This…is American Idol!

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Simon Cowell called into the show, but right away handed off the phone to his girlfriend, Terry, because he had to get a cup of tea. While he had Terry on the line, Howard told her that Simon is becoming so wealthy that she should marry him while she had the chance to make sure that she’ll automatically receive half of his fortune. After Terry laughed at Howard’s suggestion, Simon got back on the phone and brought up his new show, “American Inventor,” which premieres tonight. Simon explained that the program features people who want to find out if their inventions are good enough to be purchased and then distributed. Simon commented that his favorite part of “American Inventor” thus far has been meeting the hopeful inventors, because they’re “earnest and serious” but also “nuts.” Howard agreed, saying that many of the “inventors” he’s come across were the wackiest people he’s met.

Howard brought up that, in his opinion, Paula Abdul no longer understands the concept of “American Idol” and that she tells even the worst singers that they have a shot at stardom. Simon admitted that he “doesn’t know what Paula’s all about” before Howard informed him that he’s the best part of the show. Simon went on to say that even he finds the two-hour episodes of “American Idol” to run a bit long, but that soon the show will be decreased to 90 minutes an episode. After insisting that he doesn’t have feuds going with either Clay Aiken or Kelly Clarkson, Simon mentioned that he thinks “the bald-headed kid,” “the guy with gray hair” and Kelly Pickler will be the finalists on this season’s “American Idol.” This led Robin to point out that she has noticed how Simon fawns over Kelly whenever she performs.

Because Simon had to end the conversation because of a scheduled conference call he had, Howard told him that he’d send him a SIRIUS radio so that Simon could review the show sometime in the future.

Sal then came into the studio and announced that he had an invention that he wanted to discuss. Sal explained that, because gathering snow to make snowmen was so difficult and time consuming for him, he had the idea to create a mold where snow could be packed in, and perfect snowmen would thus be created. However, Howard replied that the fun of building a snowman is actually getting the snow to make one and that he wished he could put Sal in his snowman-building device and roll him out of the studio.