Blue Helm

Thank you, American Idol, for providing us with yet another opportunity to watch awful (yet strangely awesome) YouTube videos of your aspiring singers. I thought William Hung was unstoppable, or maybe these guys. But Wednesday night’s episode of Idol proved to all of us that the viral power of America’s most popular television show remains in force.

The night this piece aired, “Pants on the Ground” had already made it into the top ten Twitter trending topics (try saying that five times fast). And yesterday morning, the song had stolen three spots on the same Twitter list. That’s very rare. But thanks to General Larry Platt’s catchy tune and hot dance moves, this video became viral within seconds of its airing on national television. Mashable put it nicely yesterday in a blog post: “Paula’s gone and Simon has one foot out the door, but nine seasons in, American Idol can still be counted on to deliver viral video gold.”

UPDATE: The best online covers to “Pants on the Ground” can be found here. Grunge, acoustic and, of course, Neil Diamond. Bravo!