Subliminal Mess-Up

Almost a year ago exactly, American Idol "accidentally" displayed the wrong phone numbers during the end-of-episode recap. Well, to mark the anniversary, they did it again tonight... briefly.

During Mandisa's performance, her name and number flashed across the screen, though over a random strip of violin footage from the orchestra rather than the traditional blue backdrop with the Cingular logo:


Sexy and violins

Then, for less than a second, it switched to the blue Cingular backdrop we all know and love... while subliminally plugging Taylor Hicks and his phone number:


Did Taylor dye his hair or something? He looks different somehow...

Quickly, the Chyron dissolved back to Mandisa's information (still over the violin) for just over a second before vanishing completely.

I'm guessing FOX probably won't bother re-airing tonight's episode with the correct Chyron tomorrow night, since Unan1mous actually seems to be doing well in the ratings. Though I do wonder why they couldn't have corrected this mistake between the live broadcast on the East Coast and the West Coast broadcast.

UPDATED:
Now with video:

UPDATED AGAIN:
Or not... YouTube has removed the video as a result of "a third-party notification claiming that this material is infringing." While technically, legally, this may be true, and this blog does not claim to be above the law, one has to wonder what sort of damages a mere ten second clip could cause... especially while (at least for the moment) all these other Idol clips are still online at YouTube, many of them longer and posted before my clip.