coronation song "Do I Make You Proud" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
    • Katherine McPhee's "Over It".
    • Elliot Yamin's "Wait For You".
    • Blake Lewis' "You Give Love A Bad Name".
    • David Archuleta's "Crush".
    • Lee DeWyze's cover of "Beautiful Day".
    • Jennifer Hudson is a special case. Not only is she a One-Hit Wonder as a singer, but also as an actress as Dreamgirls was her only role of note.
      • To be fair, her role in Dreamgirls netted her an Oscar on top of a boatload of other awards, and she stepped out of the limelight afterwards because her mother, brother, and nephew were brutally murdered. She's performed at the Grammys, the Super Bowl, and the White House since then, and appeared on a TV show and in a few movies, and will be getting a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.
    • Most of them are actually happy about only having one or two hits, because it nets them a sizable fanbase and enough money to live comfortably (without a day job) while still making music.
  • One of Us: David Cook.
  • The Pete Best: Brian Dunkelman, if only you'd had a crystal ball...
  • Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Jermaine Jones, literally.