Story highlights
"Dancing with the Stars" premiered Monday night
The season 19 cast made its debut
Actor Alfonso Ribeiro is in the lead
Designer Betsey Johnson and Olympian Lolo Jones were in the bottom two
“Dancing with the Stars” got off to a fresh start Monday with actor Alfonso Ribeiro taking the lead in the season 19 premiere.
The episode was the debut of the new cast, which includes “Fresh Prince” star Ribeiro, comedian Tommy Chong, athlete Lolo Jones, “Duck Dynasty” star Sadie Robertson and more.
Performing a jive with pro partner Witney Carson, Ribeiro got a standing ovation for his moves. Judge Julianne Hough, herself a former “Dancing with the Stars” pro, said she was “blown away,” and her fellow judges Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba seemed to agree.
All told, Ribeiro walked away from Monday’s show with a score of 36 out of a possible 40, the best of the night.
Right behind him was “Duck Dynasty’s” Robertson, who nailed her cha-cha with pro partner Mark Ballas. Performed to Katy Perry’s “Birthday,” Robertson’s routine earned a score of 34.
On the greener side of things was Tommy Chong, who rolled onto the set with his comedy partner, Cheech Marin.
The 76-year-old bluntly told Time magazine recently that he’s hoping to give his career another boost with “DWTS,” along with his dream of becoming “the poster boy for the marijuana community.”
“Medical marijuana is my passion in life. I went for jail for my beliefs. Now that we’re getting legal, I want to focus on the benefits of medical marijuana – it helps little children with epilepsy and MS, and it helped me with my cancer,” Chong said. And while “Dancing with the Stars” won’t allow him to “show pot leaves or bongs,” Chong continued, “they have Tommy Chong, who really is a pot leaf.”
So when he made his entrance during Monday’s show, it was no accident that Chong and his partner, Peta Murgatroyd, were wearing so much green. (“Peta, my partner,” Chong told Time, “is going to look like a little marijuana bud.”)
The verdant pair did a cha-cha to Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” much to the delight of the judges, who awarded them 27 points.
On the lower side of the scoreboard were designer Betsey Johnson and Olympian Lolo Jones. Johnson’s cha-cha suffered from a bit of a wardrobe malfunction, and she and partner Tony Dovolani earned the lowest score of the night with a total of 20.
Jones and her pro partner, Keo Motsepe, didn’t fare much better. Even she admitted that her routine, a cha-cha, was pretty “awful,” and the judges didn’t disagree. Jones and Motsepe were given a score of 22, the second-lowest of the evening.
The “Dancing with the Stars” audience also gets a chance to weigh in on its favorite pair. On Tuesday night, the dancing duo with the lowest combined score of audience votes and judges’ votes will be the first elimination of the season.