Gael from Pop Culture Junk News tries to wave a flag about a story that hasn’t gotten much attention in the wake of all the outrage of AIG: on Monday, Steve Wozniak posted remarks on his Facebook page calling “Dancing With The Stars” fake and rigged, only to recant his story and delete the items the next day after being reamed a new one by the producers. Gael is also an editor at MSNBC.com and posted a story about it there, but the other major media outlets haven’t really picked up on the tale.
Gael got her heads-up from this article at CNet.com, which offers what the writer says are actual quotes from an e-mail Woz posted to his Facebook group. The actual e-mail was removed on Tuesday and replaced with a very obsequious apology to the producers by Woz’s intermediary. But if you read the pullquotes from the original e-mail, his accusations are serious and his irritation palpable. He says that the producers had decided well in advance that 1) Woz would be in the danceoff and 2) he would win, and both of those predictions ended up being true. It should come as no surprise that it’s the audience voting that is the vector for rigging the show — actual vote totals are never revealed, leaving the producers a wide-open doorway for rigging the results any way that suits their needs.
So not only has the show jumped the shark, I’m guessing Woz needs to make sure he doesn’t end up sleeping with the fishes.
