Search Terms Idol and Grossman • Posted 01/12/07

Search Terms is our new weekly feature. The topics are suggested by you!

American Idol Mania

It's hard not to get sucked in by American Idol. Idol veterans get a lot of exposure between new albums and acting gigs. The show itself is slick. It is just the right mix of really bad auditions and some pretty good ones, then it shifts into high gear by wittling down the playing field to the best. It brings enough credibility to tap Shakira, Queen, and Stevie Wonder for guest spots.


Simon Cowell was just nasty last season. But he also went back to being more constructive in his comments, something that was integral to the first season's success.

This season, there are not enough superlatives to apply to American Idol, and the producers know it. They let slip that both Paul McCartney and Mariah Carey were interested in guest appearances during the season. The show averaged 30.6 million viewers last season and the producers expect at least the same number to show up for the premiere next Tuesday. The show has become the ultimate water-cooler buzz on Wednesday morning. The American Idol finale was the third most watched show on television in 2006. (The Super Bowl consistently ranks number 1. Number 2 last year was the Academy Awards.) There is a Monopoly American Idol Edition in the works.

Idol is set to air audtions on Tuesday and Wednesday night, in two hour blocks each night.

The Good and Bad of Grossman

Rex Grossman is the gunslinging young quarterback of the Chicago Bears. After posting a 1.3 and 0.0 quarterback rating in two different games this season (if you don't speak Football, that means he tanked,) fans just don't know who will show up to play on Sunday when the Bears take on the Seahawks. The consensus is, though, that no matter how bad the Seahawks are, Grossman is talented enough to single-handedly knock the Bears out of the playoffs.

You read that right. Grossman could sabotage his own team. Nobody is claiming that Grossman does this purposefully, but some weeks he is a sloppy quarterback at best. He is fortunate to be playing on 13-3 team with a stout defense. People are calling for him to be pulled and replaced by veteran QB Brian Griese, but coach Lovie Smith is sticking with Grossman for better or for worse. After all, for as many games as Grossman has laid a brick (five,) he has had seven games with a quarterback passer rating over 100 (that's good) in a sixteen game season.

Grossman started playing quarterback in sixth grade and eventually went on to be named 1998 Indiana Player-of-the-Year in High School. His college career was marked with solid, if not spectacular, play. He was drafted in 2003 by the Bears and was touted as the franchise quarterback of the future. It's not hard to guess why. The list of Bears quarterbacks in the last five years is wretched. Kyle Orton, Jonathan Quinn and Kordell Stewart to name a few.

Grossman finished his rookie NFL season with a broken finger. Second season, damaged knee ligaments kept him out for fifteen games. 2005 season? Broken ankle. Hard to crown him anything when he spent so much time on the injured reserve list. He did play the entire 2006 season, but with mixed results. So which Grossman will show up on Sunday? If you're a Bears fan, keep your fingers crossed.

Reality TV on Tap

What we have (not) been watching:
MTV Exposed
This is show is the youngest sibling in a family of dating show overachievers on MTV, Next and Parental Control. It is lame. The big twist is a lie detector test that claims to measure the truthfulness of the shows participants. One person feeds questions to the daters the likes of "How big is your penis?" and then uses the lie detection equipment to judge the honesty of their response.

At the end of the show, a disclaimer warns the audience that there is no actual scientific merit in the lie detection system and spoils our belief that the guy actually thinks his penis is big.

Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency
On Oh! (that's Oxygen for those of you that don't speak Bad Girl)
The first season of Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency was rushed to DVD. The show is a weird mix of not-so-subtle pornography and Whitney Houston-level hysteria. It gets old fast. Janice Dickinson is great in small doses, but this does absolutely nothing for her cred. Even before the season premiere, the commercials promised rehash of last season. The first episode delivered as promised.

Search Terms is back again every Friday!