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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Dancing with “NORM!”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Norm!”
In case you’ve been wondering what George Wendt’s been up to all those years since “Cheers” went off the air, Monday night provided the answer: Pretty much nothing. Why else would he have been in the studio audience at “Dancing with the Stars”?
What’s that? Wendt (aka Norm Peterson) was there to cheer on this good friend John “Cliff Clavin” Ratzenberg? Maybe so, but pardon me for being a mite suspicious when a semi-famous type shows up to get some fleeting face time on ABC’s popular prime time show. Do we really think George Lopez wanted to watch Billy Ray Cyrus do the “Bubba Chicken” (Mr. Achy Breaky Heart’s description of his particular jive dancing technique) in person, or was he sitting front row center (literally) so host Tom Bergeron could haul him to his feet to promote a special one-hour edition of “The George Lopez Show” airing on ABC tonight?
I think it’s pretty obvious that the dancing has come down to a two-person race between Apolo Anton Ohno and Laila Ali (with Joey Fatone having an outside chance); so rather than comment on that competition, let’s handicap the other battle that went on among non-dancing stars (and I’m using the term loosely) to score valuable p.r. points Monday night.
1) The gold medal goes to Gabrielle Carteris, who lustily booed judge Len Goodman’s harsh comments about Ian Ziering’s dancing. Carteris played Andrea Zuckerman on “Beverly Hills 90210,” where the only member of the supposed high school age cast who looked older and more out of place than her was Ziering. “Dancing” has done wonders for both of them if for no other reason than it reminded us they’re still alive.
2) Silver to Leeeezzzza Gibbons, who was bounced from the show a couple of weeks ago and just keeps showing up anyway. Monday night, she plopped herself down right next to Ohno’s dad, perhaps to catch some of the reflected frontrunner glory. Hey, she didn’t spend all those years sharing cameratime with movie stars as an Entertainment Tonight co-host for nothing.
3) The Budweiser bottle-hued bronze goes to Wendt. He had that “I’d so rather be drinking a beer” look on his face, which reminded us all over again how great he and “Cheers” were. Unfortunately it also reminded us how long it’s been since he’s done anything similarly great.
4) Jerry Springer. In a taped bit where he supposedly taught Fatone how to be “a better man” onstage, he…TOOK….OFF…HIS …. SHIRT! Argh, my eyes, my eyes! The only reason he’s not in fifth place is because there was no fifth place.
In fact, Monday’s celeb sightings were disappointing in the sense that there was no inexplicably-out-of-left-field appearance by the likes of Florence Henderson. After the camera kept cutting to the now septugenarian “Mrs. Brady” in the audience a week ago, many people called and e-mailed the Serf to ask why, WHY, she was there. I still have no good explanation for it, although I briefly started the rumor that she was dating snarky old British judge Goodman. More likely, she’s working to get Alice the maid a “Dancing” slot next time around.
As we get down to the final six, I’m seriously hoping the guest star quotient will go way up. My dream final has nothing to do with who’s dancing onstage, but rather who’s in the audience: How great would it be to see: Muhammad Ali cheering on his daughter; Paul McCartney burying the hatchet long enough to applaud his soon-to-be ex, Heather Mills (c’mon Sir Paul, if she wins “Dancing” and makes a lot of money, maybe you can cut back on the alimony payments). And Shannen Doherty to support ex-90210 castmate Ziering. And probably get into a hairpulling catfight with someone right there in the audience.
Sigh … a Serf can dream. In the meantime, start working on your cha cha Alice.
