MONDO EXTRAS

This special half-hour of padding opens with a flashback of Kelly Clarkson (Eeeeeeee!) winning last season's competition, and all the cheering, screaming, "Eeeeeee"-ing, et cetera. An announcer tells us -- Hey! -- this is not our Melodramatic Announcer from last year! Whatever happened to him? I miss those openings from him, where he made it sound like the contestants' very lives were at stake. This new guy tries to be melodramatic, but you can tell his heart isn't really in it. He's the Mellowdramatic Announcer.

The Mellowdramatic Announcer declares that "everyone knows that Kelly Clarkson has gone on to a life of fame and fortune." We do? Can you actually call it a life of fame and fortune when she's never seen in public anymore and we've all heard how awful the contract she had to sign was? Well, she did have that one hit single. Even if it sucked. Anyway, Mellowdramatic Announcer asks what happened to the other finalists of the show, as we see shots of all the others. In the next half hour, we'll find out what they've been up to. Except for Jim and E-Jay. We don't get any reason why there aren't any mini-profiles of them, and the half hour is all padding, so there's no reason why they couldn't spare a few seconds to fill us in. I really would like to know when E-Jay finally went off the fashion deep end.

We get a montage of clips of the kids telling us how their lives have changed. We cut to a clip show of American Idol on Tour. Mellowdramatic Announcer tells us the kids went on a tour. Yeah, we got that already. He continues that the tour brought many of the kids back to their hometowns, and we get clips of various finalists greeting their hometown fans. Justin tells us they performed in about thirty cities in forty days. And they got a shiny quarter for each performance! I'm just speculating here. Nikki tells us all about the huge crowds. Of course, everybody watching the show is distracted by the huge sore on Nikki's lip. They couldn't wait until it healed? I bet they threw this whole thing together last week. Ryan tells the camera that they all lived in cramped quarters on the tour. Jim tells a reporter for some FOX affiliate in an interview the same thing. I believe that's about all we're going to get from Jim. Ryan and Tamyra tell us how sad it was when they sang the last song at their last tour stop, because they wouldn't be performing together anymore. That is sad, except for me spitting out "Thank God!" at the television.