Strictly Come Dancing | Pure Dancing with the Stars

DWTS Judge Len Goodman On “Better Late Than Never”! (Video)

PureDWTS reader @ElmariL sent us “an oldie, but goldie”. Below is Dancing With The Stars and Strictly Come Dancing judge Len Goodman dishing on his life and dancing career up to the point he became a judge. Did you know he didn’t start dancing until he was 21? He didn’t have a son until he was 40. He never was asked to do anything on TV until he was 60. He shares pictures, tells stories, and more. Just a mere example of why Len might be “Len. If you’d like to know more, you can order his book “Better Late Than Never: My Story” here.

Fascinating! I get put out by Len’s harshness sometimes, but, I really would not trade him being a judge on Dancing With The Stars for anything, would you? That doesn’t mean we can’t complain though when he’s been over the top, right? LOL!

Thanks Elmari!!! That was fun!!

Former Dancing With The Stars Champ Jennifer Grey Judges Strictly Come Dancing

Several of you asked if we’d report on Jennifer Grey’s appearance as a replacement judge for Len Goodman on Strictly Come Dancing in the UK last night. According to Metro, Jennifer was most impressed last night with Chelsee Healey and partner Pasha Kovalev. Right after their Charleston, Jennifer quoted a line all too familiar to us all and said, “You’re the baby in the competition. Well after that performance, no one is going to put baby in the corner.” Watch below…

There is a super write-up in the Daily Mail on the entire show last night (which also includes some great pictures). Of Alex Jones and James Jordan’s Quickstep, Jennifer remarked, ‘It was like a fine champagne. It was bubbly, effervescent, and made me feel giddy.’

Receiving some of his worst comments from the judges was Jason Donovan and his partner Kristina Rihanoff. Of their Rumba, Jennifer said, “You killed me softly with the that rumba. I think you need to dig deeper and connect more to your sexy power. I wanna feel more lust.”

Lulu and her professional partner Brendan Cole opened the show. Judging their Tango, Jennifer remarked with this: “How gorgeous are you? That was phenomenal. I don’t know what they’re putting in your porridge but I want some. Obviously, we have little slip-ups but I couldn’t help but love everything about you.”

If you go to MrAtariST You Tube Channel, you can watch Jennifer and view all the performances, the judges critiques, and scoring for the night. You’ll also be able to watch the whole episode in a couple of days at Strictly Come Dancing’s official site.

Also, before the show last night, Jennifer did a 60 second chat with Strictly Come Dancing’s online presenter, Nikki Dean (pictured with Jennifer above). Jennifer spoke on her biggest dance inspiration (Derek Hough and Nicole Scherzinger), her future career plans which include something dance related, her time on Dancing With The Stars, and more.

When it comes to dancing who is your biggest inspiration?
I was really just blown away by Derek (Hough) and his dancing and I just wanted to live up to his previous partner, which was Nicole Scherzinger and it was just painful every time I saw one of her dances because I just thought ‘How did that happen? How did she get there?’

Well of course you went on to win Dancing with the Stars with Derek and have starred in arguably the biggest dance movie ever, what career ambitions do you have left to achieve?
I have so many career achievements that I must do before I die, but I do know that I want to create a place where everybody can dance and experience the joy of dancing so I’m working on a project at the moment.

What was you favourite Dancing With The Stars moment?
I feel like the beginning was the best as the pressure hadn’t gotten so intense that it became a misery. It’s almost like there’s cycles and the beginning was like the honeymoon phase, we’re like ‘this is so incredible I get to dance hours every day and I get to learn all these great dances’ you have three weeks to learn basics of one dance. All of a sudden you’re learning two dances a week with only three or four days to learn a whole routine. I was not into the pressure and learning things immediately as I’m a really slow study.

When I was doing the Argentine tango that was one of the most painful weeks in rehearsal and the outcome was so exceptional that that was a real high for me.

How did it feel when you won Dancing with the Stars?
Winning at the end was amazing but I had ruptured a disc the night before in my freestyle so I was in the hospital the morning that I won in the operating room. I still had marks from the oxygen tubes on my face when I was in make up so I was a little like a zombie when I went out there. It was a little bit lacking what you think it might be as I think I was just running on fumes.

