Dancing With The Stars

ABC premiered its summer reality show “Dancing With The Stars” last night, and of course Ashley and I watched it.  It probably should’ve been called “Dancing With The C-List Stars” or “Dancing With The ‘Starz’”, but we won’t quibble over such small details.  The basic premise is that six “celebrities“ are paired with a real-life professional dancer and the teams dance-fight throughout the summer to see who wins the dubious crown of, uh… I don’t know, “Best Dancer Out of Six Has-Beens” or something.

Last night they showed a little vignette about each contestant training with his or her partner and how hard it was learning to ballroom dance.  My favorite part is that each of the celebs had their own little personal obstacle to overcome in order to give a good performance.  For instance, Rachel Hunter had been sick leading up to the show and was just hoping not to throw up all over the place.  Trista Sutter had a bad back and hoped she didn’t throw it out doing her dip.  Joey McIntyre didn’t want to, uh, “look gay“.  Too late, Joe.  You lost me at “Hangin’ Tough”. (said the guy who was mistaken for Clay Aiken last week)

After each team’s vignette we got to see them dance live in front of the judges, who thus far are the best part of the show.  I don’t know their names yet, so I’ll call them Asian Paula, British Guy, and French Guy.  Asian Paula, like her Corey Clark lusting namesake, was basically nice to all the contestants except the hot chick from General Hospital.  British Guy is an old smooth daddy and seemed to give good advice to everyone.  French Guy is my favorite.  He made these painful one-liners with each critique (to Joey: “I know you’ve been around ‘The Block’, but you were all around the dance floor on that performance“), made all the more comical since they were delivered with a French accent.

Here’s a quick handicap of the performances last night.

Joey McIntyre - Joey was paired up with this chick named Ashly who is hot for him since back in his NKOTB days.  Given that Ashly is 22 years old, this is kinda creepy since she was about 6 years old during their heyday.  Despite his fears about “looking gay“, Joey and Ashly did fine, and in my opinion were the best duo of the evening.

Rachel Hunter - This just in.  Rachel Hunter is a giant.  I can’t wait until next week when she lifts her partner up and spins him around over her head like in “Dirty Dancing“.  She did a good job with her partner as well, though I bet he was tired after it was all over.  Let’s just say he had a lot more to lug around than the other guys.

Evander Holyfield - This was sad to watch.  It seems that Evander has taken one too many blows to the head through the years, as I only understood about one out of every three words he said during his vignette.  He kept mentioning how he “seceded“ in boxing.  I was not aware of the Great Boxing Civil War and how Evander separated himself from the mighty Union, but I’m not good on history.  Despite his inability to communicate coherntly, Holyfield gave us the highlight of the night in what I can only describe as the “Real-Deal Holyfield Sex Face“.  His dancing with his partner was not bad, but he had this skeevy look on his face the whole time where he kept licking his lips and grimacing while they cut a rug.  Good times.

Kelly Monaco - I had never heard of her before, but AG is a big GH fan so she knew who she was.  Kelly is pretty hot, but not much of a dancer.  She had to overcome some inner ear problem from a scuba diving incident and bravely spin her way through the competition without falling down.  Truly heart-wrenching stuff.  Asian Paula blasted her though when it was over, telling her that she needed to look at her partner with more passion while they were dancing.  This was hilarious to me, because I thought that’s the only thing soap actors knew how to do.  Kelly and her partner received the lowest judge’s score of the night, so it will be up to the legions of GH groupies to save her.

John O’Hurley - Best known as J. Peterman from Seinfeld, John’s personal obstacle to overcome seemed to be “don’t die“.  He looked exhausted after his performance and could barely get a word out.  Let’s hope this doesn’t turn into “CPR With The Stars“.

Trista Sutter - Media whore Bachelorette Trista opened her vignette by saying people criticize her and other reality stars because all they want to do is be on TV.  She went on to say she hopes that by being in the competition (on TV) people will start to take her seriously as a (TV) dancer.  Riiiiggghttt.  Trista’s trick back was able to stay in place long enough for her to get through her routine with her partner, who looks like this is the first work he’s had since being Super Macho Man in “Mike Tyson’s Punchout”.  We were also treated to a shot of doting husband Ryan serveral times during the performance, making me wonder if Rachel Hunter and I both might be sick before the night was over.

AG commented that the production values of the show - from the graphics to the lighting to the music to the cheezy voiceover guy - are reminiscent of a TV special from the 80s, and I have to agree.  All in all, this combination of old-school charm and silly premise is enough to make me want to keep watching for the rest of the summer.  I know.  Shocking.