Why “Dancing with the Stars” fans love voting for Andy Richter

Nimble. Graceful. Rhythmic. None of these words come to mind when we think about Andy Richter. Yet the pudgy former late-night sidekick is beguiling viewers on the 34th season of “Dancing with the Stars.”

Go figure.

Richter’s appeal is amply established, but statistically speaking, few expected the confessed dance avoidant to make it this far. At 59, he is decades older than many of his fellow contestants and so far has outlasted members of Fifth Harmony and Pentatonix; an NBA all-star; Alec Baldwin’s physically and culturally flexible wife, Hilaria; and, as of last week, Jen Affleck of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”

Viewers responded to his “DWTS” debut by voicing their concern on social media that he might suffer a heart attack live onstage, which is unkind, but he handled it in stride. When co-host Julianne Hough asked why he agreed to be on the show in one of this season’s earliest episodes, he joked, “Uh, the paycheck?”

But the fact that Richter has lasted eight weeks so far, surviving a double elimination that felled his fellow competitors Corey Feldman and Baron Davis in the first round, is a pleasant shock in a year rife with terrible ones. A depressed nation in need of a hero has set its hopes on the shoulders of a comic with problem knees, gliding forth with the surprising and entirely explainable resurgence of ABC’s veteran reality competition.

Two decades and 34 seasons into its run, the ratings for “Dancing with the Stars” are up — way up. ABC brags that it’s the only fall show to increase its overall audience for six consecutive weeks post-season premiere since 1991, when Nielsen started using electronic measurement. It’s currently the most-watched unscripted reality show on TV, and the second-highest rated non-news, non-sports primetime program on network television, according to Nielsen ratings data. What’s more, the dance competition’s greatest gains are among younger viewers presumed to have left network TV for dead.

The show’s renaissance has a hard strategy behind it, broken down by fellow critic Joe Adalian last week in Vulture: Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden reversed her predecessors’ decision to make the longtime ABC stalwart exclusive to Disney+, opting instead to simulcast episodes on broadcast and the streaming service.

This, in addition to stacking this season’s contestant pool with celebrities who appeal to Gen Z and younger Millennials, such as TikTok star Alix Earle and Robert Irwin, son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, is Disney meeting its audience wherever people are watching. Set before the eyes of living room viewers and folks glued to their phones, the median age of “Dancing with the Stars” has decreased by two full years, along with its 19% grand jeté in the ratings. Fifteen percent of its ABC viewership is adults under 35, Adalian reports, making it one of that network’s youngest-skewing shows.

The sum of such specifics should disadvantage someone like Richter, and by the judges’ numbers, it does. The “Andy Richter Controls the Universe” star and his professional dance partner, Emma Slater, consistently rank among the lowest scorers of the season. For six weeks in a row, they’ve landed dead last.

Feldman did too as the season kicked off, but he might have lasted longer if he drew on some heretofore hidden reservoir of dazzle. Alas, he did not, whereas Richter’s seems to be bottomless.

“I know that I’m on the chopping block. Like, I live there!” he said in his Oct. 28 pre-performance interview. “So when somebody gets voted out, I feel bad!”

We don’t. The man leaps from one awkward “Wicked” performance to the next week with increased enthusiasm and earnest joy. As our democracy slogs through its death march, America keeps voting for Andy Richter because he makes us grin.

Richter may be competing against an Efron — Dylan, not Zac, but the point stands nevertheless – but he has a BDE his younger peers can’t match. We’re talking about unstoppable levels of Big Dad Energy at every twist and turn, especially the kind of dad who is willing to do embarrassing things for the love of his daughter. (Supporting that notion, he brought his little girl, Cornelia, onstage for Dedication Night.)

Even Affleck announced in her post-elimination social media clip that she would be rooting for him instead of “Mormon Wives” castmate Whitney Leavitt. A shady lady move for certain, but entirely defensible. Simply observe how Richter compensates for a deficit of technical prowess with showmanship.

Much of his remaining “Dancing with the Stars” competition is advantaged in physical strength and agility. Olympic medalist Jordan Chiles sails through the air with ease as her professional dance partner Ezra Sosa flings her around — last week, on a harness. Earle and her dance pro Val Chmerkovskiy regularly stun with their combination of precision and theatrical wow factor, amplified last week by her haunting Halloween Night look and choice to tango to Billie Eilish’s “Bury a Friend.”

Richter’s otherworldly ability is his sincere hamminess. In his Halloween paso doble showcase, he wore a clerical collar and forewent grease paint or creepy contacts, relying on wide-eyed expressions and a low-slung layer of fake fog to hide his relatively clumsy footwork. Never mind his unsyncopated dogs; the man’s eyebrows executed all the fancy movement he needed. Richter and Slater still brought up the rear in the judges’ tally, but they continue to reign supreme in the battle of adorableness.

In seasons past, Richter’s talent for escaping the reaper might have created enough of a stir to attract accusations of voting fraud or close examinations of cynical “Vote for the Worst”-style campaigns. That is not what is happening here. Richter owes his durability in this contest to being in the right season at the right time with the right partner.

Their victory is all but impossible to secure on the dance floor, so Slater has taken their charm offensive to the Internet, where the pair is handily waltzing away with the unofficial battle for content supremacy. Richter credits Slater’s vision for the dominance of their social media game: “She’s the Cecil B. DeMille of our TikTok presence,” he said on a recent podcast episode of “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.”

She also grasps that comedy reigns on the Internet. Try as the other contestants may, they simply can’t match Richter’s jovial expressiveness, or the easy win of having him speak a few lines in the voice of Mort, the mouse lemur in the “Madagascar” films.

That also demonstrates an understanding that popularity can take a celebrity farther than skills on “Dancing with the Stars.” (Indeed, as TikTok giveth, it also taketh away: Baldwin blamed social media bullying for her early departure from the show.) Richter told O’Brien that he didn’t think he was as much of an underdog as he might have appeared at the season’s outset, since survival is less reliant on who is the best dancer than who is the audience’s favorite. “Who you want to see in the TV show is ultimately what it ends up being,” Richter said. “If you’re going to watch this show next week, who do you want to see in the TV show if somebody has to go?”

---

Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.

---

Making that choice may be tougher this season than it has been in a long time. Our 34th twirl with “Dancing with the Stars” lacks a truly controversial casting, such as reactionary politicians selected for their polarizing reputation (or, from ABC’s point of view, to appeal to conservatives) or, in the case of inviting con artist Anna Delvey to the party, to court clickbait. There may be an undercurrent of gossip, like the hints of discord between Affleck and Leavitt, but nothing that curdles our mood.

Richter, though, is widely beloved or at least enjoyed, whether that’s due to his consistent improvement or his association with late-night at a time when that genre is politically imperiled, or his “gosh golly” affability. Similar nostalgia buoys the popularity of ABC sitcom star Danielle Fishel, who also brings a sizable TV fandom to the mix. (As an aside, Fishel’s Dedication Night tribute to her “Boy Meets World” co-star William Daniels, aka Mr. Feeny, was especially touching.)

Fishel is the better dancer of the two, but as judge Carrie Ann Inaba told Richter recently, he’s the clearer embodiment of the notion that dance is for everyone and anyone who wants to do it. That, plus an absence of “winning is everything” bloodlust, makes him easy to root for.

“This is like a big bon voyage to my old arthritic hip,” he told O’Brien. For the sake of extending our good time on TikTok, may that farewell last as long as he’s up for it.

New episodes of “Dancing with the Stars” air live at 8 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC and Disney+.