Are You Ready to Rumba?

By James Poniewozik

Solar radiation does funny things to the brain. It was in summers past that we fell for the Macarena as party starter, Regis Philbin as fashion icon and Howard Dean as Democratic front runner. If you need further proof that the ozone layer is thinning, look to the summer TV season of 2005, in which ABC got 15 million rapt Americans to watch Dancing with the Stars, the most proudly bizarre song-and-dance show since Pink Lady and Jeff.

Consider, first, the title. The dancing is done by professional hoofers partnered with hastily prepped celebrities, some of whom would be just about qualified to do the Electric Slide at a Bar Mitzvah. The stars include a Rod Stewart ex (Rachel Hunter), a soap actress (Kelly Monaco) and that J. Peterman guy from Seinfeld (John O'Hurley). The only part of Dancing with the Stars that should not be set in air quotes is "with the."

Dancing does not look like a show that belongs in postmillennial America. It combines music shows from the '50s with variety shows from the '70s and a sense of glamour from Dynasty. The participants include thickly accented dancers and judges who add to the cheesy Eurovision Song Contest vibe. The set contains enough mirror balls, fairy lights and glitter to be visible from space. The songs are tepid wedding-band versions of American pop hits. This is a show you would not be surprised to see if you turned on the TV in your hotel room in, say, Bulgaria. In 1983.

And it is the most popular TV series in the United States of America.

We'll ask why--or, rather, Huh?--in a moment. But first, a bit of history. Dancing began as a British hit with the grammatically undiagrammable title Strictly Come Dancing. It has since been exported worldwide. In Australia, it even provided some image rehab for white-power politician Pauline Hanson, who danced on a stage rather than on the aspirations of Aborigines and immigrants. But ABC passed on the idea--"It's a hard sell on paper," admits executive producer Conrad Green--before producers persuaded reality-division head Andrea Wong to watch a tape with her staff. "I thought it was a big risk," she says. "But we couldn't take our eyes off it."

The U.S. is experiencing a dance fever unmatched since the days of, well, Dance Fever, with ballroom classes at gyms and movies like Rize and Mad Hot Ballroom in theaters. Of course, any show that presents Bachelorette Trista Sutter as a celebrity is not going to bother too much with terpsichorean authenticity. Did you know that Three Times a Lady was a waltz? That Britney Spears' Toxic was a tango? That the jive was, per the narration, "a fast-paced rock-'n'-roll extravaganza born in the 1920s"? Or had you forgotten there was rock 'n' roll in the 1920s?

The stars, however, take the program surprisingly seriously. After getting KO'd in the show's second round, former heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield fumed, "They told me it was about popularity. They didn't tell me the judges would be judging like I was a professional." The twinkle-toed O'Hurley says the series elevates reality TV. "I believe we can entertain America," he says, "without having to fire people and eat worms."

But as this is reality TV, the ripping off has commenced. Fox last week announced Skating with Celebrities, which one suspects will draw heavily from Hollywood's expatriate Canadian community. (Norm Macdonald, start lacing up!) Fox airs So You Think You Can Dance next month, and TLC is preparing Ballroom Bootcamp, both of which were scheduled before Dancing premiered.

Which brings us back to asking why a ballroom contest is so popular. Census figures quickly dispel my first theory--that the median age of Americans is actually 73. Still, there is no other prime-time show so determinedly unhip. Where American Idol has Ryan Seacrest, Dancing has Hollywood Squares' Tom Bergeron. Where Idol's Simon Cowell snipes put-downs, judge Len Goodman has such quaint British diction you could imagine him reporting from London during the Blitz. The theatrics and costumes (former New Kid on the Block Joey McIntyre jived in a G.I. outfit) would embarrass an Ice Capades vet.

But the wedding-reception aesthetic is exactly the point. Wedding receptions, like Dancing, are carefully constructed hipness-free zones--places where it's more fun to be a fool on the floor than cool on the sidelines. Where Idol is about show-biz amateurs trying to go pro, Dancing is about show-biz pros turning amateur (there's not even a cash prize) and daring to be amateurish. Dance, for most of us, is about letting go, being inept and not caring. And Dancing, from its laughed-off missteps to its militantly dated production values, is that sentiment lustily, dorkily embodied. It is not the most original, brilliant show of the year, or even the month. But who doesn't enjoy a June wedding? --With reporting by Desa Philadelphia/Los Angeles