What would your advice be to this year’s Strictly contestants having been on the journey yourself?
Go for it, push yourself, break out of the pack, look after your health and do nothing else. Nothing! Just dance and eat and sleep and dance and eat and sleep.

Have you kept up the dancing since?
I wish, no I have not but there’s nearly no place to do it.

How are Strictly judges Len and Bruno perceived by American audiences on Dancing With The Stars?
They are beloved. They love booing Len and they scream with laughter at the hilarity of Bruno, I think they just love the show – they just love all of the bits of it.

You can read the interview in full here.

Sounds like a great night of TV for the UK and Jennifer was beautiful as always!! Here’s to Strictly Come Dancing’s results show tonight!!

Jennifer Grey On DWTS, Derek Hough, And Judging Strictly Come Dancing

This weekend, Jennifer Grey is appearing on the UK version of the show as a stand-in judge for Len Goodman. She’s hopes to “bring honesty” to the panel. In a new promo interview with the BBC, Jennifer talks of what it was like to do Dirty Dancing and how Patrick Swayze got her the role. She also speaks about doing Dancing With The Stars in the US and a little of what she went through with her partner, Derek Hough. Great article. You can read more in a take from Film News below.

Jennifer says despite her starring role in Dirty Dancing, she is not a natural performer.

“Derek was frustrated because I’m not a dancer. I was only a weekend one. I put on Michael Jackson on my boom box,” she smiled. “I was a lover of dance.”

Jennifer confessed the show was hard work. The Golden Globe-nominated star says rehearsals were gruelling and often left her feeling vulnerable.

“It’s about embracing the opportunity and facing your fears. You have to dig so deep,” she recalled.

“Each week I didn’t feel ready. I could not get through a dress rehearsal without crying or some sort of drama. It’s very intense.”

Jennifer is appearing on the UK version of the show this weekend as a stand-in judge. The 51-year-old hopes to bring honesty to the panel of Strictly Come Dancing.

“I’m a really judgemental person!” she laughed.

“I have so much compassion, and I’m going to be really honest.”

Picture above is of Jennifer and Kenny Ortega at the 2011 Rising Stars Gala on Oct. 29th. You can view more pictures of her at this event at Zimbio.com.

Adding: Thanks to @ElmariL, here is the BBC interview;

DWTS Judges Len Goodman And Bruno Tonioli Already Fighting?

Geez, Dancing With The Stars hasn’t even started yet and these two are already bickering. According to the Daily Star, Len has ‘banned’ Bruno from speaking to him on the flight to L.A. to do the show. LOL!! Are we surprised? The two are also currently judging the UK show “Strictly Come Dancing” as well. Too much togetherness maybe?

Every Saturday after Strictly is filmed, the pair will both take an 11-hour transatlantic flight to Los Angeles to record an episode of the American show before flying back to the UK a few days later.

Goodman has said he “needs his rest” with all the travelling and he doesn’t want the loud and hyperactive Italian leaping about on the plane disturbing him.

So he’s made him take ‘’a vow of silence’’.

A source said: “Len has told Bruno he has to keep quiet throughout the flight.

“Bruno gets very excited and animated and Len won’t get any peace and quiet unless his co-star keeps his mouth shut.

“It’s going to be a tough challenge.”

Dancing With The Stars & Strictly Come Dancing Judge Len Goodman Speaks Out About Dancing Liaisons

Express.co.uk has an article up of Len discussing ballroom relationships. He says they aren’t exactly concrete or built on the best foundations. Such was the case with his first partner Cherry. I’m not sure whether that’s exactly true though. For example, look at Edyta and Alec or Anna and Jonathan. Those two dancing couples seem very happy and have good foundations. Read more below and tell us whether you agree or not?

Speaking about such dancing liaisons, Len told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs: “They’re not really built on anything concrete, are they? They are built on ballroom, which is not the best foundations.

Len, who married his then dance partner Cherry Kingston in 1972, admitted that once the dancing was over, so was the relationship.

“For how long we danced together, we did well,” said Len, 67. “When you dance professionally you are together all the time.

“In my case with Cherry, I looked across the table at her and she looked at me and thought, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing with him, we’ve got nothing in common’. So we went our separate ways.” Len had a son, James, with second partner Lesley, and is now with Sue, who is 30 years his junior.

“We grew apart,” he explained. “The common denominator is probably me, so it was probably more my fault.”

