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[[File:american_idol_tv_show.jpg|frame]]
An American version of the British series ''Pop Idol'', which is better known due to the fact that far more people live in America than Britain. In Britain, ''Pop Idol'' was also pushed aside for ''[[The X Factor]]''. ''X Factor'' came to the U.S. in 2011, with [[Mean Brit|Simon Cowell]]. The ''Idol'' season that followed suffered the worst rating drop in the series' history.
The show was launched in 2002. In eight years, it's launched several careers. Among the more notably talented and successful are [[Kelly Clarkson]] (Season 1 winner), Clay Aiken (Season 2 runner-up), Ruben Studdard (Season 2 winner), Fantasia Barrino (Season 3 winner), Jennifer Hudson (an Academy Award winner for ''[[Dreamgirls]]''), Chris Daughtry, Bo Bice, David Archuleta, [[Adam Lambert]], and [[Carrie Underwood]] (Season 4 winner, the first Idol to go purely [[Country Music]]).
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'''Another reason for the show's popularity is the chemistry among the three(?) judges:'''
* Simon Cowell (
* [[Paula Abdul]] (
* Randy Jackson (
* Kara DioGuardi (
* Ellen DeGeneres (
* [[Jennifer Lopez]] (
* Steven Tyler (
One website nailed Paula's judging with the line "her ritualistic fare of generalized superlatives that highlight nothing specific about a performer." Simon, on the other hand, generally responds with either a verbal shrug ("It was good, it just wasn't great") or unabashed criticism ("I felt like I was at a [[School Play|high school musical]]"), so his rare superlatives actually mean something.
A great deal of the show's entertainment value comes in the first weeks, when one can watch all sort of [[Hopeless Auditionees|untalented (and worse) singers]] warble their off-key "songs" at the four judges.
Still, the show has its detractors. Year after year, opponents try to either get a boycott of the show going or try to [http://www.votefortheworst.com sabotage it by putting the worst contestant in the winner's circle.] Their efforts haven't succeeded yet, but with Season 6's Sanjaya Malakar (who made it to 7th place) and Season 8's Danny Gokey (who made it into the top 3), they got closer than ever.
The show is a veritable ratings ''behemoth'', drawing 20+ million viewers on a ''bad'' day. To put it in perspective, President [[Barack Obama]]'s speech on the state of Healthcare in September 2009 drew about 30 million viewers -- on [[News Monopoly|10 different networks.]] The 2009 finale of ''[[American Idol]]'' drew 28 million viewers -- on one network. ''[[American Idol]]'' alone has cemented [[FOX]] as the top dog network in terms of advertising potential. The network uses the show as a lead-in to whatever show they are pimping lately -- the most notable examples are ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' and ''[[Glee]]'', which nearly doubled their respective viewerships and went from merely popular to
It's very likely that, in decades to come, this will be the show most remembered as what defined American television in [[Turn of the Millennium|the first decade of the 21st century]]. For better or worse.
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* [[The Band Minus the Face]]: What the show has become with the exit of Cowell.
* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Simon, which is one of the reasons contestants don't like him.
* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]: Siobhan Magnus, who had an extremely... unique... personality (see [[Cloudcuckoolander]] below), but was one of the best singers of
* [[Commercial Break Cliffhanger]]: Probably the modern [[Trope Codifier|innovator]] (if not ''[[Deal or No Deal]]''). Dammit, Ryan, that's not funny!▼
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Paula Abdul was so loopy that people just assumed she was completely high all the time.
** Siobhan Magnus.
{{quote|
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AI97mwEk7o Isadora Furman].
▲* [[Commercial Break Cliffhanger]]: Probably the modern [[Trope Codifier|innovator]] (if not ''[[Deal or No Deal]]''). Dammit, Ryan, that's not funny!
* [[Cousin Oliver]]: Kara DioGuardi, the fourth judge added in Season 8.
* [[Cuteness Proximity]]: Bring anything cute into the audition room and prepare to watch Paula dissolve, with Simon about a millisecond behind her.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Simon. Ellen started to trend towards this as well, although this shouldn't be surprising given her background.
