So Benji Can Dance!

Do you know his story? Mormon kid who goes on a mission. When he leaves the state of Utah to venture into worlds unknown (any city that doesn't have the word "Salt" in its name), he leaves behind a fiance (which means a virgin, Mormon bride-to-be). Benji gives up dance, sex for two years and serves God.

Meanwhile, the virgin couldn't keep her knees together that long, not another day. She goes forth and finds a new guy ready to get it on as well.

Benji comes home horny and frustrated from working in a mission field where bike riding had to substitute for dance and sex (and public transportation, as well... **scratching head*** what's up with that anyway? I digress).

In Benji's huge bucket of mail collected while he door-to-doored foreigners, the top white envelope (with his name written in that annoying wedding invitation caligraphy) contains a card that discloses an alarming fact: his "fiance" is actually to be wedded to some other Mormon virgin... one who not only didn't go on a mission, but doesn't dance, either.

Benji is heart-broken. Now without purpose or bicycle, Benji must scrounge around for a few scraps of dignity. He remembers that he dances. He reminds himself that he can dance. So he leaves Utah, a second time... He travels to Los Angeles where he will dance his broken-heart out for the "jedges" (as Cat Deely mispronounces far too many times each show).

It's not a sure thing. The scrutinizing, verbose jedges see his West Coast Swing skills (all Mormon and fundamentalist Christian kids know that swing is the only sexually pure dance form) as limiting. Could he hip hop? Would he be able to crump? Can he, in short, make any moves that show off his ass and hide his virginity? To turn up the juice, Benji grabs his kissin' cousin Heidi and tears up the floor, anyway. They show those jedges how it's done. And both make the top twenty.

Our jedges told Benji's tale of woe pretty frequently in the early weeks, building up Benji's reputation as jilted lover cum do-gooder. But he needed no such props. Benji's first dance with Donyelle was a hip hop routine called "Too Much Booty" and our little Mormon ex-missionary shook it like the dirty dancer he was not supposed to be!

Nigel (producer and requisite British critical jedge) watched in "all astonishment" as Benji bumped and grinded, contorted his boot-ay and put on one sexy mug. When Nigel asked him what the folks back home might think of all this sexual movement, Benji revealed **gasp** that he enjoyed this obvious departure from West Coast Swing and could get used to these "sexually charged" dances.

And that's when, in my mind anyway, Benji lost his virginity... and won the country. The rest is history. He danced, stepped, waltzed, swung, hip hopped, and Broadway starred his way into the hearts of everyone in America.

Take that, you Mormon hussy who dumped Benji! He rocks and now, he rules.