Dancing with Cloris Leachman

So far I’m 2.5 hours in to the 5 hour/3 day premier of Dancing with the Stars’ 7th season.  There’s another 1.5 hours of cha-chas on my DVR and I’ll tune in for a 5th hour tonight.  The length of the first half of the season is the only negative about this show!  Does anything really need to be on for three nights in a row?  Well, maybe Entourage.  I could watch Ari scream at Lloyd every single day for a month and not get tired of it!  Anyway…
Season 7 has one of the best casts yet.  The 13 stars are: Lance Bass (member of NSYNC), Toni Braxton (remember “Unbreak My Heart”?), Brooke Burke (model and reality TV host), Rocco DiSpirito (famous chef that I’ve never heard of), Maurice Greene (Olympic gold medalist from back in the day), Kim Kardashian (former Paris Hilton BFF and reality show star), Cloris Leachman (82-year-old Emmy winning actress and freaking hilarious), Cody Linley (18-year-old actor on Hannah Montana), Susan Lucci (the queen of daytime), Misty May-Treanor (volleyballer that scored gold in Beijing), Ted McGinley (Marcy D’Arcy’s husband on Married with Children), Jeff Ross (comedian that’s somewhat funny) and Warren Sapp (former quarterback killer for Tampa Bay).
Most of the celebrity dancers busted their moves pretty well.  After seeing one dance from everyone it seems that Lance, Toni and Brooke have emerged as the faves.  Warren Sapp is right up there too.  You have to love a graceful 300-pounder.  He would make former DWTS champ Emmitt Smith very proud!  Cloris Leachman won her fair share of votes by hiking her leg up on the table in front of Bruno (the judge that you can barely understand), then sitting on Carrie Ann‘s lap after her first dance, and making ABC censor her reaction after she didn’t approve of the scores that she received.  This cast seems to have a great mix of personalities that are going to be a lot of fun to watch.
The actual dancing is probably the element of the show that I enjoy the least, even though it is completely awesome.  I think I watch mostly to root on the celebs that I like (Go Kim Kardashian!) and for the amazing outfits everyone wears.  The must have a huge double-sided tape budget!
My prediction is that the winner of the silver disco ball will be…Toni Braxton.  The 7th season is sure to be followed by many more seasons of boogieing B and C list celebrities, but if anybody at ABC is reading this, let’s try to cut this down to 3 hours or less per week.  Five hours is a little much, unless you can recruit Jeremy Piven.  Then, by all means, dance away!