“American Idol” ratings sagging; can cancellation be far off?

Go away, American Idol.  Just go away.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/fox-tries-lift-ratings-sagging-american-idol-022804642–finance.html

Rumor has it that this “landmark” television show — which is every bit as much of an emblem of the death of American civilization as the sight of the disembodied head of the Statue of Liberty lying on the beach in “The Planet Of The Apes” — is planning some sort of 13-city tour of the United States, in an effort to boost viewership that’s been sagging for six straight years.

What a wonderful gesture.  If you don’t open your home to the agony that is American Idol, they’ll come to you.

At least, I think that’s how the article reads.  I’m somewhat guessing, because I can’t stand reading anything about American Idol.  In fact, I can’t even stand to type or speak the words “American Idol”, except to say that the show’s title is a fitting description of the typical loyal viewer:  An idle American, both mentally and physically, one of an army of mindless couch doornails expecting to find the next Elvis Presley on this conduit of factory-stamped substandard entertainment.

American Idol has been polluting television entertainment for 12 seasons now, according to the Wikipedia article that I can barely stomach to read.  And in all that time, we’ve never seen anyone exercise any musical instrumentality with anything but their vocal chords.  Sure, somebody materializes and uses a guitar or a piano as a sort of prop, perhaps; but as far as talent exhibition, American Idol is highly-polished karaoke served up for mindless zilches in a nation where the real talented musical artists are sleeping in their cars and on backroom billiard tables.  We all know that.

And we also know that the contest winners are chosen by us, the huddled masses, the American people.  Yeah.  THERE’S a crack voting demographic.  For the sake of brevity, we’ll set aside the crock-of-shit method the candidates themselves are selected for the show and, instead, focus on these wonderfully brilliant voters in charge of selecting the contest winners, the American people.  The same folks who elect entertainment wrestlers and professional bodybuilders as state governors.  The same folks who elect presidents based on whether or not they look like they’re fun to drink beer with.  The same folks who like to watch people play poker on TV.  The same folks who regularly produce multi-million-dollar-prize lottery winners who go broke within five years.  The same folks who think every February that a fat-assed rat that lives in the ground can be a meteorologist.  And, the very same folks who apparently can dial a cell phone and cast their American Idol votes with one hand stuck in a Pringles can, considering that half of them are fat.  Yep.  Rest easy, America.  These wonderfully insightful folks are now also in charge of selecting your entertainment.

But television is a fast-evolving medium (for those few Americans who actually place any validity to the concept of evolution, that is); and with six-straight years of decreasing viewership ratings, it’s possible  –  possible, mind you — that American Idol might be approaching cancellation.  Dare we dream it?  Are we finally approaching that moment when the execs at the Fox Network finally crank the valve shut on this conduit of over-valued, over-hyped so-called entertainment?  Will someone finally stop this conveyor belt of ear rape once and for all?  Is it possible that this infected, lesion-riddled colon of television programming will finally cease depositing maggot-infested musical diarrhea into our living rooms?  Can this article possibly produce another laborious-to-read rhetorical question?  Let us hope so!

American Idol, your time has come and passed — right there around Season 1, Episode 1 I’d say, if anybody asks me.  Let’s pull the shroud over you once an for all, and clear your space in the television schedule for yet another landmark series consistent with modern American television tradition.  Something that truly represents all that is noble and tasteful in documentary TV.  Something like America’s Next Top Pedophile.  Or Short Order Cook Showdown.  Or Bling-Out This Riding Lawnmower.  Or Extreme Exterminators.  Or Video Rental Wars.  Or Stomach Pump Stories.  Or Donald Trump Fires America.