I Recognize 50% of the Stars on Season 14 of Dancing With The Stars

The "Stars" who will be dancing on Season 14 of ABC's Dancing With The Stars were announced this week.

Season 14?

Seems like only yesterday this unlikely hit show hit the airwaves.

With each season's who is dancing announcement, the stars become less and less known to me.

Ironically I recognize all the names of the professional dancers paired with the "Stars".

Of the "Stars" I know  Melissa Gilbert, Jaleel White, Martina Navratilova, Jack Wagner, Gavin DeGraw and Gladys Knight.

I recognize more of the names than I realized, actually recognizing 50% of the "Stars".

The other 50%, Sherri Shepherd, Donald Driver, Maria Menounos, Roshon Fegan, William Levy and Katherine Jenkins are totally unknown to me.

Jack Wagner, 52, I came to know years ago, in the last century, when I was recovering from a surgery and watched soap operas. He was on General Hospital playing Frisco Jones. Frisco will be dancing with Anna Trebunskaya.

Melissa Gilbert, 47, used to be a little girl on Little House on the Prairie. A show I never watched. Melissa will be dancing with my favorite pro, Maks Chmerkovskiy.

Gavin DeGraw, 35, is a song writer/singer. I like his songs. The one about his dad being a prison guard is very catchy. Gavin is paired with one of my other favorite pros, Maks' ex-fiance, Karina Smirnoff.

Martina Navratilova, one of the oldest among the "Stars" at 55, is one of my favorite ex tennis players. She is also known for being a tennis player who publicly let it be known she prefers to play off court with girls rather than boys. But, for DWTS Martina will be paired with a boy, Tony Dovolani.

Gladys Knight, the oldest of the "Stars" at 67, used to be a real Pip. Gladys is paired with my favorite Irish ballroom dancer, Tristan MacManus.

Jaleel White, better known as Urkel, is now 35. Time flies. Urkel will be dancing with Kym Johnson. I hope he is amusing and does well.

That takes care of the "Stars" whose names I know.

Now for the unknowns (to me).

Donald Driver, 37, plays football for the Green Bay Packers. He will be dancing with Peta Murgatroyd.

Roshon Fegan, the youngest "Star" at 20, is one of those ubiquitous Disney Channel Stars whose show I've never seen and whose channel I've never dialed in to. Roshon  will be dancing with one of my favorite perky pro blondes, Chelsie Hightower.

Katherine Jenkins, 31, is a Welsh singer. Does she speak English? Katherine is paired with one of my least favorite pros, the hyperactive, Mark Ballas.

William Levy, 31, has a good American sounding name. However, William was born in Cuba before coming to America where he somehow has become a superstar of Mexican telenovelas, on Univision, averaging 45.7 million viewers per episode. Much higher ratings than Dancing With The Stars gets. William is paired with the pro superstar, Cheryl Burke. No word on whether William speaks English.

Maria Menounos, 33, is an Extra host, whatever that means. She is paired with another of my pro favorites, Derek Hough.

That leaves Sherri Shepherd, 44, a cohost on The View, paired with Maks' brother, Val Chmerkovskiy. Val lacks his brothers amusing personality. At least from what we've seen so far.

So, there you go, the first "Stars" of Dancing With The Stars for 2012.

The two hour premiere of Season 14 of Dancing With The Stars is Monday, March 19 8/7C.

I don't know if I will be watching.

Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for February 20 - February 26

The Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for February 20 - February 26. The first number is the ranking, the second number is the season average, then the show name and network. The last number represents the number of viewers in millions. An asterisk * indicates a tie.

The apparent ratings collapse of American Idol seems to be continuing. This week AI was beat by the Academy Awards and regular series NCIS and The Big Bang Theory and The Voice.

Rank	Show name	Network	Viewers in millions	Season-to-date average (in millions)
1.	Academy Awards	ABC	39.3	--
2.	Oscar's Red Carpet Live	ABC	24.1	--
3.	NCIS	CBS	19.3	19.9
4.	Oscar's Red Carpet Live	ABC	16.6	--
5.	The Big Bang Theory	CBS	16.2	16.3
6.	American Idol	Fox	16.1	20.5
7.	The Voice	NBC	16.0	20.7
8.	American Idol	Fox	15.6	18.7
9.	NCIS: Los Angeles	CBS	15.5	16.8
10.	Person of Interest	CBS	14.6	13.9
11.	The Mentalist	CBS	13.4	14.5
12.	Two and a Half Men	CBS	13.3	16.5
13.	Criminal Minds	CBS	12.8	13.8
14.	Oscar's Red Carpet Live	ABC	12.6	--
15.	CSI	CBS	11.9	12.8
16.	Modern Family	ABC	11.5	14.0
17.	2 Broke Girls	CBS	11.4	12.5
18.	Blue Bloods	CBS	11.3	12.1
*	Mike & Molly	CBS	11.3	12.5
20.	Unforgettable	CBS	10.7	12.7

Season 20 of The Amazing Race Bores Down On Weighing Cattle Causing a Clown Elimination

Dave & Cherie were both eliminated from The Amazing Race on Sunday during the Academy Awards Show.

