June 09, 2005

Dancing with the Stars

Yes, it's true, I've been sucked in by a reality TV show. But it's ballroom dancing! I have to watch it for the good of the sport! Right?

The premise is that a bunch of C-list celebrities have been training for the last six weeks with professional ballroom dancers (including my former coach, Charlotte Jorgensen). Performances have ranged from appalling (Evander Holyfield) to exceptional (John O'Hurley, aka J. Peterman from Seinfeld).

It's particularly amusing to me to see what non-ballroom people are saying about the show. One of the "stars" is a soap opera actress, whose dancing was pretty bad (although not as bad as Evander's, at least this week - I missed the first episode). She has hundreds of loyal fans, though, who are sure that the judges are just jealous of her. Right.

Some great comments from various message boards and blogs:

  • Liking this show is as embarrassing as being caught by your mother lip-syncing ABBA songs (playing on a record player, thank you very much) into your hairbrush.

  • The funniest thing, production-wise, was a quick cut of the soap opera diva (who wore a very minimal costume to distract form her lack of dancing ability) pulling up her minimal skirt after a sound man had inserted the microphone box so she could talk post-dance to the AFHV guy. They must have stuck the box directly up her ass because there was no. place. to put it. AFHV guy quipped that sound men from 3 continents had volunteered to insert her sound box, LOL!

  • Oh dear. It wasn't really like a train wreck...more like two kids on tricycles crashing into each other.

  • Part of the fun, by the way, was that all the female stars had a complaint about why this would be hard for them. Rachel Hunter had food poisoning or something and was throwing up all day before. Kelly had eardrum issues, and Trista has herniated disks. Can I just tell the ladies something? EVANDER HAD HIS EAR BITTEN OFF and yet you don't hear him complaining. On the contrary, when they said "Is this harder than stepping into the ring?" he said, "Nope."

  • And what about Trista's partner's penis ponytail. WTF is that? He could put her eye out!

  • The Bachelor and The Bachelorette who later married her chosen suitor, the hapless Ryan Sutter, in a multimillion-dollar televised wedding, was the first contestant to be voted off the show last night, after a transcendently unsexy pas de deux with the suavely ponytailed Latin dance pro Louis van Amstel. (Think Nancy Reagan dancing with Fabio.)

  • Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, dance like a dromedary.

Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at June 9, 2005 08:54 PM
Comments

I should just add that Charlotte was also my dance coach. She is one of the best coaches, if not the best coach, I ever had. She's warm and friendly and supportive, and can communicate ideas about dance extremely well.

Posted by: Tom Nugent at June 10, 2005 02:56 PM

You know, while I was working out, I was actually forced to watch this, and I couldn't help but think....this is exactly what Tom and Elizabeth would watch if they actually watched TV.

As I understand it, when they get to the final four, there will be opportunities to become immune from getting voted off if they can dance across the backs of floating crocodiles. THAT would be worth seeing!

Posted by: Tom at June 13, 2005 07:00 AM

The head judge kind of makes me feel embarrassed for ballroom dancing. On the first week, his description of what we're looking for in the Cha Cha (Cha) was three things, one of which was "lots of shaking of the bum." Ah, the British.

O'Hurley was amazing in the first week doing his Cha Cha. Makes me think that there's hope for Latin dancers after 35. :)

Holyfield wasn't that good, but I'm still impressed that a man that massive was even trying the Quickstep.

Oh, I never watched any of the Bachelor(ette) shows, but supposedly Trista was a former dancer, so she should've been doing the best of any of the amateurs.

-Dan, blushing as he admits he got through the phone lines to make a vote for O'Hurley and Charlotta

Posted by: Dan at June 14, 2005 03:16 PM

I think the show's a hoot, though I have to wonder what the
judges are smoking sometimes.

I couldn't help but wonder at the start who the heck would watch
such a show. Now it appears that everybody's watching it. My
dental hygenist started talking about the show with me the other
day. She said she thought John and Charlotte would surely win,
just based on the first show :-)

Personally, I wish the Italian judge would shut up...

Posted by: Ron Hoffmann at June 16, 2005 12:34 PM
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