| Idol Tonight & American Idol April 11, 2007 Not much Ryan info, but lots of behind-the-scenes tidbits! |
| While we were waiting in line to get into Idol Tonight, we decided to get some food at the health food market down the street from CBS, Erewhon. As we were leaving the market, Wentworth Miller from Prison Break walked in. Kinda cool. The Idol Tonight taping was fun but a little tedious. Paris Bennett was the guest host (no Kimberly Caldwell) and Mandisa was one of the guests, so it was a little season 5 reunion. A few AI insider tidbits were revealed, but for the life of me I can't really remember them. I know Chris Sligh suggested that, according to his phone conversation with Phil, Sanjaya's facial hair wasn't real. But with Chris Sligh's personality, who knows what's a joke and what isn't. They had pre-recorded clips of the contestants saying what they missed from home, and most of them said their pets. All of the hosts/guests were very sweet and chatted with the crowd a little during breaks. Throughout the whole filming I kept thinking about Ace and how he had said that he was offered the Idol Tonight job but wasn't going to take it. At the time, I thought that was a good decision, but standing 2 feet from Justin Guarini for a couple of hours made me wish Ace had taken the job. (Justin is far more attractive in person than he is on tv though) It took about an hour and a half to film the show, and the audience was only about 50 people, if that. Apparently it was their smallest audience of the year. The On Camera Audiences staff actually pulled everyone out of the regular AI ticket line and brought them over to the Idol Tonight line because they needed more people. After Idol Tonight was finished taping, the OCA staff said that we could wait in a standby line to try to get into the actual Idol show. We had tickets for the AI Extra taping afterwards, but who would pass up a chance to be in the real Idol audience? (and see Ry!) So we waited and watched as they lined up all of the ticket holders. Finally around 5:45 they started seating the standby line, and we got in! Unfortunately Debi and I were separated, but I was happy to get in at all. Random observations from the Idol taping... *Blake and Chris were totally adorable together. They sang along with Akon (who wasn't there, it was pre-recorded) and had a secret handshake. It made me like Chris a little more knowing that he's so friendly with Blake, whom I love. Blake, BTW, was taking pix of his friends in the audience from the stage. Cuteness! *Blake definitely had the most signs in the audience, although I think Mandisa had a sign for Melinda. *I think Jordin hates Sanjaya. She was obviously annoyed with him. During the breaks the contestants just chilled on the couches getting their make up redone for the most part. Sanjaya and Jordin were seated next to each other, and at one point I noticed Sanjaya blowing in Jordin's face. He wouldn't stop and she looked really annoyed. Then she snapped at him, "Stop it! You're so weird!" and turned to face the opposite direction. Rawr. *Sanjaya physically attacked Ryan after the whole "stand up, sit down" thing, in jest, I'm sure. I only caught the aftermath, really, since at that moment I was fixated on Blake and Chris' reaction to Chris being in the bottom 3. But then I noticed Ryan kind of stumble sideways and saw Sanjaya walking away with a grin on his face.... like he had gone over and pushed Ryan for torturing him with the results. *Jennifer Lopez performed, but I barely paid attention to her because (a) there were tall people standing in front of me blocking my view and (b) Ryan was standing on my side of the stage and I didn't take my eyes off him. I was hoping to see him dance, but he just watched and cracked a smile a couple of times. *There was a man in a wheelchair sitting next to me, and he had a dog to assist him. We were on the far right aisle near where the contestants sit on the couches to hear whether or not they're safe. During almost every commercial break, the judges would walk down our aisle to go backstage.... to do lord knows what. They all stopped to chat with the man in the wheelchair and pet the dog. Simon actually stopped two or three times and was totally playing with the dog as if it were his own. It was surreal -- Simon Cowell standing about 3 feet away from me smiling from ear to ear and being all happy and cute with a dog. Definitely not your typical image of Mr. Cowell! *Because of being seated on that aisle, I had great views of everyone who walked in and out of the studio audience. Said hi/waved to Sharon Osborne, Eva Longoria, and Randy Jackson. Shook Paula's hand. Chatted with Matt Rogers (AI3) about his work on AI Extra, and later he came back to shake my hand and said that it was nice to meet me. Strange but cool. This is also where... *Simon winked at me. It was weird. He was winking A LOT that night. In fact, when I watched my tape back, I noticed him do it on camera at least once, and I saw him do it off camera a couple of other times. I guess that's his thing, to wink at people? (like Howie from BSB! lol) He smiled a lot too, surprisingly. Everyone seemed to be in a particularly great mood. *After the show, Pink recorded a performance that will be shown on a later broadcast. She's awesome. I was thinking that her pre-recorded performance was going to be for the 2 hour "Idol Gives Back" special in a couple of weeks. However, I do remember them saying that it could be for IGB or for some other show. So maybe they don't even know? Or maybe they were purposely being vague? The song she performed isn't the same song that's on the AI "hit list" site. Marc Anthony also recorded a little something (not a performance) for the IGB special that apparently will also feature Johnny Depp. *Ryan and I shared a moment during the group song. He was standing on the floor near the stage across the aisle from me, and I had my eyes glued to him. He started scanning the audience in my direction, and we made eye contact. Then we both did this: :-D "HI!" *wave* It was special. |