The DWTS Pairings Have Been Announced! Some Initial Thoughts...

After announcing the stars on Monday night, ABC made us wait until today to find out the full pairing for season 11.

Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas had appeared yesterday on GMA so we knew that one, and the others weren't really a surprise.

Here are the couples on Dancing with the Stars season 11:

Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough
Margaret Cho and Louis Van Amstel
Florence Henderson and Corky Ballas
Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas
Brandy and Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Audrina Patridge and Tony Dovolani
Rick Fox and Cheryl Burke
Michael Bolton and Chelsie Hightower
Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino and Karina Smirnoff
David Hasselhoff and Kym Johnson
Kurt Warner and Anna Trebunskaya
Kyle Massey and Lacey Schwimmer

And here are some thoughts about the parings:

• Yes, Jennifer Grey appeared in a movie that was all about dancing, but that was 23 years ago.
• I knew Louis would get Margaret.  He'll do fine, but they're going to need that bleep machine!
• How come they roll out Corky when there is a woman of a certain age?  He's very nice, but I would have thought one of the other professionals would do just fine.
• Bristol Palin will have a strong fan base, but I'm not sure it will grow over the season (depending on her performances of course).  So I'd expect her to stick around for a while.  On another note - how come Mark seems to get all the young ones??
• I don't recall Brandy being known for her dancing.  I'm not sure her pairing with Maks is going to work.
• Tony is very happy with Audrina as his partner.  It will be interesting to see how well she dances.
• It's hard for someone as tall as Rick to dance ballroom and not look like a stick insect.  Cheryl is a good choice here though.
• Michael Bolton is not known for his moves when singing, but I can see him waltzing well.
• Mr The Situation and Karina are going to have their bellies bared all the time...
• David Hasselhoff may be quite good, but I suspect he's going to be nervous too.  He's also very tall.
• The NFL players have brough amazing footwork to the show - particularly Emmitt Smith, Jason Taylor and Warren Sapp - it'll be interesting to see how a QB does.
• Kyle should be a good dancer but nmight be disadvantaged by his relative obscurity considering the audience.  I do hope he does well though - he seems like a nice boy.

I think this season has potential!