"No pants on the ground this week on 'American Idol.' Shania Twain weighs in."

Tweet By Bob Zerull

This week was week 2 of “American Idol” auditions. Simon and co. hit up Chicago and Orlando. Last Wednesday brought us the next William Hung with General Larry Platt. Gen Platt auditioned with his original song entitled “Pants on the Ground.” Since then he’s become a celebrity. Even Brett Favre performed the number after the Vikings victory over the Dallas Cowboys.

Week 2 wasn’t as fun.



Chicago:

The Chicago auditions opened with a Barack Obama montage with much of the auditioning crowd chanting “Yes We Can.” Just like every other season the cameras find random people to yell, “I’m the next American Idol.” Funniest part of the show was when one poor soul accidentally yelled, “I’m going to be America’s Next Top Model.”

Being that Chicago is the best city in the world and I only live three hours away it was fun for me to see all the contestants from neighboring cities. Some of the stand out auditions would be the “Boob Box” girl. She could kind of sing but was too goofy. She’ll probably show up on the finale. Her special skill is to make her boobs jump up and down. For the most part the contestants were pretty blah.



Shania Twain was the guest judge and there was a montage of bad Shania impersonations, but even that wasn’t that entertaining. The best contestant I believe was John Park. Shania loved him. Randy took everything she said as a dirty sexual reference and pretty much laughed after every sentence. It really wasn’t that funny, but hey they were trying. That last three contestants to make it were ok at best, because the talent pool in Chicago was lacking, they let all three into Hollywood.

Orlando:

Orlando was a disappointment. The promo for the Orlando audition showed a contestant being led out by security in handcuffs. Sure enough they saved that moment for the 2nd half hour and it was a giant let down. I was hoping for violence or at least threatened violence and all I got was a guy obviously on drugs who wouldn’t move. They weren’t even that mean to him.

Orlando was more of the same. If you had a story you got screen time. If you had a story you only needed an ok voice to move on. The most disappointing were two sisters from Jersey who were just weird and couldn’t sing, but they were weird enough to make it to Hollywood. I’ve said it before, but I’m not a big fan of this portion of “American Idol.” The whole audition process was funny the first couple of seasons, but now it’s just repetitive. For every good singer there is somebody trying to be funny and or somebody who’s handicapped that we’re supposed to find funny.

This will probably be my last “American Idol” column until Hollywood week…unless we’re treated with another “Pants on the Ground.”

BYLINE:

Bob Zerull is the Managing Editor of Zoiks! Online. He writes pop culture commentary, does interviews with bands, and reviews music and stand-up concerts. He also administers Zoiks! Online's Facebook page. Follow Bob on twitter at bzerull.

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