Dancing with the Stars Watch: Guilty Pleasures and Cheerleading

Dancing with the Stars Watch: Guilty Pleasures and Cheerleading

The Presidential election cycle has taken its first casualty: The first Dancing with the Stars group performance has been halved and we will not be able to make side-by-side comparisons between Gilles Marini’s freestyle dance and Shawn Johnson’s freestyle dance. Come on, America, where are your priorities? Or is this revenge for kicking Bristol Palin off the show last week? To help ease our pain, luckily we have at least half of our contestants dancing to their guilty pleasure songs. Can’t wait to watch them publicize their secret shame!

Here’s how the first half of this week’s performances played out:

Best Excuse for Poor Performance: As the Wu-Tang said, “Dolla dolla bill, y’all!” Poor Kelly Monaco is the only so-called star who has an actual day job, so instead of spending her daylight hours practicing dance steps, she has work all day on the set of General Hospital (playing, I assume, a sexy x-ray technician). So when she is off, it’s no one’s fault but her own for having a good work ethic.

Best Len Quote of the Day: “I’m an enemy of the unnecessary!” That was a classic Len Goodman response to a dance filled with excessive hand flim flams, too many hip hula mulas and a great number of foot flippies. Those are not the technical terms. Of course we civilians didn’t see anything wrong with Kelly and Val Chmerkovskiy’s dance, but what do we know? In Len’s eyes we’re probably unnecessary.

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Biggest BS of the Night (because the Presidential debate hasn’t aired yet): When Kelly took to Brooke Burke-Charvet’s aerie to hear her scores, Brooke asked her if holding down a day job and dancing all night was a grind. Kelly responded, “I welcome the challenge.”

Hottest Look of the Night: Gilles Marini on a motorcycle. Gilles is angling for your votes, ladies, and he’s doing it by wearing a leather jacket and straddling a motorcycle. Sure, Peta, is riding Goose, but if you hold up your hand to block half the TV, you can’t really see her. Play along at home, ladies and gents!

Even Better Idea: During their rumba to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Gilles threw Peta halfway across the floor, which is way better than simply pretending she’s not there.

Funniest Slapstick Routine Ever: As Gilles’ sultry samba ended, the judges were falling over each other, literally. Carrie-Ann Inaba loudly let rip with the thoroughly professional non sequiter, “Let the babymaking begin!” and then fell straight out of her chair and under the desk. Once it was clear she wasn’t hurt, the ballroom fell apart in laughter. Viva la live television!

Best Bergeronism of the Night: Gilles and Tom rushed over to aid Carrie-Ann, but Tom graciously stepped aside to let Gilles swoop in and kiss Carrie-Ann’s boo-boo. This let Tom announce, “When you said let the baby making begin, I didn’t think you’d get in position!” Gilles earned a 29.5.

Most Appropriate Song Choice: In order to appeal to DWTS viewers, Kirstie Alley opted to set her quick step to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” casting Maks Chmerkovskiy as the attractive younger man. She’s so good at targeting her demographic, she should get a job on a Presidential campaign. The duo got 25.5, which is their highest score of the season. Plus, Carrie-Ann complimented Kirstie’s “carriage” and she wasn’t talking about a horse.

Best Use of a Giant Parrot: Watching Emmitt Smith clad in red satin pants and a red satin sleeveless shirt dance a samba underneath a giant parrot to Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” is either testing the loyalties of even his most devoted NFL fansâ€"or earning him a whole bunch of new ones.

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Dirtiest Secret: Under pressure from Brooke Burke-Charvet, Emmitt admits that he hid his Fanilow status from his football teammates and didn’t listen to Barry Manilow in the Dallas Cowboy locker room, but in secret when no one else was around, which is pretty much the way I eat Oreos.

Best Non-Head Injury of the Week: The gossip magazines were filled with the story that reality show denizen Melissa Rycroft had  been rushed to the hospital after being dropped on her head by Tony Dovolani during rehearsal. But no herniated neck disk will stop Melissa from being used as a human jump rope to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” in the first group freestyle dance.

Smells Like Teen Spirit: In order to help Shawn Johnson pretend she had a normal high school experience, her freestyle dance team decided to dress up like football players and cheerleaders and dance around to “Call Me Maybe.” The dance was fun, but more importantly it is the perfect segue for Bring It On quotes: “Let’s not put the “duh” in dumb!”

Biggest Compliment: The judges score the team’s freestyle routine a touchdown. While Len and Carrie-Ann were complimentary, it was Bruno who delivered the ultimate DWTS compliment, declaring it “almost impossible to distinguish between the stars and the pros. The group got a 29.5.

Best Reason to Come Back Tomorrow: After the last notes of “Call Me Maybe” rang out, the looks on the faces of the team tasked with dancing to Psy’s “Gangnam Style” read clearly: “We’re screwed.”

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