"The Worst of American Idol Seasons 1-4"

The antithesis of the "Best of" release, featuring the craziest and hilarious auditions ever.

With the best comes the worst, and American Idol is no exception. Let's all admit: the reason the show kept steady was because of the awful auditions which was the first round in finding potential singers to represent pure, raw talent in America. Luckily for fans, everyone can kick back and have a laugh with this DVD volume.

Interspersed with Paula Abdul's commentary and reactions, along with some facts during the audition process, the compiled clips and awful singing auditions are what you'd expect. Some included contestants arguing with the judges claiming they did a great job, when in reality, they were terrible....and they knew it. (Looks like Simon isn't a jerk after all, right?) The one who took the criticism well is featured on this DVD: William Hung. Yeah, remember him? Check this website to see what's he's up to nowadays. Good that's he's keeping busy and doing good; I would like to ask the same for the other contestants who don't seem to have taken the rejection very well. How long until they have finally landed a job after future employers may have witnessed their nasty attitudes on national TV? Are some of them still hoping to break into the entertainment industry? There's a lot of hilarious rejects featured here, so who knows.

The DVD opens with the singing of the National Anthem sung by Leandra Jackson from Cleveland, Ohio. In case you didn't know, despite the rejection, she was invited back to finish singing the Anthem at the season finale of Season 4 of Idol. First audition comes straight from Season 3 featuring Simon Thomas, who wrote an original song "straight from the heart speaking about the connectedness of one another." I recall this episode: When Ryan Seacrest interviewed him after the audition, Simon was proud the judges were touched by the song he shared. I'll never forget the comment Simon [Cowell] said to him:

"Yes [Simon Thomas], but this is not Heart Idol. This is a singing competition, and you can't sing."
— Simon Cowell

How many times have you heard that comment? Simon Thomas didn't feel the need to be famous....well, now you know his name and what season he's featured at, so if you're someone who's good at creating memes, this is your chance. I'm guessing Simon Thomas is likely working as some motivational guru helping people with personal problems and struggles in everyday life. (I'm not bothered to try and look it up, so be my guest.)

However, I want to take time to pull off a Howard Stern-esque move: I want to nominate the hottest American Idol Reject in history. We like to nominate, or award, that to....Patsy Charles (Contestant #12436)! Feast your eyes:



Is it too late to make her famous? Maybe, I mean, she probably has a job, kids and a husband to take care of. She may not sing well but she sure has the looks, don't you think? (NOTE: if you're Patsy Charles herself, contact us for an interview to be featured here at SHOWSOTROS for fans to see!) The snarky blonde from Season 1, Mary Lacarelli, didn't make our consideration because of her attitude (yeah, we counted that as a factor). At least, Patsy Charles had no hard feelings and took the rejection just fine, so we awarded this to her. Congratulations!

Anyway, onto the DVD's digital specs. The video is in color, in 4:3 standard definition format (720x480) with stereo audio, interlaced with a 29.97 frame rate. The video compression is MPGV while the audio compression is A52 (AC3). Since DVD players are seldom used today, when playing this on your laptop/desktop computer, you will notice some blocky artifacts on some shots and colors. This is due to high motion movements of the camera, and crushed colors due to the digital compression reducing the low-lighted parts of various shots. Specifically, you'll notice the infamous dot crawl on the extreme top of the video. Again, this DVD was released in 2005—the time when DVD players were the hottest item that flew off the shelves—so all these were shrugged off because watching this on a TV screen meant these discrepancies were eliminated due to the TV's frame absorption and the even distribution and projection of this DVD's finalized compression. Being an old DVD, it's forgivable albeit its somewhat low digital standards (DVDs are still being produced today, as it's 2018 already, but have dramatically improved).

Looking back at these auditions, these made me laugh harder than when I first saw them. It still is hilarious to this day and perfect for the Idol fan. This is a very low-priced DVD and should be easy to find, even in brand new condition. Don't pay the inflated price for this, being it's a DVD that's unwanted by DVD/Blu-Ray collectors, so this should be worth your lunch money, if not, less than that.

Reason for our rating is because the DVD did not show the entire audition/singing for specific contestants. This may leave viewers puzzled at what they did and how they sounded before cutting away to the judges for their comments and reactions. I found that to be a disappointment. Nevertheless, for the selected contestants featured here, they are in their entirety, from entering the audition room to the exit.

Regardless, it's worth it for the laughs and those timeless moments that will forever live on in Idol history. We guarantee one contestant featured on this DVD will send us an email asking not to promote this DVD because they're still living in regret, embarrassing themselves in front of millions and accepting Simon's comments. Yeah, sorry about that, but this review is finished.

Kris Caballero

Founder and operator of KCU Network, Kris has been writing since managing his personal blog launched back in late 2005. Despite producing videos from time to time for the network's website, Kris enjoys playing old video/DOS games, video technologies, reading and keeping up with quantum computing.

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