In seven seasons of “American Idol,” Paula Abdul has definitely had her moments.

But her gaffe on Tuesday night’s episode was either the “Kookiest Paula Moment Ever” or a sign of the judges’ apparently not-so-spontaneous evaluations of contestants’ performances.

Abdul on Wednesday sought to explain the blunder as a simple misunderstanding. “We all just screwed up everything,” she told Entertainment Tonight.

It was Neil Diamond night, and after each of the show’s five remaining contestants sang their first of two songs for the evening, the judges were asked to comment on their performances.

Randy Jackson quickly rattled off his impressions, and then Abdul launched into a lengthy analysis of contestant Jason Castro’s two performances. Yes, that’s right. Abdul remembered TWO performances. When Castro, and all of the other contestants, had only performed ONCE.

“Oh my God, I thought you sang twice,” a flustered Abdul said when Jackson gently pointed out that Castro had only performed one song so far. She added: “This is hard!”

“You’re seein’ the future baby, you’re seein’ the future!” host Ryan Seacrest said.

Abdul tried to cover for the mistake by saying she had been reading her notes from both Castro’s performance and contestant David Cook’s performances.

The flub was enough to convince some fans that Abdul must have prepared her notes on both songs before the live performance.

On the “Idol” forums, some fans pondered whether the judges’ comments were a function of who the show’s producers want to win rather than the content of the performances. Others gave the show the benefit of the doubt, saying Abdul must have taken notes at the dress rehearsals

Abdul explained on Wednesday that Idol producers had thrown the judges a last minute curveball during the show.  “I am feverishly trying to write notes for every performance,” she recounted, saying her notes got mixed up.

“I was just trying to give my critique for Jason Castro, and scribbled Jason’s name, and that was David (Cook)’s. “This is live television. This is fun!,” she said.

That’s it. The next time Simon Cowell actually likes a performance on “American Idol,” he should just keep it to himself. No one tunes in to see him say anything nice, anyway.

Carly Smithson’s elimination on Wednesday night’s show simply defied any rational explanation, even in the cruel and unforgiving world of reality TV. For the first time in weeks, the Irish diva on Tuesday night received uniform praise from all three judges for her passionate performance of “Superstar” from the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Composer Andew Lloyd Webber was the show’s guest mentor.

The praise from Cowell was enough to make Smithson, who last week accused Cowell of being too hard on her, whip out a blue T-shirt that read “Simon Loves Me (This Week).”

But besides Smithson’s standout performance, rival contestants Brooke White and Jason Castro were both panned up and down both on the show and in the blogosphere, including right here on Fan Fare. One of them surely appeared headed for the axe on Wednesday.

So what happened?

During Wednesday’s episode, Cowell took a stab at explaining the results, saying White had shown herself to be human by stumbling over the beginning of her performance of “You Must Love Me,” from the film “Evita.”

And Castro, he said, was “charming” even though his rendition of “Memory,” from the musical “Cats,” was an agreed upon disaster. Admittedly, Castro saying “I didn’t know a cat was singing it” in his pre-taped interview before his performance is likely to go down as one of the highlights of this season.

On the “Idol” forums, some fans tried to explain Smithson’s departure by saying the show had become more of a popularity contest than a singing competition. Others said the choice of “Superstar” was a controversial one that may have alienated some religious Christian voters. One fan, however, really got to the root of the issue:

“Carly didn’t get enough votes.”

For the full elimination night story, click here.

The media reports about Jeff Archuleta, in some cases, have been brutal.

Celebrity web site TMZ.com has said that the father of “American Idol” contestant David Archuleta has screamed at his son and brought him to tears in rehearsals while driving him to perform ever better on the top-rated TV talent show.

“Idol” judge Simon Cowell seemed to question Archuleta’s choice of a Beatles song, “We Can Work It Out,” that the 17-year-old messed up on the show back in March, implying that it might have been Jeff who chose the song for his son.

But Jeff Archuleta finally spoke out to hush his critics on Wednesday in an interview with celebrity magazine Us, calling accusations that he was an overbearing, hyper-competitve “stage dad” simply crazy.

“I’m definitely involved with my son, and I encourage him, but I think that’s a lot different from forcing and threatening and all that stuff. There was absolutely no truth in any of the stories about me yelling at David, making him cry, or withholding water from him. That was crazy!” Jeff Archuleta told the magazine.

Jeff also called his son “a reluctant singer,” saying that when David was young, the boy could not understand why anyone wanted to hear him sing. Then Jeff added, “I think (David) was blessed with a musical ear that was far beyond his years.”

And on that last quote, Jeff is probably right. The young singer has been a clear frontrunner in the race to crown the next “American Idol” this season.

The full interview can be read at Usmagazine.com.

She started. She stopped. She started again. And still, “American Idol” contestant Brooke White never seemed to get it together. In fact, does anyone even remember the rest of the performance?

