American Idol

A new record of votes was set, nearly 100 million votes were cast. Ryan announced that the season total was 624 million votes.

This is a 2 hour & 7 minute episode. This is the third finale episode to run late. The first was the finale of Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis and the second was the finale of David Cook and David Archuleta.

Carrie Underwood performed the "good-bye" song "Home Sweet Home" at the end.

Kris Allen messed up on his last song. His voice cut out because the key was too high.

Season 7 contestant Carly Smithson and actor Anthony Hopkins were in the audience tonight.

Jordin Sparks performed "Battlefield" and Katy Perry performed "Waking Up in Vegas". Katy had on a cape that had Adam's name on it.

There were 88 million votes, and only 1 million between the Top 2.

The Ford Music Video was "Break My Stride" by Matthew Wilder. The guys are walking down a street and see a bunch of dogs. Adam turns into a cartoon and gets super powers. He pushes a wall and a BBQ shows up. He throws the meat and the dogs chase after it. Later they are about to get into a car and a storm starts to come Kris turns into a cartoon and he blows the clouds away. Before they drive off Danny turns into a cartoon and stretches his arms out to push all the parked cars out of the way. They drive off.

When the episode first started Paula Abdul was not in her seat but was there by the time Ryan introduced the judges.

The episode started with Ben Stiller, Steve Coogan, Jonah Hill and Hank Azari talking about how the Idol desk will be put into the Smithsonian, (which it really will be) and also to advertise their upcoming movie, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

There was no Group Number tonight.

Kevin Bacon was in the audience.

Eliminated Tonight:
Danny Gokey

Bottom 3:
No Bottom 3 due to the fact that the results were given at random.

There was only a video before the first song of each contestant.

The whole Kardashian family was in the audience.

There were 64 million votes.

The Group Number was "School's Out" by Alice Cooper. Slash played lead guitar.

Paula Abdul becomes the first judge to perform on American Idol with her performance of "I'm Just Here for the Music". No Doubt performed "Just a Girl" and Daughtry performed "No Surprise". After their performance Daughtry received a plaque recognizing their sales of 5 million world wide for their debut album.

The Ford Music Video was "Move Along" by The All American Rejects. The contestants are on billboards and in newspapers and come alive but are still 2D characters.