Contestant #55896

Paula wore some interesting clothes. The reason is that everyone calls her a "fashion genius."

In addition to the eye-catching clothes, she also had some prominent braces with pink and green rubber bands that Simon just had to talk about. He said things like "You have so much metal in your mouth," "that's like a bridge," and "How did she get through the metal detector? It must have gone crazy!"

Paula is a huge Paula Abdul fan. Apparently, she likes to draw life-size pictures of Paula Abdul.

Tessie Mae attempted to sing Ain't No Mountain High Enough for the judges, but the sound was horrendous, despite her claim that she sounds exactly like Avril Lavigne. Tessie Mae's hair was of interest, with two long, bleach-blonde braids falling down on either side of her face.

Why does Tessie Mae think she should advance to the next round? In her words: "I think I should be a pop star because I could be like the next big famous person." Grammatically, this wasn't the best choice of words. I'm not sure if she was using "big" to describe the famousness or the person. Tessie's outfit included a black shirt and too-tight, bright pink pants that showed off her figure. How can you describe her figure like in those pants? You can't — but Simon's could: "You know when you buy a sack and you try to stuff it full of potatoes and you just keep pushing and pushing . . . It's like 'No — I can get another potato in there, hang on.'"

Donnell sang in an extremely high-pitched voice and confused the judges. It was even higher than a Mickey Mouse impersonation.

In fact, it was so high, the lyrics were indecipherable–but there's a reason for that. The song was not understandable because it was Jigglypuff's Lullaby. Jigglypuff, of course, is one of the most famous Pokémon characters. The lullaby contains only the word "Jigglypuff" and is fabled to put enemies to sleep.

Michelle sang Lean on Me but forgot the words two lines into the song. She froze at that point and, on cue, her contestant number sign fell off onto the floor, as if embarrassed by the whole thing.

Arthur performed some sort of weird, indescribable dancing. The worst part is that the awful dancing seemed choreographed, which would infer that it was thought out in advance and passed as acceptable.

Arthur's bright red scarf and matching shoes didn't help much, either.

Chanequa sang Fire and Desire, which includes the lyrics "It was pain before pleasure."

Simon interrupted to say, "Let's take out the pleasure."

Anisa sang so poorly that Simon told her "even the out-of-tune notes were out-of-tune."

Cierra appeared to have what the judges normally look for physically in an American Idol. She looked the part and talked the part.

Looks can be deceiving. Simon even admitted that he expected her to sing really well, until she killed Silent Night. Randy told her, "You've got twelve keys going on."

After Cierra asked if she could try a different song, Simon told her to sing Silent Night without the "Night." He also commented that it sounded more like the soundtrack for The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Allison's singing was so poor that Simon likened her to a cat with its tail slammed in a door. Allison said that she knew she had sung poorly, and wanted to give them a second chance to hear her, so Simon agreed to have her come back in after thirty minutes.

As Allison was leaving, Simon told her to imagine Randy in his swimming trunks when she came back in. Allison replied, "I was already imagining you [Simon], but that's probably why I sucked so bad." Paula gave out a cheer, and Randy gave her a high five for that comment.

Allison returned after a while and sang just about as bad as before. Allison admitted that she knew she still didn't perform that well, but she argued with the judges about whether she sang better than the first time or not.

Allison was also featured during Ronnie "R.J." Norman's audition segment as well.

Allison "almost died" on her plane trip to Austin because the seal on one of the plane doors failed. Allison said (and I quote): "I recommend going through that at least once in your life." Yeah, I'll be sure to schedule a faulty plane ride in the near future. Thanks for reminding me.

We didn't get a chance to see Jeffrey's audition, but we did see his pre-audition interview.

Jeffrey was (presumably) asked the same question that the others were asked: Why are you the next American Idol? After a moment of reflection, he says, "I think I'm the next American Idol because . . . I don't know . . . [significant pause] . . . Can I think about it?" Jeffrey gives a few more moments to think about it, with no response, before they cut away for some more auditions.

Later in the episode, they show poor Jeffrey again, still contemplating his answer. I'm sure he wasn't sitting there for that long, but I wonder how many hours he stood in line waiting to audition for American Idol — without really even knowing why he was there.

Julian performed a full split for the judges while wearing boots. Apparently, this is supposed to make up for mediocre singing ability when auditioning for American Idol.

After failing to sing well enough to advance, Julian gave his parting words: "Keep following your dreams. Always." He then rode down the escalator, singing On the Road Again.

Ashley is a fit model. Fit models work for manufacturers and fashion houses as a real person with real contours who must be of "average" size and maintain certain measurements.

Ashley sang for a bit, but failed to impress Paula. Paula stopped her by saying "Thank you very much," and her reply was "Oh."

It was then mentioned that she could sing with her mouth closed. She asked Paula if she should sing that way, and Paula told her that it wasn't going that well thus far in the audition. Nonetheless, she went ahead and sang The Star-Spangled Banner in this manner.

Somehow, Randy gave her a "Yes" vote. Paula refrained from voting and asked Simon what he thought. Simon gave a "Yes," so Ashley is Hollywood-bound.

I'm guessing that Paula wanted to say "No," based on the footage shown.

This just goes to show you that models have it easier than the rest of us, and that American Idol cares about the viewership numbers. Remember — even though they say they want something different, they just want attractive women.

Pre-audition, R.J. said, "My friends call me R.J. Actually, everyone calls me R.J. . . . Everyone's my friend."

Ryan's narration discussed R.J. being a ladies' man, and we got to see several shots of him flirting with various women.

Allison Schoening asked him if he liked baseball. After R.J. told her that he didn't like baseball because it was boring, he informed her that she just made it awkward. Yikes. Apparently that red flag didn't scare Allison away, as she happily hugged him when he left with a golden ticket.

Kevin bore a strong resemblance to Randy Jackson.

Before Kevin sang, Simon told him, "We're looking for one big difference [from Randy]: Do you have talent?"

Despite Kevin's poor vocal abilities, Randy made a point to tell him repeatedly that he was very handsome.

Danielle kept it simple by singing an old classic, Amazing Grace.

With her rendition, however, it might have been better titled Amazingly Tone-Deaf.

Jason's job is as an embalmer, so his song choice seemed obvious. He sang Josh Grobin's You Raise Me Up.

Jason sang well enough to make it through to Hollywood.

We see a group of zombies wandering around outside near the lines, but why were they there? To tell us that "Television rots your braaaaaaains!"

Where did they come from? Nick Muntean, a University of Texas at Austin graduate student organized the group via craigslist in order to attract attention to the fact that television melts your brains.

The American Idol staff apparently caught wind of the plan and were waiting for the zombies. The staff was right there to happily film them.