Things I Learned By Watching the DWTS Results Show

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | November 19, 2008 | +

* Dancing With the Stars—which I will admit off the bat I do not watch any more than I absolutely have to—has added a little dance competition within the dance competition, this one with little “Ballroom Kids” competing. If only American Idol had thought to do this with their results show, we would have been spared an entire summer of American Juniors.

* Fountains of Wayne’s Valley Winter Song is being used in a commercial. For which product I can’t, the morning after, remember, so I guess it wasn’t that effective. Any other uses of good songs in questionable commercials I should know about?

* I still really don’t like Dancing with the Stars. I’m sorry; I tried.

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They play the Hum song “Stars” in one of the Cadillac commercials where they tell you you shouldn’t buy a car based on mpg’s or reliability (or the solvency of the car company) but instead on how sexy the car makes you feel.
Great song, moronic commercial.
alekshy

When the Diamond is Forever ad used Landon Pigg’s “Coffee Shop,” I couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks. Now it’s back. I suggest YouTubing it. It’s gooood.
Lulu Lulu

It’s okay that you don’t like DTWS, James. In fact, I’m in the opposite predicament–I tuned in to make fun, and ended up actually liking it. [hanging head in shame]
jimatl

The Cat Power take on “Major Tom” in another bad car commercial. Lincoln? Tin Can?
yogi

OT, but no Fringe recap? I thought last nights was by far the best episode yet. Had all the feeling of a good episode of Lost, which I think was emphasized by the Lost style background music. And the first time I saw the little kid, I had a huge urge to say “red rum, red rum!”
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/11/19/economic-fixx/ Tuned In – TIME.com » Blog Archive Economic Fixx «

[...] Posted by James Poniewozik | Comments (0) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This Apropos of songs being appropriated for commercials, my colleague Sean Gregory writes about that Toyota [...]
plukasiak

I don’t “like” DWTS either — but it much more watchable than American Idol.

The problem with all “reality competition” shows is the same — they’re only really worth watching in the “middle” weeks; the early weeks are all about condensing events into a forced narrative, and the last weeks are always a desperate attempt to maintain interest in a limited number of competitors.

I’ve even come up with a formula — two weeks after the competitor who is popular but has no business being on the show is gone, the show stops being worth watching (Sanjay, Cloris, etc)