White, the 24-year-old blonde songstress who has won viewers’ hearts with her bluesy voice and down-to-earth style, is almost sure to be among the show’s bottom three vote-getters this week after stumbling over the beginning of her performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “You Must Love Me.”

It was the second time this season White stopped singing and restarted a song from the beginning, this time because she forgot the words to the ballad originally performed by Madonna in the film “Evita.”

Surprisingly, White took the most heat from perennial contestant cheerleader Paula Abdul, who said bluntly:

“You must never start and stop.”

Jude Simon Cowell disagreed with Abdul, saying the move had been “brave.” But, he also warned White that “it completely threw you… you are going to be very disappointed when you watch this back.”

White’s face, with her lips pursed together and head cocked to the side, said it all following the performance. She has already been in the show’s bottom 3 twice this season, most recently last week. And with the show down to just six contestants now, there are few left who could break her fall. (Except for maybe Jason Castro after his grueling performance of “Memory” — Randy Jackson put it best when he called it a “train wreck”)

Lloyd Webber, the show’s guest mentor for the week, also must have been disappointed by White’s poor showing. Earlier this week, he told the “Los Angeles Times” that he had been “really quite impressed” with White. “I got something out of her,” he added.

Whatever it was that Sir Andrew “got” out of White during the show’s rehearsals, it sure eluded her on Tuesday night. Sorry Brooke, but the Bottom 3 looks tailor-made for you this week.

 Kristy Lee Cook may have lost her beloved horse in her attempt to become the “American Idol” but she left the show this week with a marriage proposal.

 Cook,  24, who won hearts by selling her horse to get to the “Idol” auditions last summer,  said her long time boyfriend popped the question on Wednesday night’s TV show when she was voted off the competition.

Cook told reporters after her exit that boyfriend Andy first proposed on March 15 — in the privacy of the sauna at the LA house where the Idols all live during the show!

He followed it up with a second more public declaration on April 16 elimination night. “It was really cool. He re-enacted the proposal and actually got down on one knee because the first time he didn’t. He owed it to me,” Cook said, with a laugh.

The pair are thinking of a June 2009 wedding but haven’t set a date yet.

As for her horse, Cook seemed reconciled to not getting him back. The new owner doesn’t want to sell him back “but he got a really good home so I’m happy with that,” she said.

You have to hand it to Kristy Lee Cook.

The 24-year-old country girl and latest “American Idol” casualty hung on to her slot on the show, apparently by the skin of her teeth, week after week after week. Despite seemingly endless attacks from the acid-tongued Simon Cowell, who predicted early in the competition that she would not make it past tenth place, Cook repeatedly appeared to defy the odds.

As Cook herself noted before her offing on Wednesday night, she sure proved Cowell wrong, coming in seventh place this season. Heck, she even lasted longer than that Aussie hunk Michael Johns. Who could have predicted that after sitting through her gruelling “Eight Days a Week” performance all those weeks ago?

So, it’s back to Oregon for Cook, where she already has her next challenge cut out for her. Forced to sell her beloved horse to pay for the trip to the “Idol” audition in Philadelphia, Cook told a fan who dialed into the show on Wednesday night that she wants to buy him back. The problem is, the man she sold it to doesn’t want to sell it back to her.

After delivering the news that Cook would no longer be part of the show, host Ryan Seacrest asked the man, on live television, to sell the horse back to her. A teary-eyed Cook also appealed to him for sympathy.

“Can I go ride my horse now?” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

Call us crazy, but something tells us that the woman who not only proved Simon Cowell wrong, but also survived the show’s “bottom 3″ three times before finally getting the axe isn’t going to let one little person get between her and her horse. But maybe that’s just us.

It must have been conceived as some sort of cruel joke.

For seven seasons now, the judges of “American Idol” have repeatedly told contestants to steer clear of singing songs by Mariah Carey, ostensibly because the singing competition’s up-and-coming star wannabes could never hope to measure up to one of the great voices of pop music.

So, let’s just say it was a little strange to find Carey as the guest judge on Tuesday night’s show. Because you know what that means: the contestants were allowed to perform an old Mariah song, a new Mariah song, or any other Mariah song of their choosing.

As judge Simon Cowell predicted at the beginning of the show, the night indeed turned out to be lackluster one for the girls because of the unavoidable comparisons between them and the great Carey herself. That didn’t stop Cowell from delivering his usual barbs, however.

“It was a bit like ordering a hamburger and only getting the bun,” Cowell told Brooke White after her performance of “Hero.” “In other words the vital ingredient, the bit in the middle, was missing.”

Ouch.

The other girls — Syesha Mercado, Kristy Lee Cook, and Carly Smithson — emerged without being compared to fast food, but they didn’t get any overwhelming love from the judges.

