Ahead of ‘DWTS Junior,’ Here’s a Reminder That ‘Junior’ Reality Shows Are Usually Awful
ABC recently announced that there will be a Dancing With the Stars spinoff, titled Dancing With the Stars Junior, which will pair celebrity kids and children of celebrities with professional junior ballroom dancers. The show is set to debut in spring of 2018.
In light of the news, we took a look back at some of the ill-advised and ill-fated kids’ reality shows of days gone by.
In 2003 Fox aired one season of American Juniors, an American Idol spinoff notable for featuring a young Lucy Hale and for kids singing weirdly age-inappropriate songs like “Call Me,” which includes the lyrics “Cover me with kisses, baby, cover me with love/ Roll me in designer sheets, I’ll never get enough.”
There was also that one season of So You Think You Can Dance, titled So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation, which featured dancers between the ages of 8 and 13. The season suffered from low ratings and criticism from normally loyal viewers.
But no kids’ reality show horror holds a candle to Kid Nation, which aired for one season on CBS. The show featured 40 kids, ages 8 to 15, tasked with starting their own society in a New Mexico town free of adults.
There was a series of on-set mishaps, including one involving a contestant’s face being burned by grease splatter, and four others accidentally drinking bleach.
The show even helped lead New Mexico to close several loopholes in its child labor laws.
Watch: Steve Harvey impressed by kid’s spot-on Michael Jackson performance on Little Big Shots:
Read more from Yahoo TV:
In Memoriam: ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ ‘Pitch,’ and Other Shows We’ve Lost This Season
Animated ‘Deadpool,’ a ‘Lego Movie’ Spinoff, and Other New Shows in the Works
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