* [[Did I Just Say That Out Loud?]]: In Season 9, Aaron Kelly was asked if he liked [[
* [[Don't Think, Feel]]: A contestant who made it to the top 24 in the tenth season, explicitly. And any of a number of others, some more explicitly than others.
* [[Dramatic Pause]]: See [[Large Ham]] below.
* [[Dude Looks Like a Lady]]: ''Look'' at Steven Tyler.
* [[Elimination Statement|Elimination Statements]]
* [[Excuse Question]]: During Season 7, using text messaging (which was at standard rates).
* [[Filler]]: Like you wouldn't believe. The amount of it that this show used to be an [[Overly Long Gag]] on this page, with such trope entries as "More [[Filler]]" and "[[
* [[Film At Eleven]]: The early episodes, with their "coming up next" clips before each commercial.
* [[Follow the Leader]]: Ever since Jennifer Hudson's success, almost every heavy-set girl who auditions feels the need to give a horrid, eardrum-popping rendition of [[Dreamgirls|"And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going"]].
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* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: Ryan, Ellen, and Simon turned Season 9 into a "Let's see how far we can push Fox" contest.
** Season 10 had Steven Tyler start this on the ''very first audition''. He has yet to stop trying.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: A few, each with their own [[Portmanteau Couple Name]]; Chris Richardson and Blake Lewis ("Cake") in Season 6, David Cook and David Archuleta ("Cookleta") in Season 7, Kris Allen and Adam Lambert ("Kradam") in Season 8, and Phillip Phillips and Heejun Han (Philjun) in Season 11. And of course, Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest for many.
* [[Hopeless Auditionees]]: The main reason to watch the early episodes each season.
* [[Idol Singer]]: It's right there in the title.
* [[Jail Bait]]: Steven's infamous "hot, humid and happening, just like your daughter" line, spoken to former MLB pitcher Joe Magrane after his ''16-year-old'' daughter Shannon had just had a superb audition. Needless to say, Joe was not amused, and Steven later referenced his faux pas, saying "I hope your daddy isn't still mad at me" to Shannon (who made it all the way to 11th place) at a later performance round. In Steven's defense, [[Statuesque Stunner|Shannon's over six feet tall even without high heels.]]
* [[Jerkass]]: Simon. In order to get a positive statement out of him, you have to be ''really'' good.
* [[Reviewer Stock Phrases|Judge Stock Phrases]]: "Pitchy", "indulgent", "relevant", "true artist", "commercial", "dawg", "in it to win it".
** Simon: "rubbish".
* [[Large Ham]]: "THIS.....................is aMERican Idol!" Yes, Ryan. It is.
* [[Licensed Game]]: There's a number of them, and they're all [[The Problem
** It gave the show a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] when a Season 9 auditioner boasted that she'd trained using one of the video games and that it told her she was a perfect singer. Of course, everyone who knows anything about just how bad the games are knows [[Hilarity Ensues|what came next...]] {{spoiler|That couldn't have been good for the game's marketing, at least
* [[Likes Older Women]]: The implication of this is averted in ''Juniors'' with changes to some song lyrics.
* [[Long Runner]]: Just ended its eleventh season.
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* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Ace Young in Season 5, Blake Lewis and Sanjaya Malakar in Season 6, David Cook and David Archuleta in Season 7, Kris Allen and Adam Lambert in Season 8, Casey James, Lee Dewyze ''and'' Tim Urban in Season 9, basically ''every'' guy from Season 10 (but most notably James Durbin and Casey Abrams), and [[Unfortunate Names|Phillip Phillips]] and Colton Dixon in Season 11.
* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Usually of the [[She's Got Legs|leggy]] variety. Kellie Pickler and Katharine "[[Fan Nickname|McPheever]]" McPhee in Season 5, Haley Scarnato in Season 6, Kristy Lee Cook in Season 7, Pia Toscano and Haley Reinhart in Season 10, and pretty much every girl in Season 11 (but especially Shannon Magrane and Hollie Cavanagh).
* [[Musicalis Interruptus]]:
* [[Nice Girl|Nice Girls]]: Paula, Ellen, and Jennifer, who have each had to learn that effective judges can't always be nice. Ellen quit because it hurt her to be mean to people.
