Five Things That Really Happened On This Season Of 'Dancing With The Stars'

The best reason to watch Dancing With The Stars is that every now and then, something profoundly bizarre happens. It's not a mean show. It's not even American Idol mean, where dreams are crushed or anything like that. It's mostly just very, very silly, and fortunately, as the ninth season (yes, ninth season) closes tonight, you can appreciate an entire season's worth of weirdness in one blog post. We're willing to throw ourselves on the grenade for you. That's how much we care.

1. The Robot Paso Doble

In the eighth week of competition, each couple was assigned a dance to do in the spirit of a particular decade. Singer Mya, for instance, did a samba in the style of the '70s. But apparently, with five couples left, they felt that there were really only four decades to work with that audiences would recognize as markedly retro: the '60s, the '70s, the '80s, and the '90s. (The effort at an '80s routine is how we wound up with Donny Osmond dressing like Adam Ant, as discussed here.)

But when they ran out of decades, they gave the fifth couple ... the future. This resulted in the following extremely literal interpretation of what a paso doble — the dance inspired by bullfighting — would look like in the future. When danced by robots. As robots are conceived in inexpensive robot movies. Made by elementary-school students. This is model Joanna Krupa, performing with her professional dance partner, Derek Hough. (Okay, if you'd rather watch Donny Osmond as Adam Ant, which is also extremely weird, you can find that here.)

Ultimate fighting meets dancing, the Muppets show up, and what the heck is with Donny Osmond? After the jump.

 

2. Ultimate Fighting Meets The Two-Step

Ultimate fighter Chuck Liddell was a very good sport, but he was ... not a very good dancer. Here, he takes his best shot at a two-step, which could have been subtitled, "A Professional Dancer Does A Heroic Job Of Keeping Most Of The Dancing Out Of This Dance."

3. The Tom DeLay Extra-Patriotic Samba

We talked about this a little back when it happened, but there is no way you can cover this season of Dancing — particularly the weirder moments — without dealing with the DeLay samba where, apparently, we are seeing the touching story of a Democrat and a Republican falling in love through the dance.

4. Donny Osmond Does Not Age, Change, Or Acknowledge Time

One of the things you learn about Donny Osmond from watching this show is that it's as if he has remained in a glass case, or a biosphere, or a hyperbaric chamber — or maybe one inside the other inside the other — for many years. The '70s became the '80s, and the '80s became the '90s, and the '90s became whatever we are calling what we're in now, and Donny Osmond is still exactly the same guy. He doesn't age. Time doesn't affect him. He exists separate from the space-time continuum.

5. Aaron Carter Kicks It Muppet-Style

This is the one, more than any other, that makes me think ... "Whose idea was this?"

The quickstep is generally a classy, upbeat, sophisticated thing. Playful, yes, but in a romantic, flirtatious way, not in a "karate-chopping pig" way. The show has frequently made some odd choices about music, and sometimes they work out. But the theme music from The Muppet Show was really just too weird. The bright green suit made it seem like maybe Carter was supposed to be Kermit (if he wasn't, there is no excuse for that color), but the entire spectacle turned out to be rather puzzling.

Furthermore, this theme music is nothing without the "To introduce our guest star" part.