The remaining three boys, however, put the judges in a festive mood. A leather pants-clad David Archuleta’s performance of “When You Believe” was declared the evening’s benchmark by Cowell, and David Cook’s rock take on “Always Be My Baby” received a standing ovation from judge Randy Jackson.

Later, Jackson likened Jason Castro’s take on “I Don’t Wanna Cry” to “a weird beach luau,” but Paula Abdul said it was a luau that she would “love to be at.” Cowell agreed with Abdul, saying that “the guys completely won the night.”

Boy, was he surprised.

“American Idol” delivered its first major shock of the season on Thursday with the ousting of Aussie hunk Michael Johns. The studio audience gasped when host Ryan Seacrest said Johns was being sent packing, and even Simon Cowell said he would miss Johns, who he called “a very very nice guy.” The remaining contestants, who should have been celebrating their own guarantee of another week on the show, appeared positively grief-stricken.

Carly Smithson, the Irish singer whose rendition of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On” bombed on Tuesday night, broke down in tears. Seems she thought it would be her to get the axe this week, not Johns, particularly after raising her hand when the camera focused on her, Johns and Syesha Mercado — the show’s bottom three vote-getters — and Seacrest said one of them would be going home.

But no one was as taken aback as Johns himself, who after struggling to regain his composure told Seacrest he was “definitely surprised” and had enjoyed singing Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” He had never even landed in the bottom three before. Mercado and Smithson both had.

Perhaps the biggest blow, though, was not the elimination itself, but the way it was done. After telling Johns that he received the lowest number of votes, Seacrest made the point that during the same week last year — the week of the show’s charity event, “Idol Gives Back” — the show opted not to send any of the contestants home. Then, he delivered the news that regardless of that fact, Johns would indeed be leaving the show and would have to summon the will to perform one last time.

Seacrest must be drinking the Cowell Kool-Aid lately, because that stunt was just plain mean.

At the same time, though, the brutal offing of the boy from Down Under served as a reminder to fans of just how ugly and ruthless the competition gets in its final weeks.

But isn’t that what we watch it for?

       He hardly fits the bill as an American Idol, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown won fans for an extraordinary pledge to buy 20 million anti-malarial nets for use in Africa and other parts of the developing world.

Brown made the commitment in a video-taped appearance on Wednesday’s “American Idol” charity TV special “Idol Gives Back” which brings celebrities, charities and viewers together in a bid to raise tens of millions of dollars for children’s charities in Africa and the United States.

Oil company Exxon Mobil, one of the “Idol” corporate sponsors, separately announced a $10 million donation to the fund raiser to be spent on anti-malarial efforts in Africa.

Brown’s pledge on behalf of the British government represents about one-sixth of the 120 million life-saving mosquito nets that experts says are needed to protect every child and family around the world from contracting the disease.

Malaria No More, one of six charities that will benefit from “Idol Gives Back” fundraiser, said it hoped Brown’s announcement would spur other world leaders to take similar action.

 ”This generous pledge will ensure that millions of African parents can protect their children from the deadly disease,” said Peter Chernin, chairman of Malaria No More.

 Organizers hope Wednesday’s fundraiser will bring $100 million this year in donations from viewers of the U.S. singing talent show.  Last year’s inaugural event raise $76 million.

“American Idol” is  the most watched TV show in the United States with about 27 million viewers a week and is also broadcast in a taped version in about 100 countries overseas.

Oh no he didn’t.  Unfortunately, oh yes he did.

Rocker David Cook bombed on “American Idol” Tuesday night with an unfamiliar song and cocky performance that made it seem like he believed he had already wrapped up the competition.

Cook chose “Innocent,” a song by Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, to sing on a night when contestants were told to choose music that inspires them. The night’s theme was intended as a preview for “Idol Gives Back,” the show’s charity special that airs on Wednesday.

Cook, wearing a white military-style jacket, strutted around without his signature guitar, finally sauntering through the audience while he sang. But judges Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell were decidedly uninspired, with Cowell calling it “a teensy weensy bit pompous.” Only Paula Abdul liked it.

To make a bad performance even worse — cringe-worthy, in fact – Cook ended it by raising a palm scrawled with the words “give back” up to the cameras. The judges praised him for that move, but Cook already appeared completely deflated after their criticisms of the performance.

It was clearly a rude awakening for Cook, who has become a favorite with the show’s fans in the last few weeks.

Another weak performance was Irish diva Carly Smithson’s take on Queen’s “The Show Must Go On.”

Smithson, who had a stellar run on the show at the beginning of the season, is clearly struggling. Cowell, who called her performance “angry,” said she may even be vulnerable to elimination this week. If that does happen, Smithson would be going home before Kristy Lee Cook, the leggy blonde country singer who has narrowly escaped the hatchet for several weeks running.