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It's A Circus When Celebrities Hit The Trapeze

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VERNE GAY

Newsday

Published: June 10, 2008

Reason for watching: None. Just kidding.

There's always a reason for watching something, right? Let's see — it's hot, your AC is broken, you can't move your thumb to change the channel. Or, you've already seen that repeat of "CSI: NY." Or, "Farmer Takes a Wife" makes your head hurt, or ...

What it's about: Two words. "Celebrity." "Circus." Put them together, and you've got stars doing the trapeze, spinning plates or eating fire. This whole idea was birthed on CBS decades ago, when "Circus of the Stars" rolled around as an annual event, featuring such celebs as Brooke Shields walking on broken glass or Bronson Pinchot in daring aerial acrobatic feats, and so on.

In fact, "Circus" was a real crowd-pleaser in the old three-network days, and arguably a pleaser of celebs, too, because they were under the gun to promote whatever fall project they starred in.

"Celebrity Circus" got the green light last winter in the midst of a crippling writers' strike and at a time when the networks feared that the only thing standing between them and test patterns were revivals like this. "CC's" stars — soap actor Antonio Sabato Jr., R&B singer Blu Cantrell, Christopher Knight (Peter Brady), swimming champ Janet Evans, Wee Man Acuna ("Jackass"), model Rachel Hunter and Stacey Dash, who was once on "The Cosby Show" — perform in front of a studio audience and host Joey Fatone. Viewers at home will vote on who's best.

Bottom line: NBC provided no preview screener on the pretext that it's live, but perhaps on the subtext that it's probably awful, too. In fact, beware any package that comes with Rachel Hunter and Wee Man Acuna rattling around inside. To a certain extent, these two have become code words for TV that's really, really bad. Will they confound expectations? Will the other "stars" actually turn out to be people we recognize? Will "Celebrity Circus" be a thrill-a-minute joy ride en route to Nielsen boffo heaven? Yes, and expect three feet of snow in your back yard by tomorrow.

CELEBRITY CIRCUS
9:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday
NBC.

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