[Happygolucky]

Well, Omaha made it's national debut, I wonder what the rest of the country thinks of Omaha now. We really must have made the producers mad when they were here in Omaha.

Let me recap the show for who may have missed it:

The show starts and here come the cornfields shots, more shots of cornfields, and more shots of cornfields, and even more shots of cornfields, then they pan to a cornfield cut into an American Idol logo.

Then here comes the crowd shots; They show the line as usual and cut to a girl that says, "There's not much to do In Omaha" right into the camera.

Then to top things off at the beginning they show a guy dressed in a cow costume on the lawn of the Q-West Center pretending to graze on the grass.

Could it get any worse?????

It sure does, Paula came to the show late, and she was totally out of it. We were watching and my wife's friends were amazed at Paula, shaking their heads.

Now, I might be a little biased , but I think contestants were freakier than normal. Now, folks who watch the show know that the contestants come from all over the country, but you know that the whole country is thinking that Omaha is one big backwards freaky farm town stuck in the middle of a cornfield.

I have to give them credit they did show 3-4 shot of the old market and one of Central High School.

Now with that said, do you think that they had to freak up the show to make it more interesting for people to stay glued to the TV set?

Is Omaha that boring?

[star_gazer]

I'm not going to lose any sleep over that.

[TheMac]

Regardless of the amount of cornfields shown, as cliche as that seems to people here, it's our identity, whether you are embarrassed by it or not. I don't have any problem with them focusing on cornfields. In new york they focus on tall buildings, in Las Vegas they focus on crazy people and bright lights. They stereotype every city they go to, its just a matter of what the stereotype is, and how well the stereotype is perceived.

[Her]

haha. i posted a thread about best places for musicians a couple days ago and someone said Omaha had a great music scene. The poster than told me to stay tuned for American Idol. lol. 19 golden tickets!! Go omaha!! I think American Idol misrepresents a lot of places. Im still going to visit the city.

[mattpoulsen]

Omaha does have a very strong music scene. But its associated to a professional label...they are NOT going to be on American Idol. Furthermore, all the great bands around the area are not going to American Idol. I'm not exactly sure why the number of golden tickets has anything to do with the music scene. A large large number of the contestants are from areas which are not Omaha.

The whole thing is ridiculous. I am a bit annoyed with the representation by fox too. But that's what we get. Its always an easy and cheap joke to poke fun at the midwest...that's just the way it is. Some of it was a little insulting though.

Did you see the obese woman wearing the "I survived anorexia" shirt. Granted, I laughed, but its playing to the whole fat midwesterner stereotype, which just annoys the crap out of me. Lincoln and Omaha are ranked as very "fit" cities in relation to most cities.

To be honest, I despise American Idol and all "reality tv". I tuned in for a bit just to see the Omaha coverage...well, lets just say I still despise American Idol.

[btoverdrive]

Never seen it, never will.........or any other reality show for that matter.

[Sandhills Guru]

I forgot about AI last night and Omaha segment. I kind of like the reality shows to a point. Lets face it, normal people don't attract the viewing public, so they have to spice it or down you might say to get the viewers.

[lganser]

glued to tv watching american idol...

[ehenningsen]

It ended up being pretty much what I expected it to be..

It could be worse, if Fox was owned by ESPN, the stereotyping would have been a hundred times worse and made you sick, lol...

[tpabes]

Think of it this way, if those viewers are going to cross Omaha off their list of places to live or visit, based on American Idol, then you probably don't want them coming to your city anyway. I was disappointed because you don't get to portray your city to 30 million everyday, but can't say I was suprised. I'm sure they would have done the same thing if it was Des Moines.