'So You Think You Can Dance' Top 16: Babies Got Back

In many ways--one almost literally--tonight's top 16 episode of So You Think You Can Dance kicked ass. Butt seriously, folks...here are my (ass)essments of tonight's eight couples, listed in order of bootyliciousness.


OK, this routine--my favorite of the night--is the inspiration for all my intended puns in the above paragraph. A product of the twisted mind of mad-genius choreographer Mia Michaels, this cheeky routine was "all about the booty," with the usually sweet, Astaire-like Evan quite convincingly taking on the role of a dirty old ass-man transfixed by the posterior of a "girl who is like a poodle" (the bodacious and curvaceous Randi, covered up in little more than a Cat On A Hot Tin Roof slip) that he almost "loses bodily function." Um, okaaaay. The way Mia described her butt-fixated vision, as she basically instructed Randi to shove her derriere in Evan's face repeatedly, got me worried that their dance would end up looking like something that ought to belong on the Playboy Channel, not the family-friendly Fox Network. But you know what? It was actually charming. Weird, and kind of lecherous, but charming. "Who else but Mia Michaels would come up with a routine about a poodle's butt?" judge Nigel Lythgoe asked rhetorically. Fellow judge Mary Murphy was equally amused by this rumpshaking number to Koop's "Koop Island Blues," calling Evan a real leading man and praising Randi's courage for letting it all hang out and dancing so confidently when "10 million viewers are looking at your butt!" But then again, with a dancing-honed physique like hers--and the skills to match--Randi had no reason not to be confident. Guest judge Toni Basil (a choreography LEGEND and the cheerleading pop star behind the early-MTV classic "Mickey") astutely pointed out that sometimes when contestants get assigned Mia as their choreographer, they run the risk of actually being upstaged by the choreography itself: "The choreography can become the star." But, as Toni also, equally astutely pointed out, that did not happen with Evan and Randi tonight. Instead they embodied Mia's quirky characters and were the true stars of the night. After this great bottom-centric routine, there's no way they'll be in the bottom tomorrow.