* [[Power Trio]]: Randy, Paula, and Simon, until the addition of Kara as a fourth judge. And now, [[Ellen
** They went back to the [[Power Trio]] format... but with [[
▲* [[Power Trio]]: Randy, Paula, and Simon, until the addition of Kara as a fourth judge. And now, [[Ellen De Generes|Ellen!]]
▲** They went back to the [[Power Trio]] format... but with [[Aerosmith (Music)|Aerosmith]] frontman Steven Tyler instead of Paula and [[Jennifer Lopez]] instead of Simon.
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: Steven, to Casey Abrams:
{{quote|
* [[Product Placement]]: This show is possibly the most shameless purveyor of this Trope, from the shticky [[Everybody Owns a Ford|Ford]] commercials every week to:
{{quote|
* [[Refuge in Vulgarity]]: In Season 9, Ellen would get on Ryan's nerves this way.
* [[Retool]]: They've tried a number of tweaks over the years, but nothing more dramatic than what they did for 2011. With Simon Cowell gone, they made some major changes. The show moved back from a four-judge panel to a three-judge one. Instead of directly replacing Simon, they went for a new dynamic. The show moved from Tuesdays and Wednesdays to Wednesdays and Thursdays. They increased the age-range that they will allow. In 2011, they only allowed contestants to use instruments once -- that rule didn't survive to 2012 (which some say is one of the reasons Phillip Phillips won). Additionally, they tweaked the voting format by allowing votes through [[
* [[The Runner Up Takes It All]]: A fairly frequent occurrence is for the season winner to be outsold by at least one of the runners-up, who goes on to have a longer and/or more successful career.
** A lot of people forget that Clay Aiken was the runner-up on the second season, as he had far more success than the actual winner, Ruben Studdard.
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*** If you count runner-up Katharine McPhee (though she's had more success in acting), that makes five.
*** Chris Daughtry isn't just an example within his season, he's a pretty good example within the entire ''show''. His band's debut album became the best selling album of 2007, and he currently sits as the third best-selling ''Idol'' contestant of all time behind Clarkson and Underwood. And again -- he placed ''fourth'', meaning that the collective American consciousness felt there were three better contestants than him. Also, during the season, he was offered the opportunity to leave the show and replace the singer of the band Fuel. He turned it down, but an established rock band liked the fourth place winner of the season enough to want him to front them.
** Try finding media coverage of the most recent season that mentions Kris Allen, the winner of Season 8, before fan favorite runner-up [[Adam Lambert]].
** Really, the only winners who are more popular than everyone else in their season are [[Kelly Clarkson]], [[Carrie Underwood]], Jordin Sparks, and Scotty McCreery.
* [[The Sadistic Choice]]: Sometimes, to convey voting results, Ryan will split the contestants into two groups: one which is the safe, and one which is not. The last contestant will be asked to stand with one of the groups. Sometimes they get it wrong, and at other times, [[Taking a Third Option|they will not choose]], only to have Ryan [[Double Subverted|choose for them]].
* [[Show Stopper]]: Ian Benardo, who straddles the line between obnoxious and hilarious in the way only a [[Camp Gay]] Jewish New Yorker can.
* [[Sixth Ranger]]
* [[Spin-Off]]:
** ''American Idol Rewind'' (
** ''American Idol Extra'' (
** ''American Juniors'' (
*
** Repeated in
* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: For all their bickering, Simon and Paula have an incredibly solid relationship, and seeing as how he brought Paula on ''[[The X Factor]]'' with him, he clearly respects her opinions
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* [[Vote Early, Vote Often]]: The fairness of the voting is frequently called into question, with a lot of people suspecting that it's rigged in favor of contestants preferred by 19 Entertainment. Also played literally, in that viewers are allowed to vote as many times as they want.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: The episode was Casey Abrams was initially voted off. First Hulk Hogan appears and throws Ryan into the crowd and later in the show Ryan reveals Casey received the fewest votes. Casey starts to sing but the judges immediately cut him off and say they will save him while it's looking like Casey is to have a heart attack.
*
* [[Who Is This Guy Again?]]: Sometimes members of the top 24 received little to no screentime. Examples include Jason Castro of Season 7, Allison Iraheta and Kris Allen of Season 8, and for those with short memories or didn't watch
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{{Best in TV: The Greatest TV Shows of Our Time}}
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