The Champ

Earlier in the show the first American Idol, Kelly Clarkson, sang the newest single from her double-platinum CD, "Beautiful Disaster." The next Idol, Ruben Studdard, baseball hat cocked to one side, crooned to a lady love:

What if I couldn't sing and I didn't win?

What if I had to use the pay phone?

Would you still want to put it on?

Ruben, we hate to say it, but we're betting the answer to that question would be . . . no.

What does an American Idol get?

"Everything they've ever wanted," Simon said. "Fame, stardom, a ton of money. It's what it's all about. The competition has proven this is the best talent show on earth."

And Paula said, "Your dysfunctional family will always be thinking of you."

This is the phenomenon that's spawned at least one rather unlikely career, that of William "She Bangs" Hung, bucktoothed, rhythmically impaired, preternaturally tone deaf. He didn't make it past the first round of auditions but that didn't stop Hung from acquiring a record deal, a music video, a bit of an attitude problem and way more than his allotted 15 minutes in the spotlight.

That's because this is the show that proves that yes, Virginia, good things do happen to bad singers. Witness the nasty little fallout that happened when that red-haired guy, John Stevens, won out over the powerhouse lungs of Chicagoan Jennifer Hudson. That Stevens is white and can't really sing and Hudson is black and can escaped no one's notice, including Elton John's. The R-word (racism) and the C-word (conspiracy) were lobbed about on radio talk shows and Internet chat boards; many were convinced that a fix was in. (Was it a coincidence that there was a power outage in Chicago the night that Hudson lost, hmmmm?) And on the Tom Joyner radio show, after Jasmine Trias sang off-key and cried her way to safety over the more talented La Toya London, Joyner warned that if Jasmine won the next day, white folks should just stay home. He was kidding.

Those busy phone lines that kept viewers from casting their votes became a symbol of the nation's racial neuroses last season when Ruben, the singing teddy bear, became the Idol by a scant 1,335 votes over scrawny but cuddly Clay Aiken. Or was it 13,000 votes? Or 134,000? Whatever. They both got record deals. And now viewers can vote by text-messaging, just to make sure that sort of drama never happens again. Except that of course it did.

Such drama is part of the appeal of "American Idol." Why else watch it? For the peppy covers of Donna Summer disco tunes? No, you watch it to see Simon's eyes roll back into his head. To see contestants cry. To see them bring it. This is, after all, reality TV.