Admit it, your feet are tapping as you read this, aren’t they? You just cannot wait for tomorrow night’s season premiere of Dancing with the Stars.
Neither can host Tom Bergeron. He recently sat down with TV Guide to discuss the season.
Q: Any tweaks or twists for the new season? Or are we not messing with the show that reaps ridiculously high ratings?
Bergeron: Well, there is that. I mean, the core of it we’re not messing with. But we’re going 10 weeks instead of eight.
Q: Did Season 2’s ratings translate into a pay raise for you?
Bergeron: I’m doing OK. I just bought a dining-room set, so life is good. I’m putting those TV trays away!
Q: Do you have any early favorites among this round’s contestants?
Bergeron: It’s too early. Yesterday I looked at all of the training tapes, where they are at this point, and Jerry Springer was asking his partner if she knew CPR. That’s usually not a good sign. Tucker Carlson, it’s hard to say — he could be the Kenny Mayne of Season 3, or he could surprise us. But there are some very good dancers as well, some very impressive teams coming up.
Q: Who do you think is primed for a Kelly Monaco-esque wardrobe malfunction?
Bergeron: There are several possibilities. Any of the women I’d be happy to see have a wardrobe malfunction.
Q: At this point, do you have any say in which stars do the show?
Bergeron: No. No. But that’s fine.
Q: Funny/sad story: I must have walked past Stacy Keibler a half dozen times at TV Guide’s Emmy After Party, but couldn’t for the life of me place where I knew her from. To be fair, in a dark, crowded nightclub, you can’t see her telltale 42-inch legs.
Bergeron: [Laughs] Stacy is a case in point of somebody who, outside of the world of wrestling, people pretty much didn’t know. Now she’s got a much higher Q [rating].
Q: Who would you like to see on DWTS?
Bergeron: When I won the Emmy for Hollywood Squares, I thanked Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks and the Pope. I said, “I don’t know any of these people, but I would like to book them.” I’ll hold to that. Any of those three I’d like to see do a fox-trot.
Q: Will we see you dancing again this season?
Bergeron: No. I did it for a reason last time – I wanted to emotionally and physically experience what the stars experience, to have a sense of what they put themselves through.
Q: For the men, I’m guessing that was groin pulls.
Bergeron: And sheer terror at times. But to keep trotting out there and dancing at this point, it’s more like, “Look at me! I can make the producers let me dance!” There’s no real point.