The Amazing Race is not being very amazing so far, for me, early on in Season 20.

Argentina is not being as scenic as previous visits to different locales in Argentina. The Detour that involved assembling a teapot heating solar oven was not interesting.

The 16 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires was not interesting, except for the bus whose rear window inexplicably blew out.

Where this latest episode of The Amazing Race totally lost me was the Roadblock at the world's biggest cattle auction location. Counting cattle, trying to hear the combined total weight of the cattle in the noisy chaos, then dividing the cattle count into the weight to get the average weight, then finding an Argentine cowboy to reject the number several times before handing over the Pitstop clue.

I am very math challenged. I would not have done well with this Roadblock. The Clown husband, Dave, chose to do the math, with fellow Clown, wife Cherie, realizing this was not going to go well, once she realized math was involved, informing viewers that Dave is, like me, math challenged.

Previously, when I blogged about the new season of The Amazing Race I opined it was an improvement due to no stunt casting, ala the previous season when Survivor millionaires, Ethan Zohn and Jenna Morasca, were the first team eliminated.

Well, I was wrong. Season 20 of The Amazing Race does have some stunt casting in the form of Brendon & Rachel, who, apparently, have been on Big Brother. I do not know if either of this pair won Big Brother. This is not the first time The Amazing Race has had people from Big Brother racing.

Tonight's Dramatic Turn Of Events With Johnny Keyser Back On American Idol

You are looking at a screencap from the final minutes of tonight's, Thursday night, revelation of the remaining Top 24 live show performers on American Idol.

After the final boy pick was picked we heard Ryan Seacrest inform us that "In a dramatic turn of events the judges felt compelled to re-instate another singer into the competition."

We were then shown the just booted David Leathers in the lower right, the tearfully just booted Jermaine Jones in the upper left, the previous night booted cowboy, Richie Law, in the upper right and Johnny Keyser in the lower left.

Last week's Johnny Keyser unexplained booting from American Idol erupted into a firestorm of outrage, with fans indicating this faux pas was a deal breaker. As in done with American Idol.

So, really, what is the deal here? I guess we have to wait til next week, Tuesday, to find out.

I suspect the American Idol producers figured out the Johnny Keyser booting had turned into a big boo boo.

And needed a drastic fixing.

Or maybe a Gallup poll discovered the cowboy, Richie Law, was hugely popular. I strongly suspect that is not the case.

UPDATE: The FOX American Idol website has now added the previously missing Las Vegas group video that included the formerly missing Johnny Keyser.

Keyser's group sings Wake Up Little Suzy At the end of the song we don't see the judges, but we do hear the crowd response not being very demonstrative and we do hear Randy Jackson sounding a bit underwhelmed. .

X Factor's Rachel Crow Signs Nickelodeon TV Series & Columbia Record Deals

Rachel Crow After Learning She'd Been
 Eliminated From The X Factor

I was real pleased this morning to learn I have yet one more thing I don't need to worry about anymore.

That being The X Factor's Rachel Crow's lack of having her own personal restroom facility.

When Rachel was surprisingly booted from the FOX singing competition Simon Cowell said something like this would not be the last we heard from Rachel Crow.

Rachel got herself a recording deal with Simon Cowell's Syco enterprise. Syco is part of Columbia Records.

Rachel has also signed a TV series deal with the Nickelodeon Channel.

I did not know 14 year old kids could sign contracts.

Rachel will have a role on a new show on Nickelodeon called "Fred: The Show."

Plus, Nickelodeon will be developing a comedy series for Rachel.

I have seen no info as to how much Rachel is being paid via her contracts with Columbia Records and Nickelodeon. I suspect it is not in the $5 million range.

Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for February 13 - February 19

The Nielsen Rating's Top 20 TV Shows for February 13 - February 19. The first number is the ranking, the second number is the season average, then the show name and network. The last number represents the number of viewers in millions. An asterisk * indicates a tie.

Rank	Show name	Network	Viewers in millions	Season-to-date average(in millions)
1.	NCIS	CBS	19.6	19.8
2.	American Idol (Wed.)	Fox	18.9	21.4
3.	American Idol (Thu.)	Fox	16.7	18.8
4.	The Voice	NBC	16.3	21.7
5.	NCIS: Los Angeles	CBS	16.1	16.7
6.	Big Bang Theory	CBS	15.6	16.2
7.	The Mentalist	CBS	13.5	14.4
8.	Person of Interest	CBS	13.2	13.7
9.	Two and a Half Men	CBS	12.5	16.6
10.	Criminal Minds	CBS	12.2	13.7
11.	60 Minutes	CBS	11.8	14.2
12.	Modern Family	ABC	11.2	13.8
13.	CSI	CBS	11.1	12.6
14.	Unforgettable	CBS	11.0	12.7
15.	Mike & Molly	CBS	10.9	12.4
16.	Blue Bloods	CBS	10.8	12.0
*	Survivor: One World	CBS	10.8	10.8
*	Undercover Boss	CBS	10.8	11.9
19.	Rob	CBS	10.7	12.2
20.	2 Broke Girls	CBS	10.5	12.5