Meet the Contestants of "Dance Your Ass Off"

By SARA M

Updated 10:00 AM PST, Tue, Jun 30, 2009

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So I guess they came up with this show after Marissa Jaret Winokur won the hearts of America on Dancing With The Stars, except that I saw that season and all she really did is suck out loud and cry and guilt the audience into keeping her on the show and not Marlee Matlin. And apparently she lost some weight in the process, so now we're here.

She greets us, and I hate to be mean, but if you're going to have a show with the premise that dancing can help you lose weight, shouldn't you have a host who has danced her way to a healthy weight? Because MJW is still overweight, so when she says that this will be a "life-changing experience" for our contestants, I have my doubts.

We meet our contestants! First up is Alicia, 23, from Scranton, PA! When she isn't hanging out with Jim and Pam, she's fat. At least, that's all she tells us about her background. She enters her new home, which is decorated in typical brightly-colored and IKEA-furnitured reality show style. She finds two cabinets. One is full of fruits and vegetables and the other is full of junk food, because this show is mean.

Trice, 24, who pronounces her name "Tree-sha-nell" for some reason and claims to be from "Inglewo-wo-wooood!" even though her graphic says she's from Chicago so it's all very confusing, wants us to know that you can be fat and still have moves. Then why is she on a show about learning moves while losing weight? This seems contrary to everything she stands for.

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Miles, 28, is from Salt Lake City, and his father died at a young age from obesity but Miles didn't really learn any lessons from that so now he needs to be on this show. He gets a good workout right away when he enters the house and Trice jumps into his arms.

Then there's Pinky, 29, who is even worse than Trice because she pronounces her name "Sophia Maranya Perez." I can't wait for Raymond Luxury Yacht, pronounced "Throat Warbler Mangrove." Pinky is a "street dancer" and thinks if she just lost the excess weight she'd be even better at it.

Brandon, 20, is a Type 2 diabetic and proudly holds a candy bar up in his home submission video. Shockingly, his blood sugar was so high in his pre-show physical that he almost wasn't allowed on the plane to Los Angeles. Brandon walks in the house and immediately complains about how the healthy food pantry "stunk" because it was full of fruits and vegetables. If he thinks it stinks now, wait until about a fortnight later when those fruit and vegetables are good and rotten. Also, I'm pretty sure there are like ten jars of peanut butter on the top shelf of the supposed healthy food pantry, so whatever. Brandon opens the bad food pantry, takes out a bunch of donuts, and eats them. It's not like I want anyone to go into a diabetic coma, but if I did, it would be Brandon.

Next up is Karla, 29, and... wow! I'm pretty sure I used to live in the same apartment building as she did! And yet, they claim she's from Phoenix, even though she's lived in Los Angeles for years. One time, in our apartment building, the elevator went out for like five months and Karla had to hoof it up four flights of stairs to her apartment. I'd always find her slumped on the stairwell between the second and third floors. In her defense, it was really hot, because our apartment building was apparently in Phoenix, unbeknownst to me. Karla says she wants to lose weight so she can get a boyfriend. She might also want to get a mirror, because when she meets her castmates, she's amazed at how much bigger they all are than her when they're about the same size.

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