TVSquad

The eighth season of American Idol will begin auditions on Thursday July 17th in San Francisco. Other cities that will be holding try-outs for the hit singing competition show are Louisville, Kentucky; Phoenix, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; Kansas City, Missouri; Jacksonville, Florida; East Rutherford, New Jersey; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Any TV Squad readers going to sing for Paula, Randy and Simon? If I were to audition (and I won't), I think I'd sing something by Stevie Wonder (cause no one ever sings anything by him), or Mariah Carey (cause her songs are super easy), or maybe I'd just do my own composition and dedicate it to Simon (he likes that stuff).

More audition information is after the jump.

(S04E05) How happy am I that Jason covered the last night of auditions on Wednesday! I'm going to agree with him about the two tappers. The second girl, Liz, was fabulous. With tap, the excitement happens below the knees so performers have to be conscious of what's going on with their upper bodies.

Okay, I have a word problem for you. What do you get when you take hundreds of dancers then make them do four different styles, deprive them of sleep, critique them on national TV, and make them play some sick version of Mother May I to see if they get to the next round?

The Vegas episode of So You Think You Can Dance, of course!

(S04E03) Last night we joined Cat, Nigel, Mary, and Tyce in Charleston, South Carolina for more auditions. I, for one, am getting sick of the two-hour audition shows already. We talked about this last week and I have to point it out again: maybe if they showed more dancing, these audition shows would be better.

Cat assured us at the beginning of the program that Charleston would not disappoint as SYTYCD went there in season two. Who did they find in South Carolina? Natalie, Dimitri, finalist Heidi and none other than Travis Woll, season two's runner-up. In the second hour, Mary and Nigel headed to D.C. where they were joined by Dan.

Find out what happened in both cities after the jump.

(S04E01) It's back! *sings terribly* "Oh, I wanna dance with somebody. With somebody who loves me!" I am psyched for So You Think You Can Dance. We kicked off tonight with the L.A. auditions and a two-hour season premiere. There were a lot of Russians, a lot of pelvic thrusts, a lot of repeat dancers, and a lot of Mary Murphy's infectious/irritating laugh. I can't decide about that one. Some times I can't stand her and some times I want to sit next to her at the judges table. What about you?

But enough about Mary, let's get to the good stuff ... the auditions!

Are you a "momma's boy"? Or are you a mother who is really overprotective about who your son dates? Well, if you are, you might want to try out for Ryan Seacrest's (American Idol) and Andrew Glassman's (Average Joe) new show Momma's Boys. NBC's new reality series will air after the Summer Olympics in Bejing. The show will center around a group of mothers choosing the perfect woman for their sons. According to the press release, "drama ensues when numerous mothers and their eligible bachelor sons are housed together with several single women." So, they have to live together too? This sounds like The Bachelor meets Sister Patterson from I Love New York.

So You Think You Can Dance -- that other dance show -- is looking for the America's next Favorite Dancer. Starting in January, producers will stop in six cities to find dancers for the fourth season of the show.

The search will begin on January 17th in Dallas, Texas. They will then travel to Charleston, South Carolina (Jan. 31st), Washington, D.C. (Feb. 21st), Los Angeles, California (March 6th) and Milwaukee, Wisconsin (March 20th). The search will end on April 3rd in Salt Lake City, Utah. Audition venues in these cities have not been announced.

Casting for Dance is open to persons between the ages of 18 and 30 at the time of audition. Auditioners need to have proof of either U.S. citizenship, permanent U.S. residency., or current employment visa allowing them to work in the U.S. without restrictions. More information can be found at the So You Think You Can Dance website.

Hey, Brigitte here with TV Squad Daily. I'll be covering the TV stories I find interesting each day, Monday through Friday, in this video blog.

Today on TV Squad Daily:

• The Beckhams have their own special fragrance.
• American Idol auditions are continuing in full swing across the country this week.
• Roseanne Barr's MySpace page freakout was the work of her intern.

The video's embedded below, or you can subscribe to this podcast via our feed. Plus, you can also download the file directly.

While you and I go on as if today is any other day, hundreds of thousands of people are auditioning for American Idol in San Diego. For some of them, today is their one chance to become a major star. For others, it's their one chance to get on television by being a very, very bad singer.

