All I want for Christmas is for Dancing With the Stars to run year-round.
ABC gave all the dancehead diehards at home a taste of that wish come true this week by airing a special holiday episode, after concluding season 34 last Tuesday by crowning of Robert Irwin the current reigning champion.
Tuesday’s holiday special reunited all the ballroom pros, plus some members of the most recent cast, as well as casts of DWTS past. One heartwarming number saw season 34 fan favorite Andy Richter and beloved Family Matters dad Reginald VelJohnson from season 33 unite for the first time on the ballroom floor for a tribute to the tooth fairy.
Kimberly Butler/NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection; Bob D’Amico/ABC/Courtesy Everett Collection
Andy Richter and Reginald VelJohnson
The dance to Donald Yetter Gardner’s Christmas camp classic “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” began like any other number, filled with thrilling, expertly executed choreography by the series’ ensemble of seasoned pros. But after a time, the titular two front teeth emerged, slowly ambling from the back of the stage: It was Richter and VelJohnson!
They revealed their smiling faces and did a bit of light stepping and spinning with their shared partner, Emma Slater. The 17-season pro, who won season 24 alongside NFL running back Rashad Jennings, beamed with enthusiasm and wrapped her arms around the partners who she was pivotal in launching to fan-favorite status with her frequently viral social media videos.
Asked by cohost Julianne Hough if he ever thought he’d end up back in the ballroom, a winded VelJohnson joked, “I prayed yes.”
Richter, meanwhile, acknowledged that he didn’t think he’d be sashaying around for the camera while dressed as a tooth, but noted, “Julianne, I’ve done a lot of things the last two months that I thought I’d never do.”
Slater teased their upcoming dance in one of her signature Instagram posts earlier in the evening.
In the video, VelJohnson and Richter lipsync dialogue from the 1999 Mike Myers comedy classic Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, with tweaked captions edited over to make the skit DWTS appropriate.
“Who are you?” VelJohnson asks, to which Richter responds, “I’m you, one year from now.” VelJohnson tells Richter, “Damnit you can dance,’ and the dark horse of season 34 demurely relies, “I know, right?”
“A couple of icons together 🙌🏻 how lucky am I?!!” Slater wrote in the caption. “[Andy Richter] #ReggieVeljohnson laughed so hard at this!!”
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Richter, longtime late night sidekick to Conan O’Brien, won over a whole new fanbase with his earnest, if not always elegantly executed steps each week. Though he lasted far longer than VelJohnson (the comedian went home on episode 7, while the Die Hard star left on episode 2), Richter actually ended up courting controversy for outlasting some of his other, better-scoring competitors.
To the charge that he took their spot or somehow wasn’t deserving of his DWTS success, Richter told Entertainment Weekly that he may have at times felt “survivor’s guilt,” but ultimately, “I don’t really feel regret about that, about other people being eliminated before me, because that isn’t anything I really had any control over.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly