DANCING WITH NO STARS!

Weeks ago, when I saw a small-ish unconfirmed-by-the-show list of this season’s Dancing With the Stars contestants, my first thought was that there is seriously not one star on there!!! And here we are, with the official roster just announced at the end of last week, and it got even worse—this is their least famous cast yet! There’s not even one athlete on there—and we’re down to a felon!

If, as I did, you had thought they had hit rock bottom last year with a peloton instructor as one of their “stars,” you would be mistaken. This cast is so bad that, for the first time in its thirty-one seasons, I don’t think I can waste my time on it, which is a shame because I adore dance. I’m sort-of upset that I even wasted my time writing this!!! (That’s why I’m not discussing most of the pro partner pairings, although I have thoughts on those, too, of course.)

I sometimes joke that Dancing With the Stars may get so desperate that they’ll get down to me, a former local cable personality!!! And with this cast announcement, I realize I may not be too far off in that assessment!

Seriously, I had to look up many of them, proving that these people are not famous, except in perhaps small circles, and certainly not even close to enough to be classified as “stars.” I showed the list to Mr. X with just their pictures first, and he had no idea who over half of them are. Then I revealed their names, and it didn’t clear anything up for him.

Several are reality show people, which explains why I’ve never heard of them. And some are just working actors, which doesn’t make them a star, by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter fact, the show itself has been known to make their competitors famous, which is the opposite of how it’s billed!

Okay, here are my thoughts on these new contestants:

ONLY ONES I KNOW WHO THEY ARE

~ The only one close to being a “star” is Wayne Brady. He hosts the long-running TV game show, Let’s Make a Deal, is one of the improv peeps on Who’s Line Is It Anyway, and used to host his eponymous daytime talk show. I’ve never seen any of those shows, but I feel like I’ve always known who he is, which means he is famous! And he’s a wonderful singer. (He already won a season of The Masked Singer, so he’s going for the reality competition double here.) Wayne will try just about anything he’s good at, and he’s done Broadway, so I have a feeling he can dance. I recently saw him in Lin-Manuel-Miranda’s Freestyle Love Supreme, and, of course, gave him a great review. So he’s for whom I will be rooting.

~ Then there’s current Bachelorette Gabby Windey. I’m ashamed to say that I began watching this franchise during the pandemic, and now I can’t help myself from continuing with this baloney train wreck. I’ve even roped Mr. X into viewing most of the episodes with me, and we can’t stop laughing; it’s all so inane. But I semi-like Gabby. I had thought she would be dismissed early when she vied for last season’s idiot guy, but when they finally showed her to be amusing, I was glad she made it to the final three. But we’ve both noticed that she always just nods her head and utters, “Yeah,” to everything anyone says to her, which has turned us off to her recently. But at least her penchant for wearing beyond-naked clothing will fit in with the wardrobe philosophy on DWTS!  [Note: I’m guessing that her inclusion on DWTS means that she did not find love on The Bachelorette, which we’ll be finding out the answer to next week. So I originally assumed they’d be giving her a single pro to work with, so they can make a thing out of it. But I found-out it will be Val Chmerikovskiy, who’s madly in love with his pregnant wife, so that can’t happen.]

~ Still-pretty Cheryl Ladd is mainly known for being one of Charlie’s Angels waaaay back in the day. But at least she’s famous! Sort-of.

~ Now, who can tell me who Joseph Baena is? No one, I’m sure, without his bio. So how is he a “star?” His sole claim to fame is that he’s the illegitimate son of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who impregnated his not young nor even close to hot housekeeper, when he was still married to his now-former wife, Maria Shriver. This situation is particularly weird to me because of this: I’ve always wondered why wives/mothers keep hiring young, good-looking nannies and caregivers. How do they not see the very likely potential for their husbands/boyfriends to cheat on them with the pretty newcomer?! I always say that couples need to hire old, chubby, bad-looking women instead. And then, what do you know? Arnold cheated with their housekeeper of exactly that description!!! (That actually made me feel a tad better because he was a major fan of my show, but never once hit on me. Of course, I would have been disgusted if he had, but now I see that it was because I was young and attractive, ergo not his type at all!)

~ Jordin Sparks is a singer who won Season 6 of American Idol way back in the day. (Over fifteen years ago, actually!) I believe she had one hit after that, a duet with Chris Brown, and then it seems the general public hasn’t heard much from her again. The main thing I’ve known about her since then is that she was saving herself for marriage, which I guess her former bae, Jason Derulo, didn’t want to deal with, hence their break-up. But I do consider her to be sort-of famous still.

WORKING ACTORS

~ Selma Blair is an actress with several big movies to her name, most notably Legally Blonde, (which I don’t even remember her in, although it’s one of my faves,) and Cruel Intentions. She’s unfortunately had multiple sclerosis for about four years now, and I’ve only seen pictures of her with a cane, so I can’t figure out how she’s going to be able to dance. At least she should get the sympathy vote.

~ I never heard this guy’s name, either, but I do love the movie he was in last year. Daniel Durant is a deaf actor who played the brother of the main character in the movie Coda, which won the Oscar for Best Picture. On a side note, he’s partnered with professional dancer Britt Stewart, who is probably the worst choreographer among the current group of pros, which usually means he’d be gone early. But, whether he’s good or not, viewers seem to feel compelled to vote for the physically-challenged contestants, so he may be around for awhile. And he seems pleasant enough.

~ Jason Lewis is an actor who was on the sixth season of Sex and the City, (a show I’ve never seen,)…almost two decades ago!!! How does that qualify him as a star???

~ Scraping the bottom of the actor barrel is Trevor Donovan, who was on the reboot of 90210, which I don’t think anyone even watched. I had to check to see what year and what channel it was even on, and even though I’m the only CW fan I know, I never saw this short-lived series.

REALITY PEOPLE

~ Sam Champion is the weatherman for the local New York ABC station, which is owned by the same company as DWTS. ‘Nuff said!

~ Charli D’Amelio is a TikTok person, so she’ll most likely do well because, a) if I understand correctly, she’s known for dancing on the platform, and b) since DWTS has moved to streaming, very old people won’t be watching because that set of viewers barely has satellite services, let alone Apple TV or the like! Hence, they won’t be voting. [Note: My mother would have never heard of even one of these people!]

~ And that girl’s mother, Heidi D’Amelio! Don’t ask.

~ This is yet another contestant I never heard of. But I don’t know any drag queens, which “Shangela” is. She (or he; I honestly don’t know the proper drag queen vernacular,) became known on RuPaul’s Drag Race, which can make someone popular if they’re into that kind-of thing, so he/she may do well here.

~ Vinny Guadagnino was on Jersey Shore, which makes him one of the few people Mr. X recognized, although I did not. My bae is from Jersey, so I forgive him for having watched that show from time to time.

~ Teresa Giudice was or is one of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. I have no idea which it is because, of course, I don’t watch classless shows like that one. But I have seen her name, (although not heard it—I have no idea how to pronounce her last one,) because she’s a felon who went to prison on multiple fraud charges. Lovely choice to be on DWTS, don’t you think? Who’s next—Jeffrey Dahmer???

~ I sooo never heard of Jessie James Decker that I didn’t even know if it was a man or woman by the name! Turns-out, she’s a female who’s “famous” because she married a retired football player, Eric Decker, (of whom I’ve never heard, either, which you know is saying something because of my sports obsession!) And they had a short-lived reality show. Of course.

Other news on this weird season of Dancing With NO Stars:

Koko Iwasaki, (who’s real name is Koine,) is a new pro this year. She was the runner-up on So You Think You Can Dance a few years ago. She’s really cute, so it will be fun to see her, if I could stomach the rest of the show. But her specialty is contemporary dance, not ballroom, so I don’t understand her casting here. [Note: Her hopefully-still* boyfriend, *(I can’t find any current info on them,) Kiki Nyemchek, is a ballroom dancer, so maybe he can help her. But he’s the one who should really be a pro on this show to begin with!!!]

Pro Louis Van Amstel will be returning to DWTS after about a decade off. That signals that there’s an old woman competing. So I assumed that meant he would be paired with that TikTok girl’s mother, but it turns out it will be Cheryl Ladd.

Since it’s on a streaming service, the show won’t have any commercials! (Hence, the sixteen competitors instead of the usual ten-twelve.) I’ve read that some people are perplexed as to how the participants will change outfits, if need be, and how the scenery will be changed. They must be stupid because those are far from mysteries. The dancers will change as they always have—in their dressing rooms!!! That doesn’t even deserve a “duh.” And I’m assuming that while the sets are being changed, they’ll either run taped pieces or interview the contestants in some other area of the studio, like a backstage room, as they did for at least half of the show’s run! Or have off-stage performances by their auxiliary “troupe.” What morons can’t figure that out? Or even care about it???

I’ll be interested to see how the voting works this time. I’m assuming we all get to join in this time, (since I’m also assuming we’ll all get to watch the show live, as opposed to recent years without a “results show,” so only the east coast could vote.) But I’m far from a streaming expert, so we’ll all find-out together.

And, as it has been for the past two seasons, the worst part of the entire presentation will be the creepy host, Tyra Banks. The producers seem to be well aware that the public detests her, but I have a feeling they can’t get rid of her; it’s probably way less expensive to keep her than to part ways. Ah, airtight show business contracts. They tried to soften the blow for us a bit by engaging popular former winner of the show, Alfonso Ribeiro, to co-host with her.  I have a feeling they’ll allow him to do the heavy lifting, but I, as most of us few viewers they have left do, wish they could just hide Tyra someplace. She really annoys most of us.

Okay, now you have a week until the Season 31 premiere of Dancing With The Stars, or how it should now be correctly known, Dancing With NO Stars! So consider yourselves warned.