Dancing With The Stars

If you have ever wondered exactly where the show Dancing with the Stars has come from, it is really an amazing story. With six different celebrities paired together with six different professional ballroom dancers, a phenomenon was born into the United States. The show was already a hit in England, however trying to gauge exactly how well the show would perform in the United States was not quite so easy due to the dramatic differences between viewers.

With the start of the show on June 1, 2005, it was immediately obvious that the show was a hit. The viewers for the very first episode hit an enormous 13 million viewers and climbed its way to the number one position. This was an incredible feat for a show that was just starting out, and was success that would just continue to grow as the show went on. Combining together celebrities from a wide field, incredible costumes and some fabulous dancing has all proven to be a great recipe for success for the show.

The initial cast of the show for celebrities included several people who had not been seen heavily for a very long time, and demonstrated that a bit of time away from the spotlights of Hollywood is not always fatal for a career.

The initial contestants for the show included:

Trista Rehn, her claim to fame was her time on the show the Bachelorette as well as also competing on The Bachelor. Her time on the show was extremely short lived as she was eliminated on June 8, 2005 along with her partner Louis van Amstel.

Evander Holyfield, he dazzled the world as a major heavyweight boxer and proved that while he was not the most graceful on his feet; he certainly was not the worst. Pulling all of his experience, as a boxer did not seem to benefit him greatly as his time on the show was tragically brought to an end on June 13, 2005 after just two weeks. His professional partner was Edyta Sliwinska.

Rachel Hunter, as a famous supermodel it is standard that moving gracefully is required. While dancing with partner Jonathan Roberts it was unfortunate that Rachel was eliminated on June 22, 2005, which brought their time on the show to an end.

Joey McIntyre, made famous by the 1980's boy band, New Kids on the Block he has also done a few acting gigs, mostly plays though. With his own semi-successful music career covering several years, it had been a while since he had been actively heard from. Paired with professional Ashly DelGrosso he was eliminated on June 29, 2005 after coming in 3rd place.

John O'Hurley was able to secure several acting jobs as well as numerous television show hosting gigs; however, his first stint at competing came on Dancing with the Stars. Paired with Charlotte Jorgensen as his professional partner the pair was eventually awarded a second place finish on July 6, 2005 for the season finale.

Kelly Monoco, a successful actress with numerous shows to her credits including Baywatch, Port Charles, Hard Copy, Spin City, and General Hospital to name a few was declared the winner of season one on July 6, 2005 with professional partner Alec Mazo bringing a successful end to the first season for the show.

Due to the success of the first season, additional seasons of the show were quickly organized. Each additional season of the show has increased the number of viewers watching and each features a unique set of celebrity contestants as well. One of the key factors that has helped to influence the success of the show is the uniqueness compared to anything else that is currently on television. Because the show pulls upon the success of contestants and offers no prize money at all, it is only a title as well as a trophy that the winning pair is awarded. While many contestants are not as comfortable with this idea, many others are thoroughly pleased to simply be able to compete again and stay in the public spotlight.

With each season of Dancing with the Stars bringing all new celebrities to the center of attention it is increasingly obvious that there are several judges who play a very large part on the show. Trying to determine the exact role that each of the stars play is often varied, but it is possible for a large number of people to easily pinpoint the one judge that they dislike. However, while everyone tends to have different opinions, there are also several factors that make it increasingly obvious that one judge in particular has the role of villain wrapped up tightly.

For the vast majority of viewers the inclusion of Len Goodman as well as Bruno Tonioli seems only natural. After all, these two gentlemen are directly involved with the British version of the show Strictly Come Dancing. One major difference between the original British version and the United States version is the number of judges, for the British version there are a total of four judges, which includes Craig Revel Horwood, Arlene Phillips, Len Goodman, and finally Bruno Tonioli.

Len Goodman comes from England and is a professional dancing judge, as well as instructor for ballroom and also Latin dance styles. Beginning his dance career around 1962 he has ample experience to pull upon and has demonstrated a very extensive knowledge of all of the dance types, styles, varieties and even the alternative techniques that can be used. Due to the overwhelming success of the British version, Strictly Come Dancing he was offered the position as the head judge on the American version, Dancing with the Stars.

Bruno Tonioli is a professional dancer as well as a choreographer. His professional credits have ranged across a large number of projects with his most recent notoriety coming from both the British version, Strictly Come Dancing but also the American version, Dancing with the Stars. Pulling from his own experience as a dancer and even a choreographer he is able to offer the contestants, both stars and professionals some great first hand advice and is also known for making an appearance on the Australian version of the show, Dancing with the Stars.