DWTS 11, Week 1 – Miscellaneous Bits of News

Occassionally I am driven to post interesting little tidbits of news I find around the web. It’s not a statement of whether I believe the posted news is actually true or not. Sometimes I just find stuff funny. Like this bit from PopEater.com:

First? The Hoff Shocked ‘Dancing’ Fans Dropped Him So Fast

David Hasselhoff was feeling hassled after becoming the first celebrity voted off ‘Dancing With the Stars’ on Tuesday. Friends and insiders close to the ‘Baywatch’ star and the hit show tell me David was shocked and humiliated by the surprising results.

“David thought he had a bigger fan base and just can’t understand what happened,” a friend of The Hoff’s tells me. “He honestly thought he had a chance to win this competition. He would have never agreed to even participate if he thought for one second he would be the first to go.”

And just like his dance moves, the bruised actor didn’t exactly accept his defeat with grace.

“David is blaming everyone but himself for the vote,” an insider tells me. “Backstage after the show, he was blaming the producers, the lighting guys and even the costume department.”

Cheryl is writing her blogs for MSN.com this season – interesting to hear her talk about the height difference with Rick. Click the link to read the whole thing:

This year is sure to be a lot of fun since we have a really great cast. There are so many different personalities and every season is so different, so it’s fun to learn more and more about all the cast members. This year is going to be challenging for me because I’m dancing with someone quite tall. I’ve never danced with a man so tall before in my whole dancing career. For me, it’s going to be a different challenge than I’ve ever had on the show. I’m partnered with Rick Fox who is 6’7” and I’m 5’4”, so our height difference is insane.

Rick is doing well so far in rehearsals and if he has his fan base behind him and he doesn’t do bad and continues to improve every week, then I think we might have a chance to make it pretty far. The goal going into every season is always to win or make it quite far in the competition, and I see a lot of potential in Rick. The first few days I was a little scared since I was thinking, “this guy is so tall and I don’t know what I’ll do with him,” but I just decided to start at the beginning and taught him how to walk gracefully and how to use his height and long arms to our advantage. The difference in height is so dramatic, the shoe department of the show had to make me custom 4” heels so I could at least reach up to his chest level. I have always competed in 3” heels, and even that 1” is a big difference. It’s been a challenge, but it’s been a great challenge for me the last few weeks. It’s been fun to mold someone of his height into a dancer.

Mark’s writing his for USA Today – it’s kinda short and I don’t want to post the whole thing, so follow this link to read more:

What a show! I’m shocked that David Hasselhoff left. I’m really going to miss him screaming in the hallways of our rehearsal space with his booming voice! Seriously though, his partner, Kym (Johnson) is a dear friend, and I’m bummed she couldn’t stay longer.

I’m really proud of Bristol. She’s come so far in such a short amount of time, and I’m excited to continue to teach her as the competition carries on. We have the Quick Step this week, which I think will suit Bristol nicely. This dance is all about elegance and class, which she oozes.

I found this article from The Guardian interesting, and it’s clear that I’m American through and through because I prefer DWTS.

Dancing With The Stars v Strictly: which has the fancier footwork?
Which do you give top marks to? The glitz and glamour of the US show or the British version’s stern tellings-off

Thought you’d had enough celebrity-dancing launch-show excitement for one month? It appears not. Strictly might have unveiled its celebrity lineup a fortnight ago, but tonight its bigger, brasher, American cousin Dancing With The Stars hits UK screens. And as ever, this is going to be a series worth watching.

Everything is so much shinier and slicker on the US show than it is in Strictly. There are the hosts: Tom Bergeron who is more adept at reading an autocue than not-doddery-doddery-he-is-apparently-not Bruce Forsyth; and Brooke Burke who, while surprisingly inept at proffering a microphone to the person she’s interviewing, at least has expertise of the competition – she’s a former DwtS champion. Then there’s the music: while Strictly’s Dave Arch and his wonderful orchestra are great, the Dancing with the Stars band is conducted by legendary MD Harold Wheeler. And, of course, the celebrities.

And therein lies the main difference between the two series. In DwtS, you can expect to see maximums given out by the third or fourth week of the series – presumably because American audiences like to see their celebrities do well – with Goodman and his fellow judges Carrie-Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli (who’s even more camp and screechy than he is on Strictly) happy to overmark.

