American Idol’s very special Horton Hears a Who night

I didn’t catch it live Wednesday night but the weekly elimination episode of “American Idol” also served as a promotional vehicle for Fox’s Horton Hears a Who.

The show opened with a movie-esque scene showing a family of Whos trying to improve their TV reception so they could watch “Idol.” The Mayor, voiced by Steve Carell, finally gets Horton, voiced by Jim Carrey, to straighten things out when Horton trips and falls, shaking the entirety of Whoville and finally allowing for a clear picture.

Then, in the show itself, Carrey was shown in the audience actually wearing a sort-of elephant costume and, of course, clutching a flower like the one in the story. There was some brief banter between Carrey and host Ryan Seacrest and then shots of Carrey grooving as the contestants performed their group song for the night.

Carrey showed up later on stage in a little skit as well. There was also copious footage of the show’s Final 12 contenders attending the Horton premiere in Los Angeles.

Obviously Fox wanted to tap into the same teen and pre-teen audience “Idol” is known for to sell Horton. But I don’t think there was anything that was done that was going to show that audience Horton is anything more than a movie for little kids, whereas those teens are soooooo too old for that stuff and would rather wait until the next Hannah Montana concert movie because you’re like totally overbearing and wouldn’t let me go to the first one and I know you said you couldn’t get tickets but oh my God you totally could have and I know you were just lying because you’re trying to ruin my life.

I may have gone off on a tangent there. Sorry.

The studio also was likely trying to present the movie to the older moms in the audience who might consider it for their kids this weekend.

In the preceding weeks I had seen some sort of Horton commercials in the breaks during “Idol” but, since we were fast-forwarding with our TiVo I didn’t quite catch what they were for. Which is why there was so much in-show promotion going on, it’s something we weren’t likely to zip through. Clever, these marketers are.