Roger Catlin | TV Eye

'Your Mama Don't Dance'

There’s nothing wrong with a father dancing with his daughter. Wedding memories are made of such things.

But, put into the arena of competitive dancing, with those sexy glittery outfits, thrusting hips and come hither looks common in couples dancing, it can seem a little creepy.

So it did a few times on the Friday premiere of "Your Mama Can’t Dance," a Lifetime competition in which hopeful dancers are surprised by being paired with a parent for competition.

In the initial program, where four young women were coupled with their fathers, the old guys were varyingly stiff, out of shape, nervous and lacking rhythm. More than one of the dads was divorced; among them, one was back living with his mother, another was openly gay. A third biological father was no where to be found, so a stepfather stepped in.

Like Wayne Newton with his partner on "Dancing with the Stars," the young women did most of the moving and flashy kicks while the dads merely set the stage or swayed behind them, struggling to keep to the beat in even doing that little.

As host, another "Dancing with the Stars" alum, Ian Ziering, seemed pretty stiff as a host himself, looking like a figurine atop a wedding cake even though he wore a suit instead of a tux.

It was only last week when they finalized the judges. Ben Vareen, who wears his hair in longish braids now and has a dangly earrings kept telling every couple they’ve already run. His rambling comments don’t seem to have much shape to them. People wait for him to finish as if he were like Little Richard on "Celebrity Duets."

Vitamin C, whose last reality TV show was "Celebrity Boot Camp," actually has some cogent comments to make to the dancers, but the frmer Colleen Fitzpatrick tends to inflate her scores for them, like the others.

The third judge is an actual dancer. But Chris Judd, the former Mr. J-Lo, doesn’t show any more personality than he did on his previous reality show, the WE dance competition "Dirty Dancing" and "I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here!"

Does it cost more to play original recordings? It must be, otherwise there wouldn’t have been slightly-off cover versions for things like Hall & Oates and Soft Cell. As in every other "American Idol" copycat, judges say their piece and America gets to vote for one of two of the lowest rated pairs.

But things move slowly, even for an eight-episode series.

Playlist 2-29-08

Bruce still ringing in my ears from his show the night before, there was admittedly a lot of Springsteen – all of which had been played in Hartford. Another guy from New Jersey began the show.

Also, new stuff from Dead Meadow, Stephen Malkmus, Flshtones, Whigs and Chesterfield Kings. It all ended too early.

Here's what I played on the radio this Leap Day morning:

Kitty, Bruce Back in Hartford

I have seen the future of Bruce Springsteen and its name is "Kitty’s Back."

The 35 year old song from "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle" got a crazy good workout in the Thursday night show at the Hartford Civic Center realying on expansive jazzy interludes from the crucial but scarcely used Roy Bittan on piano, E Street guest organist Charles Giordano and Springsteen himself on guitar.

It was great to see such a talented band be able to stretch out a bit, and jazz wouldn't be a bad occasional turn for a band so well versed in R&B.

A freewheeling tune that allows itself for such improvisation, "Kitty" has been used before to showcase the band, including famous extended run on the Hammersmith Odeon live album in 1975.

It wasn’t 17 minutes long in Hartford, just as the show was no longer one of his 3 ½ hour marathon.

The opening night to the second leg of his U.S. tour clocked in more like a modest two hours, with 23 songs on the setlist.

But there was a lot of pleasure found in his well-chosen rarities making first tour appearances. There was nothing this election year from "Born in the U.S.A." but there was a B-side from the era, "Janey Don’t You Lose Heart" (with Nils Lofgren taking a verse) along with two other nuggets finally released on "Tracks" – the surprising show-opener "So Young and in Love" from 1978 and "Loose Ends," from the year later.

Both are punchy and two the point, reflecting his reluctant approach to songs on his current "Magic," which delivered with power, from the can’t miss "Radio Nowhere" (now bumped to second song position) to the indelible "Last to Die." There may be more truth in that song than in all the presidential debates.

Pyongyang Blackout

Even considering major presentations from Ken Burns and Jane Austen, the only PBS show to warrant front page coverage this season is tonight’s "Great Performances."

It’s the historic concert of the New York Philharmonic performing in North Korea.

It’s not so much the program of Dvorak, Gershwin and Wagner as much as the setting: Pyongyang, where the orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel is the first group of Americans to perform maybe ever.
Scheduled to be shown nationally, "Great Performances" won’t be on Connecticut Public TV.

It might be impossible to tell from their listings – its perpetually wrong website says it will; its listings in the paper and in Connecticut magazine plans instead a documentary on changes in the workplace. I’m betting on the latter.

Sadly, it’s not even on the usual place I can catch the PBS offerings CPTV skips, or delays showing, WGBY of Springfield. They are showing another exciting episode of "Red Green" at 9 p.m.

Thursdays is the night PBS stations can kind of show what they want. Both of the local PBS stations blew it.

ABC's Reality Fallback

I guess it should be no surprise that ABC has announced the early pickup of a handful of its reality shows.

"Supernanny" and "Wife Swap" will be both be back, like opposite sides of a very bent coin.

The hit "Dancing with the Stars" will be back again in the fall, even after the impending spring season (let’s hope they lay off for the summer).

