This is the sixth in a series of examinations of legends about television and the people involved in TV and whether they are true or false.

Click here to view an archive of the previous TV urban legends.

In honor of the American Idol finale tomorrow night, this week’s TV Legends is a special All-American Idol Theme Week!!

Let’s begin!

TV LEGEND: Clay Aiken learned of the results of American Idol Season 2 before they were revealed.

STATUS: True

The finale of American Idol Season 2 was mostly likely the closest finale the show will ever see, with Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken separated by 130,000 votes out of 24 million votes cast.

The final result, though, was not a surprise to one of the contestants, for Clay Aiken actually knew that he did not win!

Ryan Seacrest has the name of the winner on a card that he carries with him during the show.

Here is a picture of Ryan with the card in Season 5, after informing Taylor Hicks that he won American Idol Season 5…

Now, I don’t know how American Idol handles it since American Idol Season 2, but in Season 2, Seacrest had the card with him all night.

And at one point early in the Season 2 finale, Aiken got a peek at the card (it is unclear exactly how – but Aiken is noticeably taller than Seacrest – likely about four inches taller, so perhaps Seacrest was simply holding the card in such a manner that someone could read over his shoulder).

Aiken revealed on Larry King Live that yes, he DID get a peak at the card, but the backstage lights created such a glare on the card that he could not actually read it. However, he could make out the basic length of the winner’s name, and since “Ruben Studdard” is noticeably longer than “Clay Aiken,” he knew that he was not the winner.

Right before the winner was announced, Aiken whispered into Studdard’s ear that Studdard was, in fact, the winner.

I imagine Idol has precautions in place after that to avoid such an event in the future.

TV LEGEND: When Season 8 went to a Final 13 instead of a Final 12, that caused trouble due to a porn company owning all American Idol phone numbers beyond #1-12.

STATUS: True

When Simon Cowell claimed that he and the American Idol producers huddled up and determined at the last moment (during the “Wild Card” round, where the judges got to pick an additional 3 contestants to join the 9 contestants that had been voted in by the public) that American Idol Season 8 would have 13 final contestants instead of the typical 12, a lot of people doubted him, figuring that it was something they had planned in advance.

That might be true, it might not be true, but one thing going in Cowell’s favor is the situation with American Idol’s phone numbers.

On American Idol, they use the same phone numbers every year for the Top 12.

1-866-IDOLS-01, 1-866-IDOLS-02, etc.

All the way to 1-866-IDOLS-12, as seen here on Adam Lambert earlier this season…

However, they never used past 12, because American Idol did not have OWN the phone number for 1-866-
43657(IDOLS)-13. Nor do they own 1-800-43657-00.

Both numbers are owned by a sex line, hoping that people, I don’t know, accidentally stumble upon them and just say, “What the heck, I’m here already, I might as well talk to some ‘hot and horny girls’!”

It’s an interesting approach, but it’s what they went with, so for the Top 13, the final contestant, Alexis Grace, was given the phone number 1-800-IDOLS-36.

Grace made it through, so luckily, it did not seem to affect the voting.

Still, pretty darn hilarious.

TV LEGEND: In Season 5, American Idol skipped Austin, Texas and just pretended that auditions in other cities were their Austin auditions.

STATUS: False with a lot of Truth mixed in.

One thing you have to get out of the way right off the bat is how, exactly, American Idol auditions work.

Often, the audition process has to be arranged around the schedules of the judges (presumably mostly Simon Cowell’s schedule, as he seems to be a bit busier than the other judges), so when you see the judges judging contestants, it is not even necessarily the same day as when the big group shots happen outside.

The way auditions work is that the main judges don’t even get to see contestants until they have been seen by a group of 10-12 American Idol producers. Simon, Randy and Paula only see about 100 or so contestants any given time.

A nice aspect about this system is that it is easy to break things up that way. If the judges are not available, you can screen out the 100 or so contestants and have them return the next week when the judges are available and have them audition in front of the judges then. On television, with editing, there’s no way of telling the difference.

Of course, sometimes, when you do this, things get in the way – stuff like, oh, I don’t know, a massive hurricane?

In August of 2005, the South of the United States was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, particularly Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Due to the influx of refugees in Texas, the first round of auditions in Austin could not see the judges in Texas.

That’s also why intended Memphis auditions suddenly became Greensboro and Las Vegas auditions – because of Katrina.

So the contestants that made it past the producers in Austin were sent to various other cities (perhaps just one, perhaps multiple cities – I don’t know for sure) and they performed for the judges THERE, and on the broadcast, they were just labeled as having taken place in Austin.

Like Jason Horn…

The show used some trickery to make it appear as though Simon Cowell WAS in Austin, but he was not.

Here’s Idol producer Ken Warwick discussing the issue:

We didn’t mention it on air, to be honest, because we thought it wasn’t a big deal. The truth of the matter was that those were the auditionees from Austin. That was the Austin audition. And to be absolutely honest, I’d forgotten about it until it was brought up a couple of days ago that we’d actually done that. It was not deliberately done to mislead anybody; it had nothing to gain by misleading people in that area.

It’s quite different with everybody who was in Austin that wanted to audition did audition, and those that got through, generally did get through. But now because they’ve got to meet the judges, they’ve got to go through a different city. It was just one of those things that we didn’t think was a big deal. We’d have nothing to gain by making it look like we’re in one place when really we’re in another. As far as we were concerned, that was the Austin audition. And it was. There was nobody from any other city there, it was purely the people who got through from Austin. And all the initial rounds were held in Austin.

So first off, to the people who think that they just faked the Austin auditions period, obviously, they did have auditions in Austin.

So that’s that – but at the same time, they DID lie about parts of the auditions being in Austin when they were not.

In the end, though, I think Warwick is pretty convincing – if it is all the people from Austin, it basically IS the Austin audition – it is just held off-site because of a freakin’ HURRICANE. I think we can cut Idol a little slack on this point.

Thanks to Logan Martin and Ken Warwick for the information!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com