Ugh. Was so unimpressed by the first twenty minutes of Aspen auditions I changed the channel. So no, I didn't get to see any Angie Zeiderman or Magic Cyclops...

...but then again, there's YouTube videos, good before Fucks, er...Fox pulls them out.

Magic Cyclops said in an interview with the AV Club that the AI producers called him and invited him onto the show. Jim Carrey's kid came out and said she got a free pass to go straight to the judges as well.

It's nice to see the show is finally owning up to how fake the audition process is.

The show is rife with plants, fills, and automatic passes to go before the main judges for a quirky audition they maybe can use.

There are slide-ins with famous relatives or other minor talent show winners that never see the step-up 3-level process of the pre-auditions.

The show employs writers and a host of editors for segments. There are a number of bogus acts getting sent to Hollywood to provide plenty of material sifting to televise their bloopers, screw-ups, breakdowns and use for elimination drama -- that haven't a ghost of a chance in the "reality" of it all.

We won't see the "real" put into "reality" until the live voting segments. Right now, it's just another situation event to pimp the judges.

I loved Angie, but was annoyed by Magic Cyclops. He was just trying so hard to be funny. Clearly, he'd seen "This is Spinal Tap" 2,000 times and thought he was just as good as those guys, but he wasn't.

The Cyclops was good fun... he's got a polished bit of schtick .. he really sold that air guitar joke .

As for him and the kinda talented plants, I'm glad that they're owning up a bit but common, that's not unexpected.

They really don't pound in any rules to viewers to created too many false expectations. They might imply that people in a crowds have some sort of fair chance, but that they put the bad singers through to the judges makes it pretty transparent.

Even if 2/3 rds of the final 24 are plants (and it's probably only 1/3 ) that really does give a few lottery tickets out for people with a spark of talent to have a shot at catching an eye and fitting a slot in the demogrpahic mix of contestants they want going to that stage. Lee Dwyze wasn't a plant and he's had a bit more intersting life than he would have without Idol

What's my point.... Nothing wrong with roasting them for the plants (especially the under-talented ones) but getting personally disappointed or bitter about any "unfairness" is a waste of a good hour or so....gotta laugh at them not use them as a confirmation of some crappy world ... they're just there to provide TV entertainment and they're not particularly veiled about their goal about trying to fit what they put on to what a target audience would like to watch.

I kept expecting him to remove his disguise and be Ben Stiller.

Aagain, I want to **** Angie Zeiderman in the