Cliff Clavin Done Dancing
Despite the fact that everybody knew his name, John Ratzenberger could only go so far on this season's Dancing with the Stars.
The 60-year-old Cheers star and frequent Pixar voice talent was eliminated from the competition Tuesday night, even though judge Carrie Ann Inaba called him the "best mover of all the older gentlemen" who have competed on the hit ABC show.
Perhaps she was forgetting first season runner-up John O'Hurley, but Inaba always had a soft spot for Ratzenberger, saying after his first dance last night that he was "hanging in there with the big boys."
"If I had to take on what you've had to, I would be in hospital," fellow sexagenarian Len Goodman said complimentarily. "You've obviously been to dance rehab," Bruno Tonioli added.
But even after a jaunty foxtrot and a proficient-yet-PG rumba that was reined in to avoid any May-December discomfort between Ratzenberger and partner Edyta Sliwinska, it was time for the actor to go, even though he was not the lowest scorer Monday.
(That honor went to Billy Ray Cyrus, whose achy-breaky fan base wasn't enough to keep him out of the bottom two this week.)
"I'm so excited to have been part of this, especially under the tutelage of Edyta," Ratzenberger said. "Her kindness and friendship and patience have really been astounding."
The contestants were called upon to perform two dances Monday, a challenge that, while it added hype and had the celebs fretting, actually allowed most everybody to rise to the occasion.
While Cyrus lagged with a 38 out of a possible 60 for his oddly motionless waltz and a slightly better samba, Laila Ali and Joey Fatone were the cream that rose to the top, each scoring a near-perfect 59.
Ali proved that she too can float like a butterfly, opening "the door to ballroom heaven," as Tonioli said, with her quickstep. She then kicked things up a notch for a seriously sexy—but not too sexy—samba that was deemed a 10 by all.
Fatone missed total domination by one point after putting Goodman off with a little "too much razzle-dazzle" in his foxtrot, but he came back with an even more dazzling jive that Tonioli deemed "a smashing showcase of talent."
"That was totally in sync," Goodman said because, well, someone had to say it.
But while showing fire and hunger has never been a problem for Ali and Fatone (the singer must still be smarting from that two-week-old "feminine rumba" comment—"you know what you can razzle-dazzle, right, Len?"), it was Ian Ziering who was on the hot seat last week for not emitting enough desire on the dance floor.
The Beverly Hills 90210 alum showed his stuff, finally, on Monday, however, scoring 27's for both his tango ("this was the revenge of Ian," Tonioli said) and his shimmying, sleeveless-red-satin mambo.
Perhaps it was all the old-school support—fellow West Beverly grads Jason Priestley, Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling, with hubby Dean McDermott, were all in the audience—that finally got Ziering, still looking Steve Sanders-ish at 43, over the hump.
Taking a surprising slide was Apolo Anton Ohno, who looked to be in top form but apparently wasn't, according to the judges.
"I don't want good, I want great," Goodman insisted after the Olympic speed skater's foxtrot, which rated a 26 with the panel.
"You're a little off tonight," Inaba admitted after his mambo, which looked mighty good on the surface.
Tonioli, meanwhile, was having none of it, giving Ohno's mambo a 10. "They're trying to make a point that doesn't exist," the always-feisty judge said.
Tuesday's show also featured Meatloaf singing "Bat Out of Hell"—a perfect tune to alternate slow and fast dancing to, apparently—and his new single "Cry Over Me" from 2006's Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose.
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