America's Best Dance Crew

America's Best Dance Crew
Intertitle
Genre	Competitive dance Interactive Reality
Directed by	Michael Simon
Presented by	Mario Lopez Layla Kayleigh
Judges	JC Chasez Lil Mama D-Trix(season 6 -present)[1] Omarion (season 5) Shane Sparks (seasons 1–4)[2]
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	7
Production
Executive producer(s)	Joel Gallen Josh Greenberg Abe Hoch Randy Jackson Rob Lee Howard Schwartz Karen Schwartz Harriet Sternberg Austin Wagner
Cinematography	Scott Hylton
Running time	60/90 minutes
Production company(s)	Warner Horizon Television
Distributor	MTV
Broadcast
Original channel	MTV
Original run	February 7, 2008 (2008-02-07)[3] – present
Chronology
Related shows	MTV's Top Pop Group
External links
Website

Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew, also known as America's Best Dance Crew or simply ABDC, is an American competitive dance reality television series that features dance crews from the United States and around the world. It is produced by American Idol judge Randy Jackson and airs on MTV.^[4] The series was originally developed for NBC, initially titled World Moves.^[5]

The show is hosted by Mario Lopez, and features television personality Layla Kayleigh as the backstage correspondent. For its sixth season, the judges include entertainers Lil Mama, JC Chasez, and Dominic "D-Trix" Sandoval.^[1] Former judges include hip-hop choreographer Shane Sparks and R&B singer Omarion.^[6][7]

Overview

America's Best Dance Crew is a reality show where dance crews from all over showcase their talent and compete for a $100,000.00 (USD) grand prize. Each week, the crews are given a challenge. The challenge is different for each crew but has the same general concept. For example, one challenge included a set of a school gym, and each crew had to incorporate beats with the props on stage (lockers, bleachers, jump ropes, etc.). Every week there is a performance/results show. Mario Lopez reveals which crews are in the bottom two. These two then do the performances they were planning on doing if they were safe and then the judges choose which crew's performance was better, and that crew stays while the other crew is eliminated. Since the first season, the winning crews also received the Golden B-Boy Trophy, a golden statue of a B-Boy doing a freeze, with the legs moving like a bobblehead. Another unique aspect of ABDC is the crew banner. The logo on a banner represents that crew, appearing on merchandise and the background for interviews, and is also used as a transition effect. When a crew is eliminated, its banner falls off the top of the stadium where the banners of the crews still in the running stand. They get to dance one last time on the stage as they "walk it out" to the song of the same name. If a crew is eliminated from the sixth place mark (fifth in Season 4 and Season 5), they will have a compilation video showing its journey on the show. The final 2 crews will have a last chance challenge seen before the finale.

On August 2, 2009, as a prologue for season four, the show premiered a special hosted by Randy Jackson called "The Top 10 Performances of All Time," where Randy showed his top 10 picks of the first three seasons:

CREATION: MTV and Randy Jackson were sued by entertainer/activist Dwight McGhee, publicly known as rapper Citizen Charlie Kane, in 2010. Kane had pitched the show concept to Mtv in 2004. Mtv "passed" on the concept. When Charlie Kane saw a commercial that depicted the 1970s Warriors' movie that looked exactly like his pitch demo dvd, he filed the suit. Many production elements between the show and Kane's 2003 copyright registration of a breakdancing "League" were identical. TMZ and NYPost NYPost.com articlewere a couple among the many major media organizations http://www.timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/516065/Bridgeport-native-files-suit.html?nav=5010to run the story. Viacom/MTV and Charlie Kane came to a mutual settlement in 2011.

Season summary

International distribution

In Canada, the show airs on both MuchMusic and Musique Plus. In Italy ABDC airs on MTV Italy. In Portugal, the show airs on MTV Portugal, MTV Argentina in Argentina, MTV Russia in Russia (by the alias of "Короли Танцпола",^[8] lit. "Kings of the Dancefloor"), and the Warner Channel in Latin America. In Germany and Austria, ABDC air s on MTV Germany, VIVA, MTV Ukraine in Ukraine (by the alias of "Танцювальні бої",^[9] lit. "Dance battles"), MTV Finland in Finland, MTV Hungary in Hungary, MTV NL in the Netherlands, MTV Norway in Norway, and MTV UK in the United Kingdom. The show also airs on AB1 and MTV France, where it is called Dance Crew USA.^[10] ABDC airs on Solar TV, Jack TV, and The Game Channel in the Philippines, Fiji One in Fiji and YAN TV in Vietnam for the first three seasons, and MTV Romania in Romania.

Additional Notes

• The opening title sequence created by Framework Studio won a Telly Award in 2009^[11]

References

External links

• Official website
• America's Best Dance Crew at the Internet Movie Database
• America's Best Dance Crew at TV.com