the project continues
2005-06-02

Summer Special 2005: DANCE OFF 2005

Can you handle... THE DANCE?

Because America doesn�t have enough DANCE! on its airwaves, there are not one but TWO dance competition shows set to air this summer. One is �Dancing With the Stars,� a ballroom dancing competition on ABC. The other, coming up later this summer if anyone can be bothered to get the footage together, is �So You Think You Can Dance?� which promises to have a lot more outright retarded people onscreen and appears to be produced by Dick Clark (?!?!?!) First up � �Dancing With the Stars.�

The concept � read the title. D-list celebs do routines with professional dancers, then there�s some judging to pad the time out, and then You The Public Decide! by toll free number. Since there are already �celebrities� involved, we get to skip the usual humiliation part and go straight to the performances � presumably being a �star� on �Dancing With the Stars� is humiliation enough.

The hosts and judges are all appropriately low-key, so not to overshadow the performers � I couldn�t recognize any of them although semi-good information has it that one of the hosts is the guy who replaced Bob Saget on �America�s Funniest Home Videos.� The judges are an Asian woman, who is apparently the �mean� judge, and two withered Eurotrash of uncertain extraction. But do these people really matter � because I saw this show for The Stars! and was not disappointed. If you ever wanted to see Joey the New Kid, Trista the Bachelorette, Evander Holyfield, and J. Peterman (in a black Bedazzled pirate shirt, no less) trot around to 60-second versions of lite rock songs with �Latin� dancers as their partners, this show is for you. No, really! Go watch it!

If �Dancing With the Stars� takes off � which it probably won�t � the reward for the participants is probably better than �your own restaurant!� Whoever makes it to the end gets a sixteenth minute and possibly a slot on Good Morning America! This could account for some of the contestants looking overly involved and getting all weepy over doing poorly on the cha-cha, etc.

Seriously, for something so potentially grievous, �Dancing With the Stars� was surprisingly inoffensive, which is I�m sure is exactly what it was originally designed to be by the lovely klassy people at the BBC. Apparently this is just a watered-down version of the glories of the past, though, as my slightly older roommate started waxing nostalgic about �Circus of the Stars� and how back In The Glorious Age of Stars soap actresses had to do trapeze acts and ride elephants, not just shuffle around a fucking stage.

Fun Fact: Evander Holyfield may be most famous for having his ear bit off by Mike Tyson, but did you know that he has had AS MANY AS nine out of wedlock children?