Even though the auditions episodes of American Idol are hilarious, the producers of the show probably loathe this time of year. We only get to see a handful of the extremely good or extremely bad contestants, but they have to suffer through a sea of mediocrity. Only the people with a gimmick or real talent actually get to meet Randy, Paula, and Simon.

After San Diego, auditions move on to Dallas, Omaha, Atlanta, Charleston (SC), Miami, and Philadelphia. You can find the schedule here.

You know how the contestants on Survivor really aren't very interesting anymore? You gotta give this guy points for originality. A California man recently skinned a snake alive and ATE IT at open auditions for Survivor in Bakersfield, CA. He freakin' ATE IT. The guy gave a fake name to the newspaper and told them he's unemployed and he's ready to play a real game of Survivor. [Side note: Do they do background checks for homicidal tendencies?]

The city newspaper, The Bakersfield Californian, actually has a 2 minute video of the entire event complete with commentary from other horrified Survivor hopefuls. I honestly got about 30 seconds into the video and nearly lost my lunch, so consider this your warning.

[Via TV Tattle]

Project Runway is gearing up for a four city casting tour beginning March 30th in Los Angeles and continuing to Chicago, Miami and New York City. If you want to make the season four cut, you'll need to bring three garments of your own design, a picture portfolio and your completed application - soon to be available via BravoTV.com. And, don't worry, Tim Gunn will be back despite his many extracurricular activities.

In the interest of helping further your design career, I've put together a brief primer for success on Project Runway - from the auditions to the final catwalk.

Controversy and rumors sure like to swirl around you when you're a TV ratings powerhouse. In today's American Idol controversy, Simon Cowell is accused of planting a British pop star in this year's pool of contestants.

Tom Lowe wowed the judges at the Seattle auditions (see video here), earning a coveted golden ticket to Hollywood. Lowe told Simon, "I was at BMG Records in London at the same time that you were there."

As a member of the British boy band 'North and South', Lowe released a couple of singles. He reportedly split with the label in 1998.

I have been asked many times about what really goes on during the audition process. Do you really sleep outside? Do Randy, Simon and Paula see everyone? Do you go straight to Hollywood?

Experiencing this process firsthand, I am going to give you a little insight on what really goes on.

For my audition in Las Vegas, 9,000 people showed up. I got in line at 2 in the morning and waited until noon. Fortunately, I got very lucky and did not have to sleep outside for a few days. When they finally opened the doors, we waited in line yet again for a wristband and filled out some paperwork.

(S06E07) We're in San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo. There's lots of history at this location, but will we make American Idol history tonight?

It's the last stop on this year's audition tour, and what a tour it's been. I'm beat. I'm ready to wrap up these auditions and move on to the real competition. But first we see 11,000 people packed into the Alamo Dome as the Rawhide theme plays. An interesting tidbit: The Rawhide theme was originally sung by 1950s crooner Frankie Laine, who died today at the age of 93.

Back in San Antonio, the judges arrive, and Simon is cranky and suffering from jet lag. Poor Simon.

Maybe it was me, but only having to watch one hour of the auditions each night kept it short and simple.

It was easy to watch the show with less sarcasm and really see some potential talent. Tuesday night, we started off in Birmingham, Ala. Finally, we saw some contestants who I think are definitely finalist material. That being said, it brings me right to Chris Sligh!

Not only was he the first contestant with a great personality, he also has the "body of Christina Aguilera." His unique rendition of "Kiss From a Rose" kept me wanting more. He is funny, and though may come off as cocky to some, he has the talent to back it up. I LOVE HIM!

Welcome to Hollywood! I bet that won't mean as much to someone who lives on Sunset Blvd. and realizes that going to the next round means humping it over to Pasadena for a week. (Yeah, the "going to Hollywood" round is more like the inland empire round -- that's TV baby!) Still, a golden ticket is a golden ticket. And there were 40 for Idol hopefuls in Los Angeles. Wow.

For the most part, it was a pretty dull episode. Same old stuff, you know? I had to pop in my copy of The Last Waltz to decompress before I got to putting my thoughts down. I think, though, if you look past the normal audition format of thousands turning up to audition -- the token weirdos, a few costumed candidates, pretty girls who can kind of sing, average people who can really sing, some who think singing one more song will convince the judges to change their minds, some who think lots of tears will change our minds, and the judges being exhausted at the end of the day -- there were some really unexpected moments.