On Strictly, however, you’ll be lucky to see a maximum score of 40 prior to the semi-finals – although since Arlene Phillips left the judging panel we’ve been solely reliant on Craig Revel-Horwood to bring a modicum of sense to the proceedings. Add to that the fact that American ballroom dancing seems to be judged on different criteria half the time (watch their version of the Viennese waltz and you’ll see) and it’s no wonder that the US celebrities seem to do better than their UK counterparts.

DWTS versus Strictly Come Dancing – Part II

Where were we? Oh yeah – what would happen to DWTS if we made it more like SCD? Well, I think a lot. Kind of. :-)

Of the differences I outlined in my previous post on the subject, there were a few BIG ones:

The scoring difference;
The voting duration difference;
The voting style difference;
The number of judges.

The number of judges on the two shows isn’t as huge, IMO, as the other three. By having four judges (or five) instead of three, the only effect is the slight watering down of the impact of a rogue judge. Similar to how having two or three dances in a week softens the result of one bad dance, for example. You have one bad dance, followed by one great dance, and you can still end up in second or third place – like Derek and Joanna in Week 9. The same thing happens with four or five judges – you have one mean judge that scores you badly but the other three score you high, that one judge’s score isn’t a huge of an impact on your total.

The scoring difference is a different story. Remember my “Shocking Elimination” post and the explanation of the scoring and the math? Remember in Week 9, when the Judges scores were worked out we had the following:

Judges Scores:
Mya = 87
Joanna = 81
Kelly = 78
Donny = 72

Add up the total points given = 318
Now figure the percentage of total points each celeb got:
Mya = 27.36
Joanna = 25.47
Kelly = 24.53
Donny = 22.64

If they were on SCD, they would be ranked as follows:

Mya = 4
Joanna = 3
Kelly = 2
Donny = 1

So instead of a 4.72 point difference between Donny and Mya, it shrinks to 3 points. It may not seem like a lot, but it could be. Not only that, but Mya’s lead over both Joanna and Kelly shrinks as well. Mya had a nearly two point lead over Joanna – it shrinks to 1.

What happens when you add in viewer votes? What if Kelly, for example, actually had just a bit more viewer votes that Mya, putting her second behind Donny. Quite conceivable, really. On DWTS it might not be big enough to beat Mya’s judges scores, but on SCD? That makes the viewer ranking the following:

Donny = 4
Kelly = 3
Mya = 2
Joanna = 1

When you add them together, you have:

Donny = 5
Mya = 6
Kelly = 5
Joanna = 4

Which is presumably how it turned out. But what if Joanna had more votes than Mya? What if, using the DWTS system it wasn’t enough to beat the difference in the judges scores, but it was still more actual votes? That would give you SCD viewer ranks of:

Donny = 4
Mya = 1
Kelly = 3
Joanna = 2

When you add the judges rank and the viewer rank together:

Donny = 1 + 4 = 5
Mya 4 + 1 = 5
Kelly 2 + 3 = 5
Joanna 3 + 2 = 5

What happens in a four way tie? Viewer votes win, Mya goes home over Joanna. Of course, we didn’t have the dance off in the final four, did SCD? I don’t think they did, but that *might* have saved Mya – but no guarantee. And this doesn’t hold true in the Final because the judges scores don’t actually count – it’s all viewers votes. Mya still loses. But think about the lack of Judges scores in the final tally!! There is no storyboarding – no judges manipulation in favor of who they consider the best dancer! That’s pretty significant too, although I wager some voters listen to the judges.

At the end of the day, if Joanna had gone to the final instead of Mya – Donny still wins. But I would have had Derek for one more week. And it’s all about me. I think this difference in scoring has the potential to be huge – think about early on when Donny was way down in the ranks but way up in viewer votes? Would his chances of going home have been higher? I think so. But how do the other differences work in concert with this one? Do they even the playing field once again?

I’ll attempt to discuss the rest of it in Part III.

Dancing with the Stars Versus Strictly Come Dancing

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I watched the “Grand Final” of Strictly Come Dancing live yesterday. It was quite the interesting experience, to say the least. Most people know that the two are sister shows, with SCD being the predecessor of DWTS. That said, there are quite a few differences between the two shows – and a few similarities. Now, I’ve only seen three episodes, at most, and I’ll be going mainly on memory so let me know if I leave anything out.

