Goodbye Simon, Hello...uh, well...hmmm...?

It's official; Simon Cowell is leaving American Idol. So move over balloon boy, Jon and Kate Gosselin and White House Crashers, the media will now focus on this "hard-hitting news" until it has beaten the story to a slow and irritating death.

Though he may be leaving to promote his new popular show in the States, this may be the death of a show that defined a generation. A new judge can be added, Paula can be substituted, even Randy and Ryan can be switched out--but Simon Cowell, the man with the dirty rude British mouth that people tune in to watch, can NOT be replaced. He makes the show outrageous, entertaining and addicting more than any other aspect of the entire program. When people say they watch American Idol to see the amazing talent and watch prospective superstars take the stage, they're really saying they're watching to see how Simon Cowell will shred their performance to pieces and crush their dreams.

If we use simple logic, we discover that: Simon Cowell IS American Idol, American Idol IS America's guilty pleasure to watch on television, therefore--Simon Cowell IS America's guilty pleasure to watch on television.

The FOX network will not risk canceling their biggest ranking show until all life has been sucked out of it--and to their dismay, they are probably shaking in their boots that the end may be sooner than they hoped with this powerful man leaving the show. Let's pray that they don't try to drag on American Idol longer than necessary and it becomes "one of those shows" that stays on just to stay on though its audience has left and moved on to bigger and newer things.

So now the question is who will they try to replace the irreplaceable man with? Well, I guess we'll have to wait until the end of this season to find out the answer, but we will be able to see how well FOX producers replacement capabilities are with the arrival of Ellen Degeneres (though I believe she will add some very much needed funk and fun to the survival of the show).

Bon Voyage Simon, let's hope whoever they replace you with will be as rudely entertaining with an impressively dirty dictionary on hand. Another Brit wouldn't hurt either.