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will continue despite the housing crisis – or maybe because of it.
And returning for its 19th season will be "America’s Funniest Home Videos." Because kids won’t stop falling off their bikes.

The fate is not as clear for ABC’s other slate of what it calls "alternative series" (meaning: alternative to better stuff). That includes the "Dancing with the Stars" spin-off "Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann" which didn’t exactly shake up the world, the current "Just for Laughs" and "Oprah’s Big Give" which starts Sunday.

No early pickup either for "The Bachelor," a horse about to be beaten again March 17, and "The Bachelorette," undergoing fresh new trauma this summer.

Khrushchev's Songbird

The terrific portrait of Pete Seeger on PBS' "American Masters" Wednesday reminded me of the chance I’ve had to talk to the iconic folkie over the years.

Seeger actually made his first performance in Connecticut -- at one of the two prep schools he attended here. It was sea chanteys that sparked his interest, and he got together with his school roommate, in sailor duds, to sing some songs they learned.

After five years in Litchfield, he went to school at Avon Old Farms, where he was given grants to return, he figured, because the headmasters enjoyed his newspaper.

"The Avon Weekly Newsletter,'" Seeger, Class of '36, recalled in a 1995 chat. "I collected news for the newsletter, wrote it up, stenciled it off, collated copies and sold it for a nickel apiece.''

"Free enterprise,'' said the man blacklisted as a Communist during the '50s witch hunts.

"One year I made $90, which was a lot of money in the early '30s. But what it really got me was a free education.''

Journalism -- not music -- was his first love. But in the depths of the Depression, "I failed utterly to get a job on a newspaper.'' When he met Guthrie at age 20, his life took a major turn.

Seeger has been hailed as a giant in 20th century music, the bridge between the populist union songs of the '40s and the folk boom of the '60s. It was his appearance at the top of a Joan Baez bill at the Bushnell Memorial in 1962 that brought a large audience for the young singer, who previously couldn't draw as well in Hartford.

But every time he played those days, there would be picket signs from right wingers.

Even when he was blacklisted, he said, "I went from college to college, school to school, summer camp to summer camp, playing those years. And if one particular show wasn't a sellout, the promoter would say, 'Gee, Pete, we should have gotten some of those John Birch Society fellers here to picket. Then we could have gotten some press.' ''

He recalls fondly, for example, the colonel who followed his various Connecticut appearances like a die-hard fan, so he could hold up his protest sign: "Seeger: Khrushchev's Songbird.''

"I should have given him an award,'' Seeger chuckled. ``He had the same sign all those years. It started to get tattered. Even after Brezhnev took over from Khrushchev.''

Quarter- and Half-Life Crises

Sean of Windsor writes:

quarterlife is a nice idea for a show...too bad I had it first. In August of 2006 I posted a short movie entitled Quarter Life on YouTube that was used for a Comedy Central contest. It was also shown in a small film fest in Toronto in April of 2007.

Believe me, I'm kicking myself for not getting the copyright, otherwise it'd be a slam dunk case.

There was also a separate play called Quarterlife, apparently, that zwich and herskovick first saw Bitsie Tulloch, 

Seems like it's an idea that reached critical mass...

Except on network TV, where it did terribly, ranking dead last for the time period. After just one airing, it's been yanked, lest it sully a network making its name with "American Gladiators" and "My Dad's Better Than Your Dad."

"quarterlife" will be finding its next life on Bravo..

Billy Ray's Summer Job

As daughter Miley continues to hone her superstar skills, daddy Billy Ray Cyrus will spend part of his summer hosting "Nashville Star." The country version of "American Idol" is moving from cable to network TV this summer.

Cyrus made his announcement on the "Tonight" show with Jay Leno on Wednesday, a setting usually reserved for politicians making declarations.

He joins the pantheon of hosts for the talent show that has included Jewel, LeAnn Rimes and Wynonna.

"This year it is all about the dream, about the music, about persistence and never giving up faith. Putting the music first," Cyrus said on the show. "You know I've been to the fair and I've seen the bear and I am really excited."

Leno seemed to know what he was talking about.

Three More Gone

They come in threes, they say.

Three more public figures died. The most prominent of them, William F. Buckley, Jr., was in addition to a columnist  a frequent figure on TV, where his brand of conservatism  was of a most erudite type – so far away from the oafish know nothing bullies of today’s right wing broadcasting brethren. Buckley was 82.

Also dead Wednesday was Boyd Coddington of the Discovery Channel reality TV show "American Hot Rod." He was 63.

And word comes too of the death of Buddy Miles, the drummer for Electric Flag and Jimi Hendrix’ Band of Gypsies who had his own formidable solo career. He was 60.

quarter-rating

Meant to save the network from its lack of scripted content at a time when its airtime is going to increasingly worse reality shows, "quarterlife" instead tanked in its Tuesday debut, drawing a historically low ratings for the timeslot.

Just 3.1 million bothered to watch the first televised episode of the series that had been running on the internet since November – and the rating among the targeted 18-49 age demographic was an anemic 1.3.

What could be the reason? "The Biggest Loser" is a bad lead-in; its title an ominous prediction. Anybody who is interested has already seen it online – or were seeing newer episodes instead.

There is some speculation that "quarterlife" may have less than a half life on network TV; that it might be pulled from the schedule even before it makes its timeslot premiere Sunday.