Dancing with Louie Vito - Round 1

Last night the eighth season of Dancing With The Stars premiered, and with it we got to see Louie Vito dance. Louie, who said he is 5'6, is paired with the petite Chelsie Hightower of So You Think You Can Dance fame. I'm not a fan of the show but who could miss it? Judging by twitter, a lot of action sports fans were tuned in, too.

Louie Vito's intro video showed him in the halfpipe. Sadly for Louie's sponsor,  O-Matic, the base of his snowboard was blurred out. He was also wearing an O-Matic t-shirt duing a practice session and while logo was visible, the word O-Matic was taped over. 

Every competitor also had a Matrix style 3D slow motion video as their official DWTS introduction. Louie did a backflip in his - a sample of what was to come.

Louie said he had never danced or watched the show before. From the video taken of him practicing I had little hope for his performance. He looked stiff and awkward, although he does look cute paired with Chelsie.

Last night's show only had the 8 men competing. In addition to their individual dances, each pair also did a relay with 3 other couples. Louie and Chelsie danced the foxtrot to "It's My Life" originally by No Doubt.. Louie looked dapper in a grey suit and had a giant smile on his face. He was still pretty stiff and he slipped a couple of times, but he seemed to keep up with the dance.

***SPOILER ALERT***
Stop reading here if you don't want to know what happened.

The judges had some interesting comments. Carrie Ann told him she could tell he'd never danced before but that he respected the dance. Len insulted his hair and Bruno told Louie that he looked like a little dancing hobbit. They did get a respectable score of 19.

Louie loosened up a bit for the Salsa relay done to Sean Paul's "Get Busy". He started off their part with a tumbling pass. I spotted Season 7 winner and Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson in the audience. I wonder if she approved.

Chelsie and Louie did more technical stuff in their routine than the other couples, but you can tell Louie still doesn't have this dancing stuff quite down. Donny Osmond was ranked first, but Louie took second.

Overall I was quite surprised at how well Louie Vito performed. I think once he gets more confidence and relaxes he'll actually be pretty good. He doesn't have much name recognition which is going to hurt him, but I think he'll be around for at least a few weeks.

Louie Vito's total score for the night was a 27. That put him in 4th place behind Aaron Carter, Donny Osmond, and Mark Cascatos.

If you missed it, you can check out Louie & Chelsie's routine here.