October 25, 2006: No More Spring in His Step
Even after being told he was voted out,
Jerry Springer was still cracking jokes: "Thank you for having me. And thank you for letting me go home." It's that mixture of sincere humbleness and self-deprecating humor that I'm going to miss most about Jerry. I think
Tom Bergeron said it best when he called Jerry "the heart and soul of this show." This season would not have been the same without him. He gave the show a sweet paternal subplot, a little age variety and some wry commentary - much funnier commentary than
Samantha Harris provides (could he possibly sub for her the remainder of the season? Just a suggestion). And in spite of his constant wisecracks, he didn't treat this competition merely as a joke - he did try to learn the dances. While he sometimes fell short in terms of natural ability and technique, he did succeed in entertaining the crowd. Jerry, you will be missed.
Speaking of people missed, MIA Season 1 professional champ Alec came back last night to do a little dancing. Then it was like homecoming week for high-placing contestants from the first two seasons of
Dancing with the Stars. It was fun seeing the been-there/done-that crew of
Jerry Rice,
Drew Lachey,
Lisa Rinna and
Joey McIntyre offer insight into the final legs of the competition as if they were wise old sages. The flashback theme continued with some moonwalking moves (I forgot how cool that can look when done right) courtesy of Maksim's dance students. This was a rare situation where a fun '80s pop song worked well with the dance being performed.
And just in case we mistakenly thought that all these dances were, well, kind of girly, this week's behind-the-scenes segment was there to set us straight: Ballroom dancing is full of manly men. Downtime on the show isn't all spray-on tans and pedicures - on the contrary, the "boys' club" can be found doing really masculine things like watching ESPN together. As
Emmitt Smith said, "A man in pink looks strong.... That's a confident man."
So now it's time for those confident men (and one woman) to step up their game once again. The strongest dancers this season have made it to the final four. That should make for some intense competition in the coming weeks, as well as some fine dancing.
