Ellen Replacing Paula Abdul

We definitely did not see this one coming, but it looks like a stroke of genius! Fox announced yesterday that Ellen DeGeneres will be joining American Idol this season as the fourth judge, replacing the departing Paula Abdul. She won't be giving up her talk show. She will continue to do both, she says.

Ellen has always been a fan of the show, but she has no music experience at all. Say what you want about Paula, but she's a veteran of the business, and though she was over-medicated much of the time, she did add something, er, entertaining, to the show. 

And thought we're still not convinced that four judges is the optimum configuratoin, we're eager to see see what Ellen brings to the show. Whatever happenss, we know that this upcoming season is going to be WAY different than the rest. ...