The Similarities:

The theme song – it was strange, to say the least, to hear that music pop up followed by all the British accents and the just different enough to be noticeable set.
Len and Bruno – yep, Len and Bruno are ever present…but they are different too. Or so it seems.
The Live Band.
The best dancer doesn’t always win…and that person’s fans claim they will never watch SCD ‘ever again’. :-)
Two host, one male and one female (although the male, Brucie, sang and dance on the final with one of the judges).
Celebrities dance with professional partners.
This season, the final two teams did a side-by-side Lindy Hop, similar to what our final three did but less complicated – one style instead of several.
Pro-dances.

Here is one of the best (the best, in Len’s opinion) couples from this “series” (aka season in USA speak) – Ricky Whittle and his professional partner Natalie Lowe do the Quickstep during the final:

Here’s the guy who actually won (and I found him very enjoyable) – Chris Hollins and his professional partner Ola Fortuna (any relation to Brian?) doing the Charleston during the Final:

The Result?

There are quite a number of differences, some huge, between the two shows, including:

They normally have *four* judges, and by the end of the season they had added a fifth, and controversial, judge. That’s right – 50 possible points per dance! We could discuss how this waters down the impact of any single judge, but that’s a much longer, math-related, post.
Len and Bruno are a similarity, but also a difference. Bruno is still wild – it’s Len that is a bit different. He lets it rip with the British lingo much more than he does on DWTS. But, he’s also not the “mean” judge on SCD, as far as I could tell – the other guy, whose name I don’t remember, seemed to be worse.
I haven’t done a ton or research on this, but I gathered from the message board ecstasy over the possibility of them getting Derek Hough (he says no), that the male pros ALWAYS wear tails for ballroom. The commentary on the message boards was that the dress and manner of the SCD pros is much more formal than that of DWTS – our guys almost never wear tails, whereas their guys always do. Derek visited the show and his main comment on it was the “feel” of the show – very different.
The scoring is COMPLETELY different on SCD than it is on DWTS. On DWTS, they use a formula to give each couple percentages of the vote cast and percentages of the total judges points given out on a given night, then those two percentages are added together. On SCD, each couple is simply given a rank based on the judges scoring and viewer votes. For example, if seven couples are dancing, the couple with the highest judges score is given a seven, and so on down the line. The couple with the highest number of viewer votes is given a seven and so on down the line. Those two numbers are added together and the two couples with the lowest combined number do a dance off. As in DWTS, the judges decide who stay. In the event of a tie somewhere in the lineup, the couple with the higher viewer votes takes the higher position. Keep in mind, this is the standard, not just something they use during Mambo Marathons, etc.
Voting is by telephone ONLY for SCD – this is a huge difference with, I would guess, a huge impact on the results. And it appears, from my limited research, that you have a relatively short period of time to vote. On the order of two hours.
I don’t know if this is par for the course, but yesterday they aired the performance show live at 6:40 local time. Each couple danced two dances. They open the phone lines at some point late in the show, and then have an hour break where they air another show. Then, at 8:40 they air the results show. The phone lines have been open the whole time. The couples dance two more dances, including a “show dance” (aka Freestyle in USA speak). Then, about 15 minutes before the show is over, they close the phone lines and tally the results. And get this – the judges scores don’t count.

Now, I’m sure there are many more differences, large and small, between the two shows. But I’ve outlined a few differences that I’m sure everyone can see would have a huge impact on DWTS if they changed to be the same as SCD. Which is the biggest; the short voting period, phone only voting or the scoring…or the fact that in the final the judges scores don’t count? Good grief, they all seem huge to me.

I’ll let you guys thing about that for a few hours, while I come up with my thoughts on the impact on DWTS if we made it more like SCD. Would we still have a Donny Osmond? Would Gilles have won instead of Shawn?

Derek Hough Visits the DWTS Mothership – Strictly Come Dancing

I thought those of you not following Derek on Twitter might find this interesting. Or maybe not – who knows. Anyway, Derek is in London choreographing either a video or a whole TV show for Cheryl Cole – that is a bit murky. But he went to Strictly Come Dancing tonight to visit and sent his followers a few pictures. Here are his tweets – read from the bottom up, those of you not on Twitter:
Derek Tweets from London