Carrie Ann Inaba is an American actress, singer, and also dancer. She has also handled numerous professional choreography needs as well, especially for various competitions, and television shows. From all of the judges involved in the show Dancing with the Stars she is the only judge who has no personal ballroom dancing experience or training. This has no doubt found her repeatedly questioned on her ability to judge the competition. Pulling on her dancing skills, she has proven in her own professional career that she is incredibly talented and has been involved in the show since the very beginning.

Overall, if you had to just read the small pieces of information presented and pick the one judge that you believe is the worst what do you think you would say? Most people can agree that it is extremely difficult to actually pinpoint that one judge that is unanimously called the villain but for some it is actually quite simple. The lack of experience in professional ballroom dancing tends to make Carrie Ann Inaba the first choice; however, there are several reasons why she is often considered the villain judge in the show.

For the majority of people who have watched the show for any great amount of time it is noticeable that aside from the truth that many people all compete against each other Carrie Ann Inaba also has a habit of being much harsher on the female contestants than on the male contestants. This is regardless of whether the contestants are professionals or celebrities. This has created a large amount of frustration amongst fans that felt that male's were not performing to the same level as the female but yet received better comments and ratings. Trying to avoid this reputation, it has been obvious that Carrie Ann Inaba is working to change her image, but it is proving to be a bit difficult for her to do since each couple has at least one female actively involved.

While the show Dancing with the Stars has found huge amounts of success there are some contestants that are liked much more than others. A few of the contestants are extremely successful while some of the other contestants have found that they are not loved much by the judges, the viewers and ultimately their time on the show is shortened. While everyone has different opinions on the best contestants for the show, there are a few that are rather continuously listed as favorites. These favorites tend to bring the attention of the crowd, regardless of which dance style they are performing, do you think that your own personal favorite is included?

Master P - Who does not like the idea of watching someone step way out of their own personal comfort zone? Master P was a perfect example of this, going from bad boy rapper to ballroom dancer was a true stretch for him, but the couple managed to stick around and last a few weeks. Teamed up with Ashly DelGrosso in season two he was only on the show due to an injury of his son that found him filling in. Despite pulling out of his comfort zone, he managed to be the fourth pair of contestants to be eliminated that season.

Jerry Springer - This was an incredible experience, the man who went from being a City Council member, to the Mayor of Cincinnati to even moving onto his own television show. Coming to the Dancing with the Stars world seemed like just another strange choice for Jerry but proved to be fairly successful. During season three when he competed, he and his partner Kym Johnson came in fifth place.

Heather Mills - Everyone loves to hate this women and the time that she spent on Dancing with the Stars was certainly no exception. Being eliminated as the fifth couple Heather Mills and Jonathan Roberts managed to do quite well during the competition. As her claim to fame from marrying a former Beatle, she managed to bring very few fans to the actual show. Most who watched her time on the show were interested in seeing how quickly she would actually be booted off.

Melanie Brown - Dubbed as Scary Spice, this former Spice Girl brought her own unique style to the show. In the middle of a load of drama with ex Eddie Murphy, she managed to do extremely well during her brief time on the show. Combined together with Maksim Chmerkovskiy they pulled from her own performing background, as well as the professional ballroom experience that Maksim provided to the pair.

Kristi Yamaguchi - As one of the top figure skaters in the world, Kristi is certainly no stranger to competition. Paired together with Mark Ballas for season six she walked away with the title, as well as the hearts of many fans. Pulling on her own experience as a professional figure skater, she managed to breeze her way through much of the dancing competition. As a professional ballroom dancer, Mark Ballas enjoyed working with Kristi and they moved wonderfully together.

As you can see, the popular contestants have come from a very large variety of backgrounds and have had the enjoyment of different lengths on the show. Pulling from experience in some other professional career, most of the popular contestants have been truly missed after being removed from the show early, but Kristi Yamaguchi has managed to go on to actually win her time on Dancing with the Stars which provided her and partner Mark Ballas with the trophy at the very end of the show.

You might notice that someone that you felt was truly popular is missing, everyone of course has their own opinions but there are several different types of contestants who have made great impacts on the show who are not considered extremely popular. If you look beyond just those contestants, who are successful on the show and consider their entire popularity you no doubt will notice that most are not truly popular after all.