To know me is to know my profound distaste for American Idol. I hate the show not only because it employs some of the worst of reality-television practices, but also because more-deserving shows don’t stand a chance when they’re scheduled against it. So it always delights me when I hear of news that could damage the show’s standing, and recently, I’ve been very happy. First Paula Abdul quit the show, and now a video of Simon Cowell has been leaked that could really, um, dog his reputation and credibility.
As I learned on TV Squad yesterday, someone has sniffed out the footage in which Cowell, dressed as a character named “Wonderdog,” is promoting his techno track entitled “Ruff Mix.” And the kicker: the melody is comprised of dog barks. (Like Conan said last night, this week truly is Bark Week.) Behold the horror:
Apparently, Mr. Cowell purchased the song from a German artist in the early 80s and created a Wonderdog persona to go along with it. Granted, he was a younger and less experienced Simon Cowell, but still, he had to have known the awfulness he was unleashing upon the world. How does one listen to that track and think that it deserves public consumption? And, worse, TV Squad notes that the single actually reached No. 31 on the Billboard charts.
What’s next: a report that Tom Colicchio loves to eat pork rinds? Or that Heidi Klum has been spotted in a Snuggie?
Postscript: It seems like Y! Music blogger Lyndsey Parker and I had similar brainwaves when concocting the headlines of our respective posts. I’m keeping mine since I thought I was being so (pun-ishingly) funny when I thought it up, but she deserves credit for reporting the news—